Sunday, September 16, 2012

Welcome Home!

We arrived in San Francisco Airport and rushed to the passport check.  There are two separate lines: one for citizens and permanent residents, one for visitors.  We have bought a house here, our son goes to school here, we both work here and pay taxes and dues and social securities we will never see a penny of.  Yet, we are considered aliens because we are on visa.

Long long lines were moving forward and it is our turn at last.  I talked to the immigration officer:
- We came here because we live and work here
- Yes our son goes to school here
- Yes we have been to all over the places
- I have been working for the same division for more than five year now

- I work as a Global Product Manager for them

- Yes San Jose is our home address
- No we don't have any meat of fruit or alcohol with us
- ...
He stamped the passports, wrote on some papers, punched some keys on his keyboard and returned the passports to me: "Welcome home"!
Yes.  Home.
I graciously thanked him and smiled.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Paris Day: Two: Versailles

It took us about an hour in the Jardin and then one and a half hours in the château.  Point is to get the audio guide, which is free. Albeit not given to kids younger than 8 years old. So M gave his to A. It was one of the best, or the best, audio guides I had ever taken with me, with very short and precise narrative, dialogues, and short audio plays. It was fun and in formative indeed.  A also enjoyed the palace while looking for the numbers for each audio guide. The company of a our friend's son was also a delight keeping him go.

The Jardin de Versailles was really nice and majestic. We enjoyed strolling around but we made sure not to tire ourselves. The reason we started from the garden was because there was a fountain show we wanted to watch.  Nothing too fancy, just the fact that the fountains were working at all cause apparently out of that time span the fountains were not working.

We started the day at a local château.  It was a short drive to château de la Madelaine because we are staying with our dear friends K.T. and Sh.Sh. in Gif sur Yvette, south of Paris.  A really had fun, especially while his friend A.T. was also with him discovering the château together.