Moving Back to Madison

If my computer and my camera decide to cooperate, I have a few quick pictures of our apartment-that is Nicole and I- here in Madison. Of course, currently my camera does not want to play games, and even after that hurdle is overcome, I still have to upload the pictures onto this site.

One would think that moving to Madison, the second time for both Nicole and I, would be a reasonably easy, painless process, considering we had both been there before. Alas, this was not the case, though we never really expected it be. After all, I was moving as many of my possessions as I could from another country, thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean. Nicole, was moving all her possessions from another state, California, which is almost as far away as England. When you think that we had to hire a van to move out of Warwick University at the beginning of summer, it is hardly surprising that we pitched up at LAX airport with Seven (yes 7!) cases between us. After a quick reshuffling of clothes to balance out the weight at the check in desk, we checked 5 cases, and took two small ones (their weight wasn't small though) with us on the plane. Thanks to Southwest Airlines, we got to check 2 free cases each free of charge, so we only had to paid for our fifth case. Thoroughly recommended.

Two plane rides later, and a short wait in Milwaukee, we were cruising through the endless farmlands of Wisconsin, on our way to Madison. Figuring out how to get 7 cases from the bus stop to our apartment was an interesting riddle, but we eventually overcame it, and found ourselves standing in our new home, in the Surfside Apartments.

We're on the third floor, and the view from our balcony is stunning, overlooking Lake Mendota.



We struggled through Saturday night in our new apartment with the few things we had brought from California, with home-made pillows on the bed. Sunday dawned with beautiful weather and a stifling heat. Thankfully our friend Erica agreed to take us shopping to pick up everything we needed for our apartment, including kitchenware and cleaning stuff. After sharing dinner with her Wisconsin family, we had a huge clean of our apartment, and began to get everything into place. Slowly but surely, its come together, with the final addition this weekend of the boxes we shipped from England. Despite some breakages, the packages did well, and we now have pretty much everything we need, thanks to numerous trips to supermarkets, groceries, and Target!





This is our living room-cum- dining room-cum kitchen. It's all open plan, and is really spacious.

We finally have everything unpacked, though we do still need to put up some posters and other decorations on the walls.

The apartment has come together really well, and is now feeling very homely indeed. For the price we are paying, the location is incredible, and the size of the apartment is really great. We got all the furniture included too, which has meant a large black 3 seater leather sofa, as well as my favourite, a two seater, electric reclining sofa, which almost makes me as happy as Joey and Chandler from Friends every time I sit in it! I'll leave you with a picture of that, but I will get more pictures of the rest of our apartment and local area up very soon. Perhaps we'll even attempt a video tour!

A Latecomer to the Blogging Scene

Well here we are. My first post, on my first ever blog. Welcome to the Twenty First Century... though I am a little behind the times.  Blogging is nothing new, for the internet world anyway, and I have finally decided to embrace the process, as a great way to get all my thoughts down onto 'paper', and keep in touch with family and friends across the world. That's pretty much what this blog will be, just updates about where I am currently, and what I have been up to.

Don't expect any witty, laugh-out-loud hilarious kind of remarks; nor should you read this blog if you are expecting profound, in-depth musings on the human mind. You never know though, I might surprise you.

Thus far, my blogging experience has not been a smooth one, though that is largely down to my easily-frustrated self. Of course, before you can write something, you have to set up the look, and I have never been very good at aesthetics. I have my moments- the fake flowers in our apartment, nicely placed in a vase and filled with glass stones being one- but on the whole, Laurence Llewelyn Bowen I am not. (Non-Brits read "famous fluttering interior decorator"). Therefore I spent pretty much the whole of Labor day deciding firstly on which site to host my blog on, as there are a number to choose from, and secondly, on how exactly my blog could look. In theory, this is all very simple: You compare the market, pick your favourite, log in, and follow the easy-to-do directions on customising your blog. Naturally, I managed to make things complicated; I read far too much information on each site, miserably failing to decide which was best; I got lost in all the HTML, CSS, domain hosting jargon; and then finally I spent far too long deciding whether this font looked better than this one, whether this blue was better than this etc. etc. I am sure you get the point.

Finally I reached this stage, my first post. I am reasonably satisfied with my blog at the moment, though I am very sure it will be tampered with in the coming months. I do welcome any help or comments, or even someone who just wants to design a blog for me. For now, lets just hope I have the time to make regular updates. And I hope you keep reading. I am nothing without an audience.