r v l . c o m

Well this must be a record period of non-blogging for me since I began a few years ago. I haven’t checked my stats page, but I suspect I’ve lost a substantial proportion of my minisucle readership.

Setting up my apartment has been a mammoth effort actually, more work than I expected - but I suspect I am getting fussier and more demanding with age (I can see you nodding in agreement), so I shouldn’t really be surprised. Here’s how the main room is looking as of today:

I sold my bike on ebay this week, as you can tell I really have zero room to store it. I would have liked to have a bike in the city, but with such a tiny apartment, it’s just not possible. There go my buns of steel.

I had a handyman come over today and install a few things, including a window-mounted air-conditioner, which I have been told are a MUST over the summer here. I also got him to install a shelf in the kitchen to put my microwave on and a few other bits a pieces around the place. I probably could have done most of it myself, but oh well.

Currently I am having a major clothes storage crisis, having approximately 1/3 of the wardrobe space I had in Amsterdam - which apparently led to mass hoarding of clothes I don’t even remember buying. At the moment they are occupying my two storage areas and the (very handy) space under my new bed.

The big set-back of the weekend so far (and its a 3 day weekend here!) has been the discovery that the majority of the electrical things I brought over here do not work on the US electrical supply. The problem is something to do with amps or volts or hertz or something that I don’t really (care to) understand. I think it boils down to my microwave, stereo, coffee machine(!!!!) and other things are built to rely on a stronger supply of electricty than is available here. So that means I have to buy new all-of-the-above, which blows my moving budget out the window and creates the dilemma of what to do with my current things. They function fine in either Europe or Australia, so it seems crazy to throw them out - but as I said 10000 times already, I have no storage space! My pots and pans live permanently in the oven - which I imagine will remain unused for the foreseeable future anyway.

So that has put me in somewhat of a foul mood - plus my laptop has been infected with a particularly nasty virus, which I’ve spent 2 days trying to get rid of but so far have had no luck.

On other fronts, I’ve signed up for a corporate membership at New York Sports Club, of which there are 2 or 3 branches in my neighbourhood - each about 4 levels and as I discovered on my first visit, full of beautiful and intimidating Upper East Side types. So far I’ve been for two workouts, during which mostly wandered around looking lost and trying to figure out how all the equipment worked. Oh and I also walked into a mirror that I thought was a doorway - nothing like making a good first impression.

I think that will do for now, I’m still too annoyed at the electricity-debacle (couldn’t one of the many, many people involved in my relocation have told me this?!?!?!) to be fun and chirpy. Today I ate a bagel and a muffin back to back, thats how annoyed I am. Tomorrow I am going to switch to retail therapy and buy an Apple-TV, as revenge against the universe for making my re-buy so many things I have already bought!

It makes sense in my head.