Date: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 20:35 Subject: after 48 hours, it's beginning to feel like home Folks, It snowed today, wet snow that didn't stick, but a clear indication of winter to come. The temperature hovered around freezing. We tried not to leave the apartment, but eventually Annette tricked me into going out alone for groceries. Otherwise, more domestic labour. Today we cleaned and reorganized the "office" room; yesterday we did the "living" room. It all looks a bit peculiar - grey floors with sloppily-painted white furniture everywhere and random bits of art on (or piled against) the walls - but it will work quite well for us, I think. After 48 hours of open windows, air freshener, much mopping, scrubbing and washing, and of course acclimatization, most of the smells are gone. There's a particular odour that I associate with older European apartments, which is what I've lived in almost exclusively when I've been over here. It's a dank, musty, chalky smell, a century's worth of dampness and cigarette smoke. But you can eventually get rid of it. I realized that much as we liked the theory of a rough-and-ready studio space, the reality was a bit of a shock. We have become accustomed to clean, modern, very finished apartments. This is quite different, though it's comfortable, livable and quite practical. (Permanently dirty-looking floors will hopefully cure me of my manic sweeping compulsion.) The bedroom is a very comfortable little alcove. After a long day cleaning, we both curled up on the bed with novels and cat for a few hours. Vita is developing a reliable technique for climbing and descending the stairs - more of a ladder, really - to and from the bedroom storage loft. It's quite comical. She likes it here, we've ascertained from her frequent smug looks. Today she explored the stairwell for a while, then returned for a nap. In the spring there's a little flower box platform outside one of the windows that we'll enclose with netting to make a cat balcony. We're basically done with the major work on the apartment, the only big job remaining is to install this weird portable countertop dishwasher we picked up from friends, once we've either replaced or fixed the malfunctioning washing machine. It's an odd thing about living over here, this business of bringing your appliances with you when you move. Once that's finished, we need to wire up the computers (a long cable to the apartment's only phone jack; network cards for the two computers so that we can share the printer and CD drive) in the office, reorganize the kitchen, and generally do the million and one little things that need to be done to make a place a semi-permanent home. Next week life will return to normal: my klap blades arrived so I can finally start skating on the ice oval; some freelance work should hopefully appear; we'll go deal with our residence permits at some hideous office. After that, we're free to begin exploring our new neighbourhood (as Turkish as it is German, which suits us just fine) and doing a little Berlin tourism. We've become night owls all of sudden, now that neither of us has any particular reason to be up before nine. Last night we were waiting for a phone call from Oregon - another short list for the ever-popular Annette - until well past two (the call didn't come because somehow the damn phone was accidentally disconnected when I plugged in the modem cable). I'd like to return to a normal sleep schedule soon. Dinner awaits - Annette is cooking with P, discussing the pros and cons of marriage while I seek refuge elsewhere. Regards, Scott