The Storm Before The Calm

 Wife and I hopefully (in our still needing Covid test negative travel world) will be off next week on a five week trip to Portugal and the Netherlands.

Originally, we had planned this trip when we were contemplating an expat relocation. This was to be the research on whether we were game for it. However, as I've related , we decided that dream was no longer going to fit our needs. But we still had the tickets to fly there. We decided we'd just do one of our normal travel trips. We were also supposed to go to the Netherlands last February but that got canceled due to a Covid outbreak with the #3's. With them relocating to Denmark this summer, we realized this might be the last time we would visit Amsterdam. We added a visit there into our itinerary as well. 

It is a matter of normal practice for something to go amiss just before we go on our trips. We just expect it. We've had computer crashes, phones dying, lights falling off the ceiling in the garage, irrigation leaks, and so on. Usually it is on the day or evening before we leave. This time though we seem to be going for earlier and bigger complications.

Complication #1 - Daughter #2 and children forced out of Shanghai, China and having to come here

If you have followed the Shanghai Covid situation, you know that city of 21 million is on complete lock down, meaning no access to food or medical care. Our government decided that was too dangerous for the non-essential people working at the Consulate. So they ordered them home. On a Monday. With the need to be packed up and out on Thursday. With no place for them to go to. Our daughter naturally looked to come here and we naturally want to give her that safe haven. But now we have to figure out getting her family moved into our house right when we are trying to get ready to leave with a ton of Theodora related complications. Not to mention there was great uncertainty on exactly when they might actually show up, the degree of complication dependent on exactly when they will arrive. 

Complication #2 - Mega Bank Account Hack!

We had decided to try a highly recommended different means of wiring money to Ghana called WISE. Going through the normal bank wire route was very expensive. On Wednesday morning, Wife logged in to the new account we had set up. We'd done one wire successfully. Now as soon as she logged on a series of false transfers popped up sucking over 50% of our available funds in a matter of minutes! I was at a doctor's appointment. She immediately called WISE but they needed my authorization. A couple of hours we finally got through and had them start the process of stopping the wires. But later that afternoon, Wife checked the bank account and saw all the transfer debits were pending. So it was calling the bank fraud department and getting stop payments put on. Fortunately through Wife's quick actions, we did everything on the same day as the attempted fraud so the stop payments took effect before accounts settled that evening. We were on pins and needles until we checked the account this morning and saw all the funds back in the account.

While we are happy to be our daughter's safe place, we are also trying to figure out how we are going to get all our packing done since the normal space we use will be occupied.

BUT none of us is dying. We are all healthy and have the means to deal with such issues. However, it will be nice to get on the trans-Atlantic flight and be gone on a trip.