I need my DSL!

Alright, it's my official opinion that it's taking far too long to get the basics - I'm not cross about it but I have reached the point where I'm more than ready to have a refrigerator, stove, oven, and, gosh darn it, internet!  We've got access to all those things (though our staked-out-section of the fridge is mighty small) at Dan's office, but that just means that we're camping out at night at the house and camping out during the daytime in the communal kitchen of the institute.

I am way behind on so many very nice email messages - and I don't like that!  Do know that I'm thinking of you all but everything's kind of spare and we're still dealing with the basics.  At least we have a toaster and the butter doesn't get totally melty out of the refrigerator... and I've found peanut butter, which is of primary importance.  Have peanut butter, will carry on!

Tomorrow, just to balance it all out, Devin, Merlin and I are going on a field trip.  To where?  I don't actually know but a few of the postdocs here decided to have a day trip and just 'cause we can, we've decided to join them.  We've got some sort of package that you can get on weekends with a really cheap "family" ticket on the train...  I'll share details with you when we get back as well as try to get caught up on email and the posts I've been meaning to write about Göttingen.

As an aside, there seems to be a ladybug party (they're flying up and sometimes in by the dozens) outside the window as we experience the supposedly last beautiful days of early autumn.  It's been gorgeously sunny and warm and will most likely turn cold next week.

Our love to you all!

House, found.

I'm in a rush (when am I not, lately?) - as we're vacating the guesthouse in two hours and there's still some things left to deal with (ah, the food problem, again).

We found a house in the nick of time - it's still got some work to be done, and it's a slightly strange place but it'll do and it's got some great features.  We're moving in while the upstairs floor is being replaced, the bathroom being re-done and the kitchen getting a new stove, oven, and refrigerator.  Nobody can decide how the very oddly sized rooms should be divided, but for now it doesn't matter since we're sleeping in the living room.

Here are pictures from the realtor's website.  We've got no internet or telephone there so I don't know when I'll be online next, but hopefully it'll be soon.

meh

It's been a bit of a bumpy week.  The house search has been a challenge.  I've looked at 5 places.  All of them but one are on the high end of our budget (actually, they've claimed territory outside our budget, but what to do?).  The one that was more decently priced turned out to only have two bedrooms in the house but included two bedrooms and a distant bathroom on the ground-floor, connected by a common-use stairway.  Really, they were just separate rooms waiting to be rented out to students, it seemed.

It's ironic, seeing all these beautiful, beautiful houses and finding so few of them available. 

The one I've liked best was close to Devin and Merlin's school, had ample room for guests, a yard, a really nice landlord who is retrofitting it with new bathroom fixtures, lights, and a new kitchen, and was, unsurprisingly, too expensive.  The next option is the one I'm trying for now - but I've got to work out details about whether or not we can move into the downstairs while the upstairs floor is being replaced and bathroom repaired.

Do you see the trend?  It seems landlords wait until they have a renter before they make repairs - or they put it on the market while the previous tenant is still current and who knows when they'll be moving out... or they list the number of rooms and sometimes count the bathrooms in the total so that you have to see it to find out it really only has two bedrooms.

Adding to this was the large amount of bank paperwork that came bearing PINs, none of which seemed to work, colds caught by the kids, a tick bite on yours truly, residency paperwork hitting the glitch of my passport expiring next year... 

and I've concluded that the honeymoon is over and we're back to reality.

We're all looking forward to finding some normalcy so that we at least feel like we have a home base in which we can weather all storms, even when they're as small as a tick.

****

off topic and long shot:  Is anyone looking for new cell phone service?  I'm about to cancel my existing account and pay $600 for breaking our contract for 3 lines.  If you're interested in adopting a T-mobile line, please let me know...

oh, and I'm behind in answering email - in case you hadn't noticed...

57 boxes later

A step in the right direction, from this















to this







It was lifted and rolled right out so quickly into the truck - the house felt weird after that. Now we're down to all that's left to put in the garage sale, the storage unit, and carry by suitcase to Germany.

Joking:  "Ha, there's no going back now!"

The countdown begins.  20 days.

Delayed Details

Were it not for the fact that I'm neck deep in sorted/unsorted piles of stuff, wrapped up in moving estimates and flight schedules, and meanwhile still managing to make semi-regular meals and keeping appointments, I'd have written a very nice blog post about the same goings-on (except for the meals and appointments, of course).

