Date: Tuesday, November 16, 1999 20:37 Subject: we've moved! Hey, Okay, we've moved. Yesterday we packed in the morning, rented a big van and tore around Berlin in the afternoon - stressful, as I've not driven a big, wide Mercedes diesel van before, especially not in Germany - and unpacked all evening. It's amazing how quickly our possessions mushroomed from a tightly-packed station wagon to a loosely-packed van, with the acquisition of a few scrounged bits of furniture. Everybody has the new phone number, right? It's going to be a lot of work, our new place. A bit more than I expected. Lots of cleaning and organizing. There are smells to cope with, an unpleasant mixture of paint dust, art supplies and cigarettes. We open the windows all afternoon - when the temperature is above freezing, which it hasn't been too often lately - and put air fresheners everywhere, but I think only time will cure the problem. I'm taking pictures, marking the stages of our progress. In the end, though, I think it will be worth it. This is an interesting place with a lot of potential, quite big, relatively cheap and very quiet. Vita dealt with the move. She wasn't too happy, but seems to be enjoying her new digs, when she's not skulking about giving us suspicious looks. She has a long hall to run up and down and many places to hide. It's a huge amount of work, though, exploring and sniffing a place this big, with this many nooks and crannies. She's exhausted. It will be weeks before she's finished. Last night she managed to go up and down the ladder to the storage loft in the bedroom, all by herself, without being rescued. The descent is basically a controlled fall, quite loud on impact. Much to do, much to do. I should get back to it - Annette's at a Christa Wolf reading tonight and if I haven't at least moved a few boxes by the time she returns, there'll be hell to pay. Regards, Scott