Friday, 10.02.2015 - 2:11 pm.
I'm all settled, in the new house and in the new office (from where I'm writing right now. See above)! Everything's going great. Hold on, I wrote some things down in a doc file about the last two weeks:
1. We’re settled into the new house. The cats –I think- enjoy having all that space, and particularly big windows. It’s an old house that needs to be taken care of in some aspects, but it works for us. It’s roomy, with natural lightning, good heating (so far), within reasonable walking distance from the university, affordable, and the landlord accepts cats.
2. Andrew and I arrived on the 17th, as did the cats. On Saturday, we left them at a cattery while we went house hunting and registered at the university. We had a stressful week, living with some friends in their small apartment (I think I covered that in my last entry).
3. So we arrived on Thursday the 17th, and by next Friday we got the keys to our house. It's old and needs some repairing but it's perfect. We got our furniture from charity shops and small stuff from the Chilean community. Chilean students come and go in this city, and there’s a couple, that arrived over 40 years ago running away from the country's dictatorship, that always take them in and help them out. It's a nice community, everyone is so helpful.
The only downside right now is that we won’t have internet access until the 7th, hence my lack of updates in all my blogs and social media, as well as my sense of being disconnected and out of the loop from anybody and everybody.
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That's what I had written in the doc file. Not a lot, it certainly doesn't reflect the last few days as I'd like, but there you go. Since we came here, we're not in the same place for long, as we're always running around in all kinds on errands. But we're already establishing some routines and hopefully we'll be 100% settled by next week.
Andrew finally said we should both travel to spend Christmas with my family, and that same day I learned those plans had been cancelled. My mom's chemo treatment must start as soon as possible so she won't be able to travel to Houston, where we were supposed to meet up. I called my parents from the university, as it was also my dad's birthday, and told them that it was all right. I've talked briefly to my brothers and sister and they are cool about it, so we all agree we're just ok with reorganizing our plans, as long as my mom's health is looked after.
So, no big family Christmas reunion this year. I was really looking forward to it, and it took so long for Andrew to say we should go. On the bright side, we'll avoid a lot of stress and expensive tickets. That's a relief, really. I'll make sure to prepare nice Christmas cards and packages for my family, and Andrew and I will spend the holidays here with friends. And possibly we'll fly for a few days to my hometown in January anyway. I talked to Brother 1 yesterday, and we agreed that instead of all getting together at the same time (my brothers abroad and I), we'll be visiting one by one, so she and my dad will always have that extra company during her treatment.
And that's it for now. There's lot to tell but I should start getting some work done. Today's my second day as a PhD student. I bought a cactus yesterday, and at my appointment at the health services clinic I got 20 condoms, while I get on birth control. Everything's lovely. Everything's magnificent. I'm so happy.