End of the first week
Good stuff:
-we are alive and healthy. Given some of the initial allergic-type reactions
to pollution, weather, perfumes, and smoke, we have slight colds; but hey, it
is winter.
-we have an apartment (got on the 2nd day!) and it even has hot water, washing
machine and phone. Rigged up a shower head device and took showers. When power
works, all works just fine. (Susie, I have washed my hair twice already ;-)
this week) And today we did laundry!
-we have exchanged some money and have opened a local bank account.
-we have had an enormous and ethic dinner with Gjylieta's family--the first
night and worked on our toasting and drinking skills!
-I have put in a full week of work and learned-TONS!!! More on that during another
post.
-We have explored our neighborhood and have a sense of all our local merchants:
Bakery (yummmm-- fresh bread every day); little markets with good produce; 2
meat markets (still deciding which we like better); a few small restaurants;
and various ways to walk about it.
-We have gone to the big market and know it pretty well and found a couple of
distributors for larger quantities of beer (a case into a large backpack, works
fine).
-recovered our lost boxes--yahoo!!! This enabled us to be able to power our
laptops when power is off. The day we were able to recover them (which included
the euro-plug converter we purchased in the US), Jim ran into Greg (a friend
of a friend who we made email connections with before leaving). He gave Jim
a Euro-plug adapter and so now we have 2 plugs. This is good since our power
strip doesn't work either.
-We have checked out some internet cafes and one will let Jim connect his laptop
into their system, so he doesn't have to do the mail2web thing all the time.
We have been in contact with some of our family and friends via email. (sounds
like our house and dogs are OK and Kubs is on top of that scene.)
-Jim has applied for a couple of jobs here in town. He is volunteering at IKDO
and going around with us as time permits.
-My sister had called us from Zagreb which was fun.
-I installed software on my computer and we are playing a CD that Pete and Sue
gave us for x-mas...
Ahhhhhh, life is good.
Fuji