Moving!

It’s been a little while since I’ve blogged. Big things have been happening— we have a signed lease!!  

Thanks in large part to my husband, and in absolutely no part to me, we will be moving out of the hotel tomorrow. We’ll have been staying here for exactly 3 weeks, and we’re definitely ready to have our own place again.

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster. Just when we thought things were settled, we’d get an e-mail with some kind of problem or another. Josh has amazed me with his ability to jump in and get things done; including, but not limited to, difficult negotiations on contracts written in Spanish.

He’s also gotten our cell phones, arranged for internet, dealt with the security folks, locksmiths, realtors, teachers, banks…the list is endless.

Speaking of internet, I’m afraid it might be awhile until I can blog again. As soon as we had our address, Josh went to order our internet service. They said it could be up to 3 weeks before they come out to hook it up. Three weeks!! Three weeks of having to stand outside near a hotel or something to check my e-mail.  Sheesh.  I’ll try to keep up with short updates, if I can’t do a full post.

What else?

-Our new piso is awesome and I love it. Pictures to come, when the internet does.  

- It’s in a great neighborhood. How do I know? An ex-president of Spain lives across the street. For realz.

- The kids are doing much better than we’d expected for having been in school for 2 and a half weeks. We have a meeting with Derek’s teachers tomorrow, because when we attended the class group meeting last week, we grasped about 15% of what was said. We must have looked confused, so they offered us our own meeting.

Actually, 15% might be overstating it.

Alex is figuring out how to communicate, says she has lots of friends, and is having more good days than bad.

-Both of our kids need their own space in a big way. We cannot wait for them to have their own rooms so they can stop picking at each other, and so we don’t have to be constantly telling them to be quiet, that people around us might be sleeping, etc.

Our parenting skills lately have been leaving a lot to be desired. We’re all just at the end of our ropes, patience-wise. Have I mentioned that it will be good to be in our own place again?

Just a time or ten?
We all need it!

- Kudos to the hotel breakfast buffet. We’ve eaten there 21 mornings in a row, and we still enjoy it. I attribute the fact that we’ve remained healthy, despite a good amount of stress and a lot of public handrails on the metro, to their fresh-squeezed orange juice and lovely fruit options.

- I attribute my love handles to the croissants.

- Spanish kids! They are so cute, and always dressed up. You wouldn’t believe the outfits they wear to the park on a Saturday afternoon. Would it be creepy if I took their pictures? So, so cute.

- Spanish Coffee. It’s so good. Really, really good. I don’t know why. It just is.

- When we move to our piso tomorrow, we will only have the things we packed in our quick-shipment. Meaning some kitchenware, blankets, pillows, towels, a few toys, etc. No furniture at all.

We knew that it could be several weeks of “camping out” before our main shipment arrived.

But at lunchtime today, we got some great news! The rest of our things will be delivered on Thursday! We are so pleased and grateful for that. It’s hard to live with nowhere to sit except the floor, air mattresses that leak, etc. It was a totally unexpected blessing.  I think this might be a record for an overseas move of being completely settled into a house in less than a month.

 

Hasta Luego!