the sea shipment is here

Well our stuff survived its journey across the pond and showed up at our door Monday. We now have everything that's coming. We have our bikes, our hiking shoes, hangers, a hammer (no more using shoes), games, pictures, random food, and all those things that start to make it feel like home here. Or a facsimile thereof.

Our bed also came. We are very excited to spread out in our queen and have been looking forward to sleeping on our mattress again. The bed that came with the place is soft--not like the rocks we slept on in Italy. It's almost too soft. It's either the softness or the 10 hours of sleep, but I've been sore a lot, especially in the beginning.

Before I left, I bought bed lifters, the extra high kind, since I didn't know what the storage situation would be like. Our bed's so high now it's funny looking--like the princess and the pea. We can get all of our suitcases and a dead body or two under it. I'm looking forward to Pat's reaction...

The worst part is that our stuff picked up a smell either from the boxes or from the shipping process. It smells like gasoline or some kind of industrial fume that I can't quite identify. Of course, I'm too stubborn to wash the clean sheets that arrived before I made our bed--so it smells. Those babies must be dirty before I spend two loads cleaning them. I popped open some incense stuff and went to sleep. I woke up again so it can't be that bad, but it does give you a whole new reason not to fluff the sheets :)

Pat's in the windy city of Chicago for the week so he has missed out on the unpacking so far. He will be home on Friday. He has another trip coming up on the 25th. This time he's going to Dublin and I'm going to go with him. Why not set foot in Ireland while we're here? Pat was excited to get our first cheap airfare tickets. The total cost for me to fly is 24 pounds or $48--that's 2 pence for the fare, the rest is tax. It's no frills and they charge you for each piece of luggage so the trick is to travel light. I'll let you know how it goes.