Instead I've had no left over energy to compose anything worthwhile here.  That'll have to come later as there are still too many things to be done

The basics?  We're leaving next month for two or more years in Germany.

There are many adventures to come as we head toward the opposite Opposite Shore - but for now everything has to revolve around the practical.  Hence the next post to come...

Welcome to Our House

After a long search, we've got a home in Davis!

Welcome!

The Living Room

Below: Looking into the living room from the dining room.

Below: Looking into the dining room from the living room.

View of the walkway from the dining room.

The dining room has a door to the deck and backyard.

Below: The backyard.

Below: The girls' room.

Our room.

Hallway

Grandpa's room.

Grandpa's bathroom.

The "moving of the stuff" commences Tuesday.

Whirlwind

It seemed like I'd gotten back to a good posting volume in December, but then lost it right around New Year. That would be because right around the last few days of December we made a decision to return to CA.

Of course Dan is still working here, but Devin, Merlin & I are returning so that we can help out my dad who is recovering from a second back surgery. We'll be moving in together when we get back to Davis.

I'm looking for a house and trying to get all this accomplished as smoothly as possible, so I may not post very often in the meantime. In fact I don't know what that means for the fate of the blog, though technically, since we're going back, it'll be the Opposite Shore of the one we're on currently.... I don't know.

I do have a lot of pictures and things I'd been planning to post, so I may just drag them out a bit longer even though we're returning in a week.

Welcome to the whirlwind!

all the things I've been wanting to say

will mostly have to wait. Here's the short version, sans pictures, because I'm not working from my computer nor do I have the digital camera with me....

We've made it to Beijing!

We arrived in Shanghai on Sunday evening (6/22) and drove straight to Hangzhou, where we spent the next 4 days with Dan's family. All four days consisted of eating, sleeping, and watching TV, interspersed with a walk or two (usually to a restaurant where we'd be plied with huge amounts of incredibly good food).

Dan, as usual, was chomping at the bit to get back to work, but I truly enjoyed just sitting around and staring into space. Thankfully my Chinese comprehension is swiftly returning - and I was even surprised by how much Hangzhou dialect I still understand. Of course once conversations turn to specifics (rather than daily-life generalities), I'm pretty lost, but hopefully that'll change this year.

We took a few Hangzhou pictures, which I'll post as soon as I can. I'll probably just throw some retroactive posts in when I get around to sorting the pictures.

This morning we flew from Hangzhou to Beijing - originally we'd planned to take the train but a two hour flight that was discounted so it was cheaper than the 14 hour train ride was too good to pass up so we were almost immediately in Beijing.

Beijing is huge and the air quality is quite... what we expected ... :-) But our new apartment is great! It's light and spacious and the girls had a great time unpacking their things this afternoon and setting their room up. I hope to spend the next few days just kind of sorting at my own pace and making things homey. I'm not sure what the internet setup at home is quite yet, but hopefully we'll have something soon.

what I'm learning from this move....

I have extremely generous friends.

It’s hard for me to ask for help, I’m too used to doing everything on my own, but I’m really tired of having to be "on" all the time, of always being responsible and making all the decisions.

It was a welcome respite to let everyone else decide how to cram everything into the storage unit.

I worry a lot.

I worry that I’ve asked too much of my friends.

We have too much stuff. I dislike waste, but it's become extreme - I’m probably too worried that I might need something and not have it – so I squirrel it all away.

I need to stop being such a boy scout – who cares if I’m not always prepared. It would be liberating to have more breathing room and less stuff.

It’s always a bad idea to go to bed hungry. I wake up in the middle of the night, can’t get back to sleep for all the worrying, plus I’m hungry.

Full Throttle

We've had a busy two weekends and I've got lots of catching up to do - so in spite of taking pictures of our busy weekends, I'm not going to be able to post for a few days. I'll be back soon. Please have good-packing thoughts in mind when you think of us!

update:

I'm preparing to engage The Bureaucracy this coming week, by which I mean applying for visas from the consulate. Fingers crossed that I have everything in order because I don't want to have to drive to San Francisco too many times...

hmmm, the house still looks normal but storage is filling up fast.

I hope it all fits!

Finally

I am finally getting around to mailing out the photo collage we like to send sometime around Chinese New Year. Just a month late... Better late than never, though, right?

I've started packing up books and papers and putting them in storage. It's amazing how I suddenly feel there's so little preparation time. Everything was mosey-ing along and then spring hit and now there's a million things to do and packing on top of it all. No sweat, I'll accomplish everything!