Signed a lease, container arrived, moved in

Again the days flew by without us getting around posting a few lines. We actually signed a lease about 48 hours after my last post as we intended to do – luckily! It gave us just enough time to buy a couch, baby bed and mattress as well as a king size mattress before our 3 europallets arrived and we moved in.

So how is the house and where is it? It is located in the heart of Wedgewood, very close walking distance to shops, arterial 35^th Ave but still residential, quiet. It feels safe to walk in this area even after darkness. The house itself has a nice cozy upper level and a semi finished basement, though officially you probably would call it “finished”. There is still reconstruction going on in the basement. The old bath/shower is being replaced by a new one. We never saw the old, but the very old pipes gave an idea how it might have looked like. We are looking forward to the result of the reconstruction works. Furthermore there is a large room, linoleum floors with a small cooking area in the basement. Once we furnished it and decorated it ideal for guests that want to visit us and once in a while want to have some time for them self or working, studying room for us in the meantime. The stairway downstairs still needs some treatment; let’s wait what ideas we have to give that area a better look. Upstairs we have two small bedrooms, a kitchen and a larger dining and living area. Not to forget a large shed and garage that supply us with plenty of storage space for bikes, boxes and tools. All this space – and I got rid of all my gears like old computers, cables, lamps in Kiel – it would have fitted in this space just perfect! I am sure! On the other hand this way I have the opportunity to look for new items that I might want to use one day in the future or at least a friend of me might ask me for. Our garden had quite a few weeds and dried plants, but my mother’s knowledge and combined efforts with rake and cutter under her command made the back already looking very good. Now we just have to keep watering the spots she told us to and hope not to pull out the “wrong” weeds once she is gone.

We decided for this place in favor for the neighborhood. We turned down two other places for that reason, though we were not complete sure from the start if this is the right judgment. And my legs still are not convinced that this is the right place. My legs? Yes! We found that somewhere on these premises are quite a few FLEAS. We suspect the garage by now. The other family members seem to get bitten not at all or rarely. Theda has about 6-7 bites. Myself … uncountable, I stopped at 70 and quite a few more joined them - mostly on my legs, but truly across the full body. My legs itch like hell and l don’t dare to wear any shorts. I look like in medieval unhygienic times, full of parasites. At first I suspected the cat in our vacation home, later the rental car, but it turned out to be this house. Inside has mainly hardwood floors, thus not the ideal flea area. The garage and shed have a lot of old wood which I suspected to be the home of them. The furnishing process of the house made all of us running in and out of garage and home, probably carrying quite a few from the outer building into our home. After catching a few with my bare hands I pulled the line and bought the strongest pesticides available and placed them in the shed and garage. Indoors I only use the candle-soap water-flea trap, since I doubt Narne should be exposed to pesticides. Luckily I must have an odor the fleas love over all, protecting the rest of the family – though there are moments I wish they would spare me at least a little more. But by the looks of it we are winning. I am getting bitten less. (I hope not for the reason that they are all fed, but for the reason that they are all gone for good!). It has always been like that, insects seem to love me and my personal “perfume”. During camping no one next to me needs insect repellant since they go on me anyway. In the woods, as soon as I stop moving I can be sure to have 3-4 mosquitoes on my legs. Is it the amount of chocolate? Wine? Sports? I wish I would know the reason for that and could counter act on that.

Has there happened anything beside that? My legs say no, but Katrin says I should mention about our success at the yard sales today, the contacts to the neighbors, the discovery of our favorite chocolate spread at the shops, the unbelievable fact that only after two days in this home it already starts to look comfortable.

We found us a nice group of chairs and a toddler carriage (backpack) for our coming up hikes into nature as well as a microwave and coffee machine - overall very successful for just this one Saturday. We hope to continue this series next Saturday and there after … . Concerning the neighbors, they seem to be extremely nice. Theda and Jonte already made friends with the one east of us, who has two cats that caught the interest of them.

So far so good, since we did not order telephone and internet (DSL?/Cable?) for our new home yet, we only have very limited access to the online world – having effect on emails, news and the blog. And sure we have our hands full with the project making our home as comfortable as needed while taking care of the kids – again no prediction on when we will write again – as usual ;-). Oh yes, thank you for reading these lines and keeping track of us!

FLEAS part II: this morning I went to the basement to check the reconstruction process. Coming back up I found 7 fleas on my socks and trousers. To recheck the location of the fleas I went down for a couple of seconds again – I caught 3 fleas on my socks. That was enough, I send the kids, Katrin and the grandparents to take a long visit in the zoo and started fogging the house 2 hours ago with pesticides. Will return soon to ventilate it thoroughly and wipe the free areas before the kids return. I wish we could have done without pesticides in our living area, but the amount of parasites would have made a normal living impossible. The self made flea trap did only catch 3 fleas over night – nothing compared to the amounts I saw this morning. Will keep you posted about the process …

Arriving in Seattle

We arrived in Seattle. I did not find the time to write in the last days, but will try to sum up what happened. The amount of luggage we took with us was enormous, even though we reduced it over and over again. We left Leer, Germany, on August 10th by train, switched trains in Gronningen, Netherlands and arrived just before dinner time in Schipol Amsterdam airport. Unfortunately we were not able to check in for the next morning already - but found a baggage store, thus only taking hand luggage to the airport hotel. The kids loved the hotel, 6th floor, complete view across the airport while lying in bed. Is there anything better for a 3.5 year old? Ok there is, the flight across the Atlantic the next day is at least as good. Breakfast was great, unfortunately not enough time to enjoy it in detail, since we planned to check in early to get us seated closer together.

