Travel plans

Now that we are approaching the end of this paperchase, and need to start thinking about when we will be traveling, I checked a few things to help us in advance.

First, the all important Chinese holidays which will affect our official appointments.

Chinese New Year is February 13th thru the 17th. Both the US consulate and the Chinese government offices will be closed, so there is no point in traveling in conflict with these dates.

Martin Luther King Jr birthday in February 15th, the US consulate will be closed on this day as well.

With that said, we really need to either be finished and back home by February 11th, which is a Thursday and completely doable, or wait until the 18th or 19th of February to travel. I really don't want to wait that long, but, if we are affected by a worst case scenario, and our travel approval doesn't arrive until the last week in January, there is no way we will be able to do that. We have to have our travel approval by January 22nd.

The new director at CCAA is purported to be speeding things along, and if that's true, we might just make it to China and back in time. If our government could get their butts in gear and push our paperwork through to the consulate, I know Lily is waiting to pick up our papers and take them to Beijing, so, we just need to get them there and out the door before the Christmas holiday starts to slow things down.