Our New "Digs"

Greetings,

Cheryl and I are certainly settling into our new surroundings.  We have felt a real sense of calm and peace.  FaceTime has been a great way to stay close to our families even at such a great geographic distance.  Cheryl loves the clarity of the images and I love the fact that it is free.  Here is our attempt to give you a small sampling of our daily life and in our new home.

Simplicity probably sums it up the best.  At times we feel like we are living out a Little House on the Prairie episode, but all in all, it is quite good.  Let me give you a tour of our place.

Living room

The living room also acts as our dining room.  We face the southeast, so we get nice sunshine through our windows.  Through the door is a small balcony that gives us a 180 degree perspective.  We are on the third floor, but in Europe, this means we are four floors up.  The two chairs are fairly comfortable, but the couch is a bit lumpy and acts as a place to store things.  The lamp is also used in the bedroom, so this forces us to decide which room we will read in.  It is amazing how just a few simple things can turn a dorm room into a home.  Cheryl does a great job of this--note the mums on the table, the dishcloth on the dinner table, and the tablecloth on the coffee table.

Kitchen

Our kitchen is pretty spartan of any of the modern conveniences.  Everything works.  We make toast, scrambled eggs, tea, hot chocolate, and reheat soup from the cantina (cafeteria).  Orange juice, Corn Flakes and Honey Nut Cheerios are on the menu for breakfast.  Our hotpot is used to heat water to clean the dishes (see picture of bathroom to see the sink full of dishes to be washed). Speaking of water, we don't have any hot water out of the sink faucets.  We do have hot water in the shower from an electric heater, but Cheryl has yet to master the art of temperature control.  

Bedroom

Our bedroom was meant for two college students and the beds were meant for younger people.  The first order of business was to find an egg crate and mattress pads to soften the feel (so as to not feel the buttons).  This room is plenty big which allows us space for a drying rack.  We have access to a washing machine.  It takes two and a half hours to wash and spin one load.  Thus, doing the laundry is about a five hour chore.  The good news is that it is in the same building as our room.  We have plenty of closet space and many shelves for our clothes.  In fact, we have more storage space here than in our home in Holland!

Guest room and Study

As you can see, we have a guest room just waiting for any visitors.  We have stripped the beds of anything useful, but we will return them to normal upon your visit.  I don't have an official office at the University, so this acts as my office.  It is very convenient in that our place is in the same building as all the classrooms and other offices.  It takes me 30 seconds to walk to my classes.  They installed a wireless router in our suite during our second week here, so internet access is very good and very fast.  Our suite is located on a women's floor, so once again I find myself surrounded by estrogen.

Toilet room

Shower room

So, if we were trying to sell this place, we would call it a two bedroom, two bathroom fixer upper.  The toilet room has a his and her toilet stall and the shower room has a his and her shower stall.  One of the showers does not have hot water, so it has become the cleaning supplies storage area.  Perhaps Cheryl has been using the wrong shower!  Once again, some of the small homey touches are the rugs on the bathroom floor.  The tile can get very cold, so these rugs and new slippers were also some of our initial purchases.  Prior to coming, we were a bit anxious about how warm our suite would be.  Seems like we did not quite understand the situation and we have found the heat to be more than adequate and we have been quite comfortable.

We continue to meet wonderful people.  I think I will use a future post to give you a sense of who they are and how they have welcomed us into their community.  Cheryl and I plan to get out into the country this weekend (Fri-Mon) in order to see a bit more of this country.  We will rent a car and eventually make our way to the Brasov area near the Carpathian mountains.  Our next post will probably be full of beautiful landscape pictures.  We leave you with a photo of Cheryl and I in a park just outside the Fortress of Oradea that was built around 1100.

Pace,

Cheryl & Tom