Reporting from the far side of the continent

Haste Street, on the Feast of Ste. Clare

As you may have noticed from the header, I'm safely ensconced in Berkeley. I chose the worst day to move, as usual, because New York was hit with thunderstorms on the morning of my flight, but I managed to get here on Wednesday afternoon without too many mishaps. Cable got set up on Thursday, but my computer didn't arrive until late Friday, when the boxes we shipped were delivered. The wireless signal in my bedroom keeps going in and out, and I'm not sure why. Anyone have any advice? I really don't want to have a 20-foot long Ethernet cord trailing out of my room to the living room (which is where the cable modem is).

I was surprised how cold it gets here at night. We only have a gas heater, which doesn't connect to the bedrooms, for some unknown reason. We're currently sleeping on the floor since there's no furniture in the apartment, and we didn't even have blankets for the first two nights since we shipped those over. We ended up sleeping under all the jackets I brought with me in my luggage (and still woke up shivering). So glad that the down comforter arrived yesterday; finally we could sleep in (relative) comfort.

We've spent the past few days going out and hunting down stores where we could buy everything that I couldn't ship or bring over on the plane. Today was devoted to groceries, and we spent the morning at Berkeley Bowl, which has made its way into my affections, if it's possible to speak of falling in love with grocery stores. We walked in and saw at least fifteen varieties of apples on display, all fresh and many of them organic. I have never seen so many types of fresh produce. Right now I'm eating the strawberries we bought there, and they taste as excellent as they look. *_* And let's not even mention their cheese section. It's only about eight blocks away from my apartment, which convinces me all the more that I really lucked out in location. If anything can get me to like cooking, that grocery store is it.

I'm pretty much all settled in except for furniture, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow from Ikea. Am very much looking forward to sleeping on a proper mattress again.

Oh, and I had dinner with kaydeefalls and her boyfriend today. Actually I ran into kaydeefalls completely by chance on Thursday, just as she was coming out of her hotel. Definitely nice to catch up with high school friends again. It's strange, but there's something comfortable and comforting about talking with former Hunterites (well, the ones I liked in any case); no matter how many years have passed, you somehow know where you are in the conversation.

aishuu, I logged into AIM today to find your offline message to me from a week ago. Sorry for missing the IM! By the way, can I just say how pleased I am that so many of you chose to sign up for this round of blind_go? I love you all.

Yours &c.