Getting back to the US of A
Tomorrow we'll hit the three week marker of our arrival in the US. It's been filled with a flurry of activity but this week we've finally begun to see a bit of normalcy and I finally have some time to sit down and sort through my thoughts.
A bit of a back track. We arrived in Portland on a Friday, the 15th of November. I don't remember if I wrote this (I hate re-reading what I've written sometimes...bad habit I should break) but I had totally misjudged the date of Thanksgiving. I thought it was on the third Thursday of November and so we'd booked our flights accordingly. Turns out it was a week later than I'd thought! It made me feel better that I wasn't the only person who didn't know the secret formula to the date of Thanksgiving, but nonetheless, it left us with an extra week on our hands. We had already booked in a rental car for the week to assist with the car hunt so we figured we'd just head up to Seattle to start our search early. "The search" encompassed the big three: car, apartment, job.
Amidst the catching up at my sister's house, we also spent solid amounts of time on Craigslist looking at apartments and cars, sending emails, making phone calls and setting up appointments. We left Portland Monday morning, stopped in Tacoma to meet a friend for coffee, then headed straight for our first apartment appointment. We looked at four apartments that day and the last one we got into was the one I had had the best feeling about. It was in Wallingford right next door to a friend's old apartment where I had spent quite a lot of time. It was in a four-unit building on the top floor with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and amenities we would have pinched ourselves to have in Sydney. A fireplace, a dishwasher and sink disposal, a washer and dryer, and two balconies. Key above even these was the amount of natural light it got--windows from every direction including a big south-facing window in the living room. It was close to shops, bus lines (including a bus that shoots straight downtown), restaurants, cafes, Green Lake, and the Woodland Park Zoo. It felt like home.
We put in our application the next morning and set off to do some car shopping. I had my heart set on a Toyota, but all of the prices we'd found online were much higher than they should have been. Most cars were at least a grand above the Kelly Blue Book prices and there were a ton of reconstructed titles, meaning that the cars had previously been in serious accidents. Not great. So we expanded the search and figured we should just go to some lots and start looking in person. We stopped at a lot up on Aurora to check out a Honda that had been advertised, but the guys there were more interested in selling us a Mercedes or BMW. Or a Nissan with a reconstructed title. Unimpressed, we drove up Aurora and decided to poke into the Subaru lot, not because we were particularly looking at Subarus but figured there might be some trade-ins to look at. There was a 2008 Toyota Matrix and we decided to take a test drive. The title was clean and it's pretty much what we had set out looking for. We figured we'd see what kind of price we could get for us. There was some haggling and we nearly walked out, but we ended up at $250 above what we thought was a great deal. Meaning, they gave us a pretty great deal. We ho'd and hummed, then went to sit out in the car to mull it over. We called the friend we were staying with who, coincidentally, used to sell used cars a few years back. She asked a few questions and confirmed that it sounded like a good deal. It just seemed too easy, and like it was crazy to buy the first car we test drove. But. It was a good deal. So we decided to go for it!
We walked back inside and we locked it in. Woohoo, car purchase accomplished! The next day was spent sorting out car insurance and that night we went to pick up the car. When we got to the dealership, Marcus had me read an email we'd gotten on the drive up--we'd been approved for the apartment in Wallingford! Celebration!!!!! We just looked at each other with overwhelmed excitement. Really? Did we just get a car and an apartment in less than a week? It was almost scary to tell anyone, like something could still fall through. But we flowed with it. We picked up our car and I got into the rental while Marcus got into our new little car and drove in the US for the first time. I'm surprised we weren't both shaking from excitement and anxiety! We popped a bottle of bubbles later that night to celebrate.
Over the next few days we filled out paperwork and got further stuck into the job search, then on Friday we headed back down to Portland to spend the week with Jessi and her family. We shopped and bought the basics for our new place (and for ourselves since I haven't had a real winter in six years...and Marcus hasn't ever). We bought an old dresser and sanded it down and restained it, and felt awfully crafty. We got to spend time with Peter, my big brother, to play catch up. So, so good. We saw the new Hunger Games. And of course, we had Thanksgiving.
Jessi decided she'd relinquish some control and let people bring some of the side dishes. Even aside from that, we spent a solid two days in the kitchen. And even though I say "we", Jessi definitely did more of the work. She is a machine! We made pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pecan pie and a chocolate cream pie. Delicious. Then we made Jessi's favorites and she tried brining the turkey for the first time (a success). My dad and stepmom came, my little brother came, and my stepmom's family in the area came over for a crowded affair, though certainly less crowded than the last time we were here for Thanksgiving two years ago! My stepmom and her sisters played a ghost-hunting app on their iPhones. My dad and the husbands barricaded themselves in front of the TV to watch football. I listened to their commentary against gay people and women, trying to interject once and was ignored/talked over. A typical large family gathering. And, as is my custom in such situations, I disappeared. :) I can only socialize for so long anyway.
