Thursday, February 16, 2017

My 6-week immersion begins

The extent of my "crafty"ness.
AB's parents are visiting for a good six weeks, so I'm considering it as an immersion programme of sorts for me, to get more familiar with their culture, language and personalities.

While we got along fine while I was there over the passing of the year, that was a much bigger group and our one-to-one exchanges were more limited especially with the little niece commanding most of their attention. I was perfectly happy with that, as it allowed me plenty of opportunities to observe their interactions and learn more about them via that. While we have basic command of each other's main language, it didn't bother me that I couldn't participate in nor understand fully their heavy and passionate debates on politics and family affairs - in fact, these were conversations I was glad to sit out of as a guest.

However, with them here for double the duration of our visit there, it will also mean much more exchanges and time together. Despite it being my "home ground" this time, I can't help but feel some trepidation about how we might get along. They do generally seem very independent and chill, and I pride myself on being civil and polite, so hopefully we won't want to tear each other's faces off by the end of their stay. :p

I'd asked AB if he intended to take some time off from work to show them around, but he just shrugged, "I'd already taken two weeks off and shown them around when they first visited a couple of years ago. They will be fine this time - they just want to relax and take their time visiting."

And that was that. Knowing that they are well seasoned travellers, and confident enough to navigate our public transport system, I prepared some handy maps and tips of places they might want to visit in their first weeks here, to hopefully ease their initial orientation around to occupy themselves while we are both at work in the day. Printed these out and stuck them onto some hardy pretty paper with labels so it's easy to chuck into their bags and bring around.

AB also installed their phones with duplicates of his data sim so they are connected throughout their stay, and got them each an EZ-Link card.

With these, we start the six weeks of time together. Fingers crossed.
Information that will hopefully come in handy



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