Hot!

To be honest, I was afraid of spending my first winter here. I am no longer used to cold weather, snow and such. As it turned out, it was the warmest winter on record with no snow. Go figure. But, the heat has certainly kicked in. It is in mid 80s to mid 90s during the day. That may sound like something that might be easy to live through until you realize one thing -- no A/C in homes! That translates into one very hot summer. Fortunately, we bought a car with A/C. Yes, many cars here still aren't equipped with cooling. We weren't planning on spending the money to add air conditioning to the condo until next year but we just might change our minds. It might be time to revisit the budget and cancel some other projects and instead add air conditioning to our list of "to dos." At the moment though, we've equipped ourselves with nice big fans so we can make it without melting away.

It's also worth mentioning another important milestone. Today is exactly 9 months since we've arrived to Zagreb. And, we're just days away from getting the keys to the apartment. Chris and I did a little shopping today. It's a holiday here today (and Monday as well) so kids are at home making it hard to put in our work hours during the day. So, we went shopping. We purchased a dishwasher (yay!), a refrigerator and a TV (kids will be happy about that one). Few days ago we purchased a clothes washer and now we're waiting for all of that to be delivered. Yes, we'll get a dryer as well. We just can't make up our minds which model to select. Here very few people have dryers and clothes are usually drying outside on clothes lines. The clothes smell nice and fresh but it sure is a pain to do the clothes washing that way. Chris and I decided to forgo the experience and get the dryer. Since most homes aren't equipped with a dryer connection, here they sell models with a condenser. It looks like a great solution. I am not sure why they wouldn't make those available in the US. At least I don't recall seeing any. We'll let you know how well they work.

Update

It's been a busy, busy, busy six weeks so there hasn't been much time for blogging. I will revisit some of the events from past weeks and add some photos later. During this time we've enjoyed the company of two dear visitors from the US. Ann Marie, Chris' sister and Doug, a family friend came to stay with us just a few days apart from each other. We went to the beach for a week and enjoyed some vacation. Chris and I continued our bureaucratic adventure. He got his temporary resident status so we can finally get that off our minds. I worked during and after the vacation to finalize the first draft of the textbook my sister and I have been working on. It's been accepted for publication but we still have many changes to do. My sister is currently revising the content and then I'll get the material back for another pass on the layout. We're both happy about it.

We finally signed the house contract and the loan that we've worked on for 2 and a half months was finally approved. We're currently wrapping up a myriad of paperwork that comes with all of this so there are going to be many more errands before we can close a chapter on that. Barring any other major disasters, we'll get the key to the place next week. Now we're in the process of contracting people to get our kitchen and interior stairs completed. After much investigation Chris and I decided to do all of our own closets instead of paying a lot of money for someone to make shelving to size. We also have a painter coming in to put some color into kids' bedrooms. We have to choose and purchase fridge, washer, dryer, dishwasher, etc... Should all go as planned we may be able to spend our first night in the place within some 10-15 days, or as soon as the kitchen's there. :) As you see, we've not been bored. I'll write another post soon with more details.