The flight was surprisingly unspectacular. I expected a KLM flight, a few weeks ago found out it is operated by NorthWest and boarded finally a DeltaAirlines plane. Knowing the KLM service I was not sure what to expect from Delta. The service was much less than expected, no kids menu, no small kid entertainment what so ever - for the adults it was ok. Anyway the kids coped perfectly. We brought a bag full of drawing, playing and reading stuff with us and used all of it during the 10 hour flight. Even Narne did well. Finally: Arriving in Seattle, immigrations, customs, unfortunately an extra agriculture scan and finally a longer than expected trip to the rental car company. My parents got their rental car voucher, myself trying to rent a second car. A ridiculous expensive offer from ThriftyCars – 4 days rental of a compact size car with minimum insurance is supposed to be MUCH more expensive than the minivan my parents did rent for 18 days including all insurances … we decided on doing a lease for only 3 days since we needed the car and were too tired to check other companies.

We made our way from the airport to the Fountleroy ferry – found it reasonable fast and relaxed for the first time on the ferry overlooking the Puget Sound. Only a couple minutes later we arrived in Southworth. 10 minutes after that: the holiday home – direct on the beach, perfect to relax, large enough for all of us, affordable luxury.

The next day was only used for recovering from the jet lag. All of us seven woke up at 3 o’clock local time but managed to get some sleep afterwards again. Second night we all woke up at 4 – weird but true! By now we are over jet lag and even got several things done. We have been

• looking intensely at several rental houses
• got used to the Seattle-way of naming streets (very easy once you understand it)
• reactivated my US bank account
• did hours and hours of internet-research about, available houses, areas, driver licenses, taxes and such
• double checked some prejudices I had about America
• seen Mt Rainer
• broke open and eaten a crab
• wondering how future will be like
• enjoying the ferry ride home to nature and view from our holiday day home in the evenings, overlooking the Puget sound, Seattle downtown and Mt Rainer

Not really much happened since then though the days were packed: had my first American Hamburger since my time in San Diego (one once a month should be OK from now), made a camp fire with sausages, cooked blackberry jam from a harvest around the house, seen seals and a heron from our porch, got new children-car-seats.

We really hope that we sign a lease for a house within the next 48 hours, thus we can start to furnish the house with stuff prior to leaving the holiday home. I think I will be able to relax a bit more once I know that we found a place to stay – not knowing where, leaves me a bit restless.

Soon more - once I find time on a more regular basis to write. This is likely to happen as soon as we got: a home, internet, a car, furniture, our shipped equipment, an idea of our neighborhood, … . As you can see, don’t expect to regular post from me, but I will try to keep you informed as good as possible!

Last week in Europe

The days are flying by. In less than a week we will be on our way to Seattle and probably have arrived in Seattle in a week from now. Still I have to cancel the newspaper, electricity, water and phone ... - not even talking about the income tax from the last two years I wanted to finish by Friday.

Never the less despite all this work I am enjoying the last days in Kiel. I am on my own clearing the flat and think about the great time I had in Kiel. I started my studies in Oceanography here in September 1996 - 13 Years full of experiences, uncounted parties, a diploma, a PhD, a marriage and 3 kids later I finally leave Kiel again. Though I must admit that there have been years in between I spent more time on board of research ships on the Atlantic Ocean and traveling with my backpack distant continents than actually studying. It really is time now to get out of here and get to know the world. Not regarding traveling, having done that a lot, but regarding living and getting to know another country and culture in detail again. Somehow similar to the exchange year I spent in New Zealand. Time will tell how we fit into the American culture, which habits will become family habits - which part of that culture will find a permanent place in our family culture.
It feels like the time in Kiel is already over and Seattle time did not start yet - thus a time like between Christmas and New Year: the old year is over, though the new one did not start yet. In German we would say "zwischen den Jahren" in between the years to those days.

Maybe the feeling that a part of me already left Germany is because Saturday we had our last and biggest farewell party. A lot of relatives and old friends came, all generations a whole day long, 50 adults and 20 kids, with an age range from a half year to 80+. It was a great day that we will remember for a long time! It was a long potluck brunch/BBQ that started at 11am and ended after sunset. There was marvelous salads, deserts, fish, bread, sausages, steaks and much more... thanks all for bringing so many delicious thins along. Thanks to all who made this such a wonderful good bye for us by joining. Since I did not manage to make any photos - if you took some during that day, please send us a few. (The following three were taken by my father-in-law.) Water fights with a hose, reading tent, painted faces and bodies, soccer, drawing, eating sweets ... every kid was very tired by the end of the day. Theda and Jonte were still tired from the last days and overwhelmed, that they left totally exhausted early with their grandparents.