Facing Our First Few Weeks

          There were some serious difficulties settling in. For example, not a lot of stores accept our money or check cards, because they use chip cards. When we arrived here our first priority was internet because I needed it to study from home, but when we go to the store to get our internet hooked up they tell us we need a bank account here first, so we said fine and we go to the bank to get an account, but they say we need more than a passport we need a letter from the school proving our address, so we go to the school to get the letter and we bring it back and apparently our zip code was wrong and in addition to that we need a letter from my school to prove I am studying and staying here as well. I guess proof of marriage is not enough! It was insane and makes absolutely no sense because I am his dependent, in other words most people don't go to school on a dependent visa (how would a wife that is just coming over here with her husband get one?). Anyway, finally Trevor was allowed to get a bank account, but I unfortunately have not yet as my University has just now officially enrolled me...yup, it took a total of 4 weeks and 4 trips for them to get coordinated. So things move a little slower here than we are used to. The first few weeks we had to be sure to keep cash on us, which I am still very slow at counting it out considering they have different coins and different values like 2 Pents. I admit I have been pretty close to tears a few times when I went to a store to pick up food and they would not accept our money.

          On our second day we went to purchase sheets and a comforter, and the store clerk actually had to “make our bed for us” and tell us everything we needed to buy for it because we just did not understand. The stuffing inside the blanket and the decorative cover are sold separately (called a duvet and a duvet cover), they have the sheet that ties tight to the bed but not a flat sheet. It was hard enough buying the stuff and even more confusing to put it on the bed...I am still not sure we have it right. I wish I would have had an English “Mum” to teach me.

          Anyway, back to the internet. That was an entirely insane process, once Trevor got his bank account here we went back to the internet provider, waited a week and they finally said that they would not be able to offer us internet as we failed our credit check...which was kind of like a “No Shit We Failed Our Credit Check” moment as we obviously have no credit here. Would have been great if one of the clerks saved our time and told us they do not give internet to people who haven't lived in the country for at least 3 years. We had to end up searching, and of course paying more for a provider that does not require a credit check, which as it turns out is what we should have done at the start, and now we had to wait an additional 3 weeks to get it installed. Not even kidding, 3 freaking weeks when we already have a phone line? I am pretty sure all they had to do was push a button on their end and we would have internet. So...we waited.

          Our home has been another thing, I don't think the previous tenant actually cleaned the place, and repairs clearly have not been made in a while. We found out our fridge was broken so had to go a whole week without it until they brought a new one, this time luckily it came with a freezer because I am not sure how anyone would live without one of those. The garden had to to be completely destructed it was full of weeds, spiders, and slugs. One of the hobs on the oven doesn't work and instead of fixing it they put a little sticker on it telling us it doesn't work, our stair railing has fallen off, the last tenants items were left in the cellar for us to deal with. The water does not come out of the shower right, there are cracks in the walls and stains on the carpets, and the painting is the sloppiest thing I have ever seen...they just painted without caring where it ended up, its on the floor, the light switches, everything. In America there is certainly a different level of respect and diligence in keeping up with home cleanliness and repairs.

          It sounds bad, but it isn't all that bad. There are upsides...for instance, Trevor gets the day off pretty much whenever he needs it...we have free health-care...and we never really have to see our landlords because they pretty much just leave you alone. I would rather fix it myself than have someone at our house fixing things all the time. When I think about it, it's kind of rare that I liked a landlord in the U.S. so I guess there hasn't been that much difference here.

          In summary our first few weeks were quite hard...we had no idea it would be this difficult to move to another Country. I kind of just assumed the hardest parts were over because we had gotten the visa, and somehow managed to get all our luggage over here, which was clearly not the case. Thankfully, things are getting to a point were they are beginning to run much more smoothly...we have our necessities taken care of, our home renovation projects are almost complete, and we can now officially say we have a dinning table to eat on. I know where to get groceries, as they have an Aldi's here!!! That makes us really happy, we love cheap food.  I am getting more familiar with the town and what stores to go to in order to find something, as they don't have anything like a Wal-mart superstore. It's all a learning experience, yes I get a little annoyed and emotional about all the challenges sometimes, but then I make my self step back and realize that this is why we are here, and the harder the challenge the more you realize you are growing and learning.  I can't help but think if I have struggled as much as I have moving to a culture fairly similar to my own, I cannot imagine how the other international students feel. I have so much respect for them, for example I met a girl from China who goes to my school, she had to look up words on her translator to communicate effectively with me, but somehow it was the most refreshing conversation I had in my first few weeks here. Why? Because I understood what it was like to work really hard to find the words that everyone here is familiar with, while trying to mask my accent to the best of my ability to make it as clear as possible. I remember being at UW River Falls with the international students, and some individuals who speak English as their first language would complain that the Foreign Exchange Students would form their own group and speak their own language because they are stuck up and/or were saying bad things about you. I disagree with this completely and finally have an answer as to why they did it. It's because the familiarity of what they have known for their entire lives comes back for a brief moment when they can speak to someone who shares the same words, accent, and dialect...it's a tremendous feeling of comfort like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. For example, there is an American Professor at Trevor's campus, and I could talk to that women all day because she gets it. She knows what I am saying if I say band-aids and she can help me translate it to the English version which is plasters, so she knows exactly what I am going through. It's not because I like Americans more than the English, it's because I want to have a conversation where I don't have to plan out what I am going to say and everything just naturally falls into place.

          These last few weeks have been our challenges and our successes. While we really did learn a lot, we are glad the first few weeks are over. We are now hoping to transition into a more stress free life.

Here are some of the pictures of the home projects that we have been working on.

This was the first project we took on because we really enjoy having a living space.  We did a lot of work to this room, we tiled around the fireplace, painted that wall as a Mocha colored accent, had the tv mounted, and bought that area rug to bring the room together.  We still have to buy some mini trunking to hide the tv cords, and re-upholster what turned out to be our ugly purple couches.

This is our new master bedroom, it still needs some work, but we painted that wall a nice teal/turquoise color, added a Chinese symbol that stands for Love, we bought new curtains but they have not arrived in the mail yet.  We still need to add some accent pillows and a couple decorations but it's looking a lot better than before.  And of course Nova wanted to be in the photo...he is such a goofball, my next blog is going to have to be about that little boy.