The Tale of the Marvelous Journey – Part 6: The New Job

Monday morning dawns well before we’re awake. 4:18 a.m. Not really, just a nod to the VBS skit…

But the sun was up well before we rose at 6 a.m. We all got dressed and loaded up into the van for the 55 minute ride to AWE. Steve thought it would be good for Mom to be with me on the way home to help navigate. Turns out he was right! We navigated right into the parking lot of another “hypermarket,” shopped for a while, got Starbucks and returned to the cottage. The trip back didn’t take nearly as long, since we discovered we had taken a crucial wrong exit on a roundabout on the way earlier.

The weather was cold today – rained all day. It was 14 degrees C – about 57 or 58 F. Once back at the cottage with lunch in our tummies, I let the kids put on their new raincoats and rainboots and go outside and play in the rain. Because it was rainy, we had to hang all the wet clothes from the washer/dryer inside since the /dryer of the washer/dryer didn’t work all that well.

After we went and got Steve and returned to the cottage, the kids discovered the critters that were leaving all of the “she shells” in the side garden: snails! We had been telling them for a few days that the shells weren’t sea shells, but they kept insisting they were. Even after they saw 2 dozen snails of all sizes and colors, they kept calling the shells “she shells.” They got a kick out of finding the snails.

Steve’s first day at work was … he’s trying to remember. I’m actually writing this on the Sunday following his first week. He ate fish in the cantina the first day, chili and rice later in the week, and ate at a pub one day. He shares an office with a chap named Rob who was at Lawrence Livermore Lab in San Francisco for 3 months. So Rob understands the culture tremors (as opposed to full-blown shock) we’re experiencing. He and Richard, another co-worker, have been so great about giving Steve hints and tips about different aspects of life here.

One such tip was an alternate route to AWE from the cottage. We went the opposite direction (W instead of E) before we turned south. This took us over a tiny toll bridge. We paid 20p (pence) to cross, but it ended up cutting about 20 minutes off our time to AWE. It was awesome!

On the way home, Mom and the kids and I located the house in Tilehurst. Well, we located the street. I think the house is on the uphill end of the street based on the picture I saw on the internet. Even though the picture was of the back of the house, I saw that only 2 houses on the street had this style of architecture. The 2 nicest houses on the street, thankfully. We’ll know tomorrow when we