first impressions

Our new home is a duplex with a mirrored duplex across a small yard. The presence of two absolutely huge pine trees divides the lot, and throws a lot of shade on the building. Pine needles litter every surface. Saori commented later that it felt like a camp house, but not in a good way.
Still sitting in the car in the driveway, I told Saori, "you know, if you hate it, we can always break the lease." She had been preparing herself to be let down the whole trip, but it wasn't apparently enough as we did a first walk through together. Let's face it, even with new carpeting and new lino, it's still a dark apartment, kind of dingy, and 800 square feet, which combined with the other two factors, makes it feel smaller than it is.

We pulled in our luggage and unpacked the car. We splurged on a 20" self-inflating air mattress, which I can tell you was worth the extra $40 for saving us from 1) waking up in the middle of the night on the floor and 2) blowing it up manually.

It was muggy, and hot, and I realized belatedly that the duplex had no air conditioning. Actually, none of the apartments I had seen had air conditioning. It's just not that needed up here. Saori picked pho for dinner, so we went to a place nearby. It was a relief- a moment to sit in a restaurant, away from a new, unpacked apartment, to get a bowl of hot soup, at the end of a long day. A moment too, to take a step back and get perspective on the situation.

We came back, spread our borrowed sheets on the inflatable mattress, and crashed, physically and emotionally exhausted. I was 33 years old.