Arriving II

Arriving in our apartment. 700 square feet seems quite sufficient. The layout wastes no space with hallways, the bedrooms are just large enough to sleep and dress in (Kalee's has space to play since her bed is smaller than ours). The kitchen/dining area is generous and, when the weather warms up, opens onto a balcony. We are on the sixth floor with a view over the lake towards the city center in one direction ...... and up the hill to a spaceship-like water tower in the other direction. The water tower glows blue at night. It is one of the many light installations the city has created to make the winter evenings more interesting. Every apartment building has it's own play area for children. Kalee hasn't let the snow deter her from enjoying ours. Actually, it probably makes it more fun.
Everything was spic-n-span clean except the kitchen. Charles spent two or three hours cleaning that. And the fridge smelled ... um... well... really bad. Bad enough to make the whole apartment smell. We've bleached it and put baking soda in. It is better but still not great. Any suggestions?

And we've had to buy things. Lots of things. Rolling pin and baking sheet. Tea/coffee cups that hold more than 3 oz. Cheese grater. Measuring spoons. Some extra blankets. Food.

Food shopping is the most challenging thing so far. Charles stands before the grocery store shelves head bobbing up and down from the packages to the dictionary as though he's performing some ancient ritual of supplication. It is effective, though. He has located flour, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and all sorts of other things that are not entirely clear from the picture on the package. And today he puzzled out metric measurements and made cookies to take to his colleague as a thank you gift. Very impressive.

We've yet to find anything like a hardware store or Target-type store. We have a long list of those sorts of needs. We'll have to ask.