We arrived on Monday!
It is so hard to organize my thoughts for a blogpost... I haven't done one of these in a LOOONG time. And I have so MANY thoughts. Which are also all over the place. Also, photo gallery will be at the end. Mostly because they don't match up with my narrative.
Lets start at the beginning. Monday. Arrived at our temporary housing suuuper tired. One of the cats had slashed a hole in the mesh of his carrier while we are on the first flight. He had pushed his head through and was working on escaping the rest of the way when I caught him. We had to shove his head back through the hole and hold the hole shut during the rest of the flight. I sewed it up during our layover while our cats mellowed out in the pet room, and the second flight was (thankfully) uneventful. Thus being tired by the time we got to our apartment. Someone had brought us a few things that we had asked for, like cereal and milk, but they forgot the most crucial piece--the cat litter. So instead of taking a nap, we took care of our cats first. We put the mattress cover on the bed (in case they peed on it in protest), poured them food and water, and found the nearest grocery store. Grocery shopping always perks me up, though, and I found some pesto that suddenly sounded like the perfect food, some guava yogurt that practically jumped into my basket, and fresh bread for less than 10cents a roll that smelled like German bread.
Score.
Tuesday. Woke up with Joel and saw him out to the shuttle that would bring him to his first day at work. Returned to the apartment to survey the haphazard collection of furniture we were allotted. You don't really want to know the details of what went where and why (believe me; I started typing it out and even I got bored), but now, our house looks like a place to live instead of a warehouse for lonely furniture. I even found a place for the hutch, and I hate hutches. Then I unpacked all four suitcases and found a home for everything! (Except for the motley sprawl of papers and odds and ends living on our kitchen table currently--those bits are the hardest!) It was around that time that I noticed that the bottoms of my feet were grey with dust. So I mopped the whole place. And then I took a nap. Nope, two naps because the first one turned out to be only 20 minutes long, and I knew I needed more than that.
The afternoon was taken up with a walk. I found a Sam's Club (and remembered that it is one of those big box stores, so not very useful to us with no car), a luxe sort of mall, and a really big grocery store that had ponzu, a special citrus-y soy sauce that I fell in love with at a dinner at Justin&Sarah's house! I bought that, obviously, as well as mayonnaise that wasn't called "Hellman's", but that had the brand's distinctive blue bow on the label as well as the line "bring out the best". Hellman's mayonnaise is the only mayonnaise.
Let's pause here for just a moment. I need to say that my neighborhood was nothing like I imagined it. Everyone was like, Oh Polanco is so chic, but mostly it felt haphazard and dirty. I'm definitely comparing it to what was called chic in Chengdu. Which was all new and clean. Like, all the sidewalks were hosed down every night, kind of clean. So, different. And the sidewalks here are the worst, full of potholes and gaps and changes in elevation... Basically a turned ankle waiting to happen. And then, my apartment is dark. Super depressing. Cream colored walls with yellow-toned lights and tan/brown furniture... The bedroom has a window, so it feels lovely, but the rest of the house doesn't get hardly any natural light at all. :( Sigh. Those are the cons.
The pros: We don't have to pay for the house. We are close to the fancy parts of the city. Our neighborhood is super walkable (provided you don't turn an ankle). Our permanent apartment has (according to the photos) floor to ceiling windows, so in a month I will be basking in natural light all the time! And my favorite pro? The weather is so perfect that we can leave the windows open night and day! Fresh air all the time!! That's the best :)
Wednesday Thursday Friday. I shuttled in to work with Joel and meet his coworkers and eat out with them for lunch and try to get my own contractor side-gig going again. Also trying to get us internet. Internet is the one utility that the State Department doesn't pay for. And this is going to sound ungrateful and spoiled, but: grrr!!
Getting internet deserves it's own paragraph because it is a mess. Well... no. I just wrote a whole paragraph and then deleted it because it is too much of a mess. Suffice it to say, I owe a cake to a really lovely and helpful local staff coworker of Joel's. And we need to find out ahead of time which internet companies have already had stuff installed in our permanent apartment, in order to avoid a huge fee for in-depth installation. Of course, the embassy doesn't really know this information, especially about our permanent apartment since this is the first time embassy ppl will be living there, but they said they will try to find out for us. So we are waiting for information before getting internet. Someone on fb said that it took them six weeks to get internet here. I'm starting to understand why.
Add on top of that the fact that our landlord from Arlington is being a butt and accusing us of leaving the apartment a mess and threatening to charge us even more than the 2500$ security deposit...
