quick update

I'm finally back online after 2 days of moving houses and a weekend without internet. This is only a quick update but I have a few post planned, which I will hopefully write and post this week.

• We moved from the temporary apartment to the house we'll be renting for the next 3 years. This is the house of my dreams, I wish it was in Canberra! It's very specious, the kitchen is beautiful with wood cabinets and black granite countertops, the master bedroom is huge, so is the 5 piece bathroom, and there is a walk-in-wardrobe! After I put everything in place and make it look amazing, I'll take some photos.  

• The negative side is that we had issues with the real estate agency or more like they had issues with their contractors and it affected us badly. The maintenance and cleaning of the house are terrible. All of the first floor smells with cat/dog pee which we're desperately trying to get rid off, blinds are missing in some rooms, some things are broken, we're missing keys and had to order a new lock for the mail box, the washing machine and drier we payed extra for arrived second hand and dirty! I am not impressed at all. 

• On Thursday the rented furniture arrived. We were dealing with Bill who owns a furniture rental company and it was a very smooth experience! He is very patient and helped me through the process of choosing furniture and he actually cares about the final look of the rooms so he can recommend matches for items. Highly recommended!

• On Friday our freight arrived from Australia and we found out that our staff was very badly "packed". I'm saying "packed" because it was more like our things were stuffed into boxes instead of actually been packed. The box with the desktop was crushed and because we didn't take the screen with us, we still don't know if it was damaged. Hats were all squashed, some of my shoes got marks on the leather from rubbing on each other... Things of one kind ended up in a box with another kind like my handbags were in a box with tools! The kitchen items were pretty much the only things that were wrapped and packaged. I am going to write a guide with tips for people who have removalists packing their things so their things arrive all in one piece. 

• Before the move and all of the other headaches of last week, I started planning a trip to Alaska. I've always wanted to go to Alaska for the magnificent scenery and nature and lately also got obsessed with seeing the northern lights. Hopefully we'll go in September as it's a good month to see the northern lights but it's still not awfully cold. The plan is one week of a cruise for the coastal scenery and one week inland with a focus on seen the northern lights. Any suggestions are welcomed.

• I am going to post a few restaurant reviews and they will all be easily accessible under the menu at the top of the blog. This is a good reference for me and hopefully for other people coming here and to the US in general. It can be a bit hard at first when you just land here and have no idea where to go out to eat and what to expect.

I'm back to tidying up and ironing a huge pile of clothes. Fun fun fun...