Boxes, Apartment Hunting, and Paperwork

We have been here almost 2 weeks and our days have been mostly filled with getting settled. This post is a little bit of those "everyday" things. Torrey started work yesterday and seems to be settling in well, he is still working for the same company after all. I have spend time figuring out my courses and have a meeting with my advisor today.

We are staying a small apartment which is conveniently located close Torrey's work. However, it is noisy being in the city and the internet is flaky. Torrey is trying to "adjust" to the noise, I am not so willing and have been sleeping with earplugs. I think I am getting a much better sleep. The internet is causing much more problems as we can't really use it in the evenings. During the day only one of us can use it, and for some reason it boots me off and not Torrey. He is now at work so I get the internet all to myself. Also annoying is it can't handle video chat nor phone calls very well. So sorry family that we haven't been able to talk! Here are pictures of our little apartment, complete with dirty dishes.

We have also been apartment hunting, which is much more competitive than in Canada or the US. We have seen about 5 apartments and applied for 1. All the rest were either too expensive, too small, too noisy, or didn't have a dryer (so drying clothes on the line all year). Our requirements are becoming more and more flexible as the days pass. Here are two places we looked at, we applied for the first one. The unit is in the basement of a renovated old house.

The day before we left Bellevue, we mailed 5 large boxes to ourselves (17x17x30), we were told they would get here in 7-10 days. We were expecting 7-10 business days and more like 10 or so days. However, we mailed them on a Tuesday and we received the notice here on a Tuesday, the USPS and Die Post are efficient! Also, we didn't have to go through any customs when we received the boxes, again not what we expected! We just picked them up and wheeled them down the side walk. Die Post delivered them to the post office closest to where we are staying. Which makes transport much easier!