And that the people in charge of me as a contractor are mad at me for not completing a training, which I didn't know about until the day we packed out.
And that our house is dark and makes me depressed.
Moving is hard.
Saturday. This day is bright and sunny and warm and lovely. We met our social sponsors (ppl who are supposed to help you find your way around) at the weekly market at Lincoln Park, and they treated us to tacos and consomme at a super popular stand. We wandered through the market trying (and buying) local honey, perfectly ripe figs, these delicious mangoes that were to die for, and mandarin oranges that were the essence of sweet. Then we wandered around the part of the neighborhood called Polanquito, which IS the super chic and luxe place I had imagined (and I'm glad I'm living a little further away from it). They helped us get subway cards, which will get us to church tomorrow. I bought a hand-painted mother's day card at this cute shop and the owner was so friendly and gave me her cell number in case I have any questions or need any help settling in here (yay!! new friend!!). And we got ice cream. When we got home, we dipped in the pool, ate some cheese and butter on bread, and now Joel is taking a nap and I'm getting my impressions on paper. :) Or screen.
Week one summary: I've read all the books we brought with us except Team of Rivals, (which is giant and I'm working on it, all right?), plus one I found at the take-one-leave-one library at the embassy. This is what happens with no TV or internet. I really love the people we've met so far. Joel brought me flowers home after work on Friday--yellow tulips!! <3 And we've been hearing thunder the past few evenings, suggesting that the rainy season is going to be wonderfully thunderstormy!!! I'm excited.
PHOTOS IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:
It is so hard to organize my thoughts for a blogpost... I haven't done one of these in a LOOONG time. And I have so MANY thoughts. Which are also all over the place. Also, photo gallery will be at the end. Mostly because they don't match up with my narrative.
Lets start at the beginning. Monday. Arrived at our temporary housing suuuper tired. One of the cats had slashed a hole in the mesh of his carrier while we are on the first flight. He had pushed his head through and was working on escaping the rest of the way when I caught him. We had to shove his head back through the hole and hold the hole shut during the rest of the flight. I sewed it up during our layover while our cats mellowed out in the pet room, and the second flight was (thankfully) uneventful. Thus being tired by the time we got to our apartment. Someone had brought us a few things that we had asked for, like cereal and milk, but they forgot the most crucial piece--the cat litter. So instead of taking a nap, we took care of our cats first. We put the mattress cover on the bed (in case they peed on it in protest), poured them food and water, and found the nearest grocery store. Grocery shopping always perks me up, though, and I found some pesto that suddenly sounded like the perfect food, some guava yogurt that practically jumped into my basket, and fresh bread for less than 10cents a roll that smelled like German bread.
Score.
Tuesday. Woke up with Joel and saw him out to the shuttle that would bring him to his first day at work. Returned to the apartment to survey the haphazard collection of furniture we were allotted. You don't really want to know the details of what went where and why (believe me; I started typing it out and even I got bored), but now, our house looks like a place to live instead of a warehouse for lonely furniture. I even found a place for the hutch, and I hate hutches. Then I unpacked all four suitcases and found a home for everything! (Except for the motley sprawl of papers and odds and ends living on our kitchen table currently--those bits are the hardest!) It was around that time that I noticed that the bottoms of my feet were grey with dust. So I mopped the whole place. And then I took a nap. Nope, two naps because the first one turned out to be only 20 minutes long, and I knew I needed more than that.
The afternoon was taken up with a walk. I found a Sam's Club (and remembered that it is one of those big box stores, so not very useful to us with no car), a luxe sort of mall, and a really big grocery store that had ponzu, a special citrus-y soy sauce that I fell in love with at a dinner at Justin&Sarah's house! I bought that, obviously, as well as mayonnaise that wasn't called "Hellman's", but that had the brand's distinctive blue bow on the label as well as the line "bring out the best". Hellman's mayonnaise is the only mayonnaise.
Let's pause here for just a moment. I need to say that my neighborhood was nothing like I imagined it. Everyone was like, Oh Polanco is so chic, but mostly it felt haphazard and dirty. I'm definitely comparing it to what was called chic in Chengdu. Which was all new and clean. Like, all the sidewalks were hosed down every night, kind of clean. So, different. And the sidewalks here are the worst, full of potholes and gaps and changes in elevation... Basically a turned ankle waiting to happen. And then, my apartment is dark. Super depressing. Cream colored walls with yellow-toned lights and tan/brown furniture... The bedroom has a window, so it feels lovely, but the rest of the house doesn't get hardly any natural light at all. :( Sigh. Those are the cons.
The pros: We don't have to pay for the house. We are close to the fancy parts of the city. Our neighborhood is super walkable (provided you don't turn an ankle). Our permanent apartment has (according to the photos) floor to ceiling windows, so in a month I will be basking in natural light all the time! And my favorite pro? The weather is so perfect that we can leave the windows open night and day! Fresh air all the time!! That's the best :)
Wednesday Thursday Friday. I shuttled in to work with Joel and meet his coworkers and eat out with them for lunch and try to get my own contractor side-gig going again. Also trying to get us internet. Internet is the one utility that the State Department doesn't pay for. And this is going to sound ungrateful and spoiled, but: grrr!!
Getting internet deserves it's own paragraph because it is a mess. Well... no. I just wrote a whole paragraph and then deleted it because it is too much of a mess. Suffice it to say, I owe a cake to a really lovely and helpful local staff coworker of Joel's. And we need to find out ahead of time which internet companies have already had stuff installed in our permanent apartment, in order to avoid a huge fee for in-depth installation. Of course, the embassy doesn't really know this information, especially about our permanent apartment since this is the first time embassy ppl will be living there, but they said they will try to find out for us. So we are waiting for information before getting internet. Someone on fb said that it took them six weeks to get internet here. I'm starting to understand why.
Add on top of that the fact that our landlord from Arlington is being a butt and accusing us of leaving the apartment a mess and threatening to charge us even more than the 2500$ security deposit...
And that the people in charge of me as a contractor are mad at me for not completing a training, which I didn't know about until the day we packed out.
And that our house is dark and makes me depressed.
Moving is hard.
Saturday. This day is bright and sunny and warm and lovely. We met our social sponsors (ppl who are supposed to help you find your way around) at the weekly market at Lincoln Park, and they treated us to tacos and consomme at a super popular stand. We wandered through the market trying (and buying) local honey, perfectly ripe figs, these delicious mangoes that were to die for, and mandarin oranges that were the essence of sweet. Then we wandered around the part of the neighborhood called Polanquito, which IS the super chic and luxe place I had imagined (and I'm glad I'm living a little further away from it). They helped us get subway cards, which will get us to church tomorrow. I bought a hand-painted mother's day card at this cute shop and the owner was so friendly and gave me her cell number in case I have any questions or need any help settling in here (yay!! new friend!!). And we got ice cream. When we got home, we dipped in the pool, ate some cheese and butter on bread, and now Joel is taking a nap and I'm getting my impressions on paper. :) Or screen.
Week one summary: I've read all the books we brought with us except Team of Rivals, (which is giant and I'm working on it, all right?), plus one I found at the take-one-leave-one library at the embassy. This is what happens with no TV or internet. I really love the people we've met so far. Joel brought me flowers home after work on Friday--yellow tulips!! <3 And we've been hearing thunder the past few evenings, suggesting that the rainy season is going to be wonderfully thunderstormy!!! I'm excited.
PHOTOS IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:
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| TACO DORADO CON TODO. that was yum. |
 |
| look at this silly kitty sleeping! |
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| this breaking metal panel was part of the sidewalk. O.O |
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| I love all the little shrines to the Virgin. I kept feeling like it would be irreverent to take a picture, but I needed an image for y'all... |
 |
| this was a super weird side dish at an Argentinian restaurant--basically it was spaghetti with a slight coating of red sauce, cut into short pieces and served over refried beans with cream and cubed cheese. Yummy at first bite, but I tired of it pretty quickly. |
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| JOEL'S FIRST SHOE SHINE |
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| This was a plate of "Chilaquiles". Chilaquiles verdes, to be precise, since the salsa was green. I had never heard of it before, but I ventured...and I gained! It was basically nachos. Nachos on a bed of green salsa, with shredded chicken, lettuce, cheese and cream on top, with a pile of pale refried beans beside it. SO YUM. |
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| the view from Joel's cubicle. kinda smoggy.. but I checked and the air was just 71 AQI. no biggie. |
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| me and the kitties in the airport room for pets that catered only to dogs. #catsarepetstoo #litterboxesforlayovers |
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| And this is our goodbye photo in Arlington! Goodbye cute apartment! Good riddance, nasty landlord! (I didn't know he was nasty when this picture was taken) |
<3