On the Monday after, we headed up to Seattle, Matrix filled to the brim with a table and chairs we got for $25 on Craigslist, our giant travel packs, a few boxes we'd sent home while traveling, some stuff we'd left at Jessi's house two years ago, and some newly acquired goods for the apartment. It may have filled our car, but it didn't begin to fill the space in the apartment! At the moment we're sleeping on a big air mattress in the middle of our living room. It's actually really nice waking up to the sunrise coming in through the balcony door every morning and hearing the coffeemaker start bubbling at 8 sharp. I'm slowly starting to reconnect with my friendly Seattle faces, though most of our days are filled shopping for apartment stuff or holed up at the library or a café doing job search stuff and cruising Craigslist for...more apartment stuff. :)
Marcus is hot on his job search and I'm perusing through the different development organizations in Seattle. My full-on search and first job applications will start next week after reconnecting with a few people whose advice I'd like to hear before really getting myself out there.
In the meantime, I'm still trying to realize that I'm here, in Seattle, living. The apartment and car were huge in this resettlement and I'm so grateful that they both fell into place so quickly and easily. They were both ideal and seemed to flow right to us. I have a feeling the jobs will be very much the same and I don't yet feel anxious about that part of life. Though I admit, life won't quite feel normal until we're both working again. But two out of the big three accomplished--that's an awesome start.
Today we decided to come down to the Seattle Public Library downtown. It's such a cool building, but I'd only been here once before, years ago, right around the time the last Harry Potter book came out, to see a funny cult band called Harry and The Potters who sang a bunch of songs about...well, Harry Potter. It was hilarious. But I didn't really explore much and I think this place will be a home away from home for us. It's an interesting combination of people here, the uber-literary readers, the writers, the work-from-home bunch, and a substantial number of homeless people coming inside out of the cold. I was a bit appalled by the short bathroom doors, then read the signs and realized that they must have had problems with people holing themselves up there, bathing, sleeping, etc. Such an interesting and appropriate mix of the different sections of society.
Hmm, other thoughts about the move. There's a constant stream of comparisons between Sydney/Australia and Seattle/the US. I wouldn't say we're bombarded by differences, but there's a running commentary. Things we're defining and realizing about our new/old city. Here's a random brainstorm:
A bit of a back track. We arrived in Portland on a Friday, the 15th of November. I don't remember if I wrote this (I hate re-reading what I've written sometimes...bad habit I should break) but I had totally misjudged the date of Thanksgiving. I thought it was on the third Thursday of November and so we'd booked our flights accordingly. Turns out it was a week later than I'd thought! It made me feel better that I wasn't the only person who didn't know the secret formula to the date of Thanksgiving, but nonetheless, it left us with an extra week on our hands. We had already booked in a rental car for the week to assist with the car hunt so we figured we'd just head up to Seattle to start our search early. "The search" encompassed the big three: car, apartment, job.
Amidst the catching up at my sister's house, we also spent solid amounts of time on Craigslist looking at apartments and cars, sending emails, making phone calls and setting up appointments. We left Portland Monday morning, stopped in Tacoma to meet a friend for coffee, then headed straight for our first apartment appointment. We looked at four apartments that day and the last one we got into was the one I had had the best feeling about. It was in Wallingford right next door to a friend's old apartment where I had spent quite a lot of time. It was in a four-unit building on the top floor with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and amenities we would have pinched ourselves to have in Sydney. A fireplace, a dishwasher and sink disposal, a washer and dryer, and two balconies. Key above even these was the amount of natural light it got--windows from every direction including a big south-facing window in the living room. It was close to shops, bus lines (including a bus that shoots straight downtown), restaurants, cafes, Green Lake, and the Woodland Park Zoo. It felt like home.
We put in our application the next morning and set off to do some car shopping. I had my heart set on a Toyota, but all of the prices we'd found online were much higher than they should have been. Most cars were at least a grand above the Kelly Blue Book prices and there were a ton of reconstructed titles, meaning that the cars had previously been in serious accidents. Not great. So we expanded the search and figured we should just go to some lots and start looking in person. We stopped at a lot up on Aurora to check out a Honda that had been advertised, but the guys there were more interested in selling us a Mercedes or BMW. Or a Nissan with a reconstructed title. Unimpressed, we drove up Aurora and decided to poke into the Subaru lot, not because we were particularly looking at Subarus but figured there might be some trade-ins to look at. There was a 2008 Toyota Matrix and we decided to take a test drive. The title was clean and it's pretty much what we had set out looking for. We figured we'd see what kind of price we could get for us. There was some haggling and we nearly walked out, but we ended up at $250 above what we thought was a great deal. Meaning, they gave us a pretty great deal. We ho'd and hummed, then went to sit out in the car to mull it over. We called the friend we were staying with who, coincidentally, used to sell used cars a few years back. She asked a few questions and confirmed that it sounded like a good deal. It just seemed too easy, and like it was crazy to buy the first car we test drove. But. It was a good deal. So we decided to go for it!
