Settling down

Our apartment in W 78th Street

Moving to a new place, battling jet lag, discovering the pro's and con's of living in a small place in a big city, the noise, the heat, the sticky kitchen counter...

The Columbia University's website gives plenty of advices to newcomers and international students. Among these, there are tips on how to recognise that you are suffering from culture shock. The symptoms that struck us the most are "irritability for small details" and a "need for extreme cleanliness"... If we're not suffering too much from the former, we definitely are from the latter, although I peg it down to different standards and expectations rather than culture shock...

That said, the apartment is growing on us, the naked bricks and (some of) the furniture are very charming, we have a fancy fireplace, mirrors at every corner and we're one block from Broadway and 50 meters from Riverside Park. Yesterday we got the missing kitchen equipment, accessories and tools, to get the place running, we've identified our future favourite shopping spots and we've solved half of our american cellphone problems (we got a prepaid plan for Marion, my new cellphone will arrive tomorrow, a post will follow on that...)

Marion has started officially going to the university library and working on her thesis, while I'm working extended mornings at home for Pomelo, and will decide what to do with my afternoons in the next couple of days!