We walked back inside and we locked it in. Woohoo, car purchase accomplished! The next day was spent sorting out car insurance and that night we went to pick up the car. When we got to the dealership, Marcus had me read an email we'd gotten on the drive up--we'd been approved for the apartment in Wallingford! Celebration!!!!! We just looked at each other with overwhelmed excitement. Really? Did we just get a car and an apartment in less than a week? It was almost scary to tell anyone, like something could still fall through. But we flowed with it. We picked up our car and I got into the rental while Marcus got into our new little car and drove in the US for the first time. I'm surprised we weren't both shaking from excitement and anxiety! We popped a bottle of bubbles later that night to celebrate.
Over the next few days we filled out paperwork and got further stuck into the job search, then on Friday we headed back down to Portland to spend the week with Jessi and her family. We shopped and bought the basics for our new place (and for ourselves since I haven't had a real winter in six years...and Marcus hasn't ever). We bought an old dresser and sanded it down and restained it, and felt awfully crafty. We got to spend time with Peter, my big brother, to play catch up. So, so good. We saw the new Hunger Games. And of course, we had Thanksgiving.
Jessi decided she'd relinquish some control and let people bring some of the side dishes. Even aside from that, we spent a solid two days in the kitchen. And even though I say "we", Jessi definitely did more of the work. She is a machine! We made pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pecan pie and a chocolate cream pie. Delicious. Then we made Jessi's favorites and she tried brining the turkey for the first time (a success). My dad and stepmom came, my little brother came, and my stepmom's family in the area came over for a crowded affair, though certainly less crowded than the last time we were here for Thanksgiving two years ago! My stepmom and her sisters played a ghost-hunting app on their iPhones. My dad and the husbands barricaded themselves in front of the TV to watch football. I listened to their commentary against gay people and women, trying to interject once and was ignored/talked over. A typical large family gathering. And, as is my custom in such situations, I disappeared. :) I can only socialize for so long anyway.
On the Monday after, we headed up to Seattle, Matrix filled to the brim with a table and chairs we got for $25 on Craigslist, our giant travel packs, a few boxes we'd sent home while traveling, some stuff we'd left at Jessi's house two years ago, and some newly acquired goods for the apartment. It may have filled our car, but it didn't begin to fill the space in the apartment! At the moment we're sleeping on a big air mattress in the middle of our living room. It's actually really nice waking up to the sunrise coming in through the balcony door every morning and hearing the coffeemaker start bubbling at 8 sharp. I'm slowly starting to reconnect with my friendly Seattle faces, though most of our days are filled shopping for apartment stuff or holed up at the library or a café doing job search stuff and cruising Craigslist for...more apartment stuff. :)
Marcus is hot on his job search and I'm perusing through the different development organizations in Seattle. My full-on search and first job applications will start next week after reconnecting with a few people whose advice I'd like to hear before really getting myself out there.
In the meantime, I'm still trying to realize that I'm here, in Seattle, living. The apartment and car were huge in this resettlement and I'm so grateful that they both fell into place so quickly and easily. They were both ideal and seemed to flow right to us. I have a feeling the jobs will be very much the same and I don't yet feel anxious about that part of life. Though I admit, life won't quite feel normal until we're both working again. But two out of the big three accomplished--that's an awesome start.
Today we decided to come down to the Seattle Public Library downtown. It's such a cool building, but I'd only been here once before, years ago, right around the time the last Harry Potter book came out, to see a funny cult band called Harry and The Potters who sang a bunch of songs about...well, Harry Potter. It was hilarious. But I didn't really explore much and I think this place will be a home away from home for us. It's an interesting combination of people here, the uber-literary readers, the writers, the work-from-home bunch, and a substantial number of homeless people coming inside out of the cold. I was a bit appalled by the short bathroom doors, then read the signs and realized that they must have had problems with people holing themselves up there, bathing, sleeping, etc. Such an interesting and appropriate mix of the different sections of society.
Hmm, other thoughts about the move. There's a constant stream of comparisons between Sydney/Australia and Seattle/the US. I wouldn't say we're bombarded by differences, but there's a running commentary. Things we're defining and realizing about our new/old city. Here's a random brainstorm:
- Hooray for the toilet seat covers in public bathrooms! (Strange that this should top the list, but there it is.)
- Seattle drivers are a-holes and really unsafe. No wonder there are so many reconstructed titles.
- Customer service tends to be excellent here. It wasn't just an exaggerated memory, the coffee baristas here are 9/10 times chirpy.
- Downtown Seattle is dead. Even during work hours, the number of people walking about is shockingly small. Sydney's CBD wins hands-down.
- Sydney is far better-dressed than Seattle, which is both good and bad. I feel pretty comfortable here and Marcus, who always dresses better than me anyway, will feel particularly well-dressed. It also means I may put less effort into dressing myself. Beware the return of my hoodies. :)
- Food prices are about the same. Restaurants here are cheaper. Marcus despises the extra sales tax.
- My hair--in Sydney it learned how to frizz from the moisture and humidity. In Seattle it has reverted to a staticky state that I didn't remember until I got back.
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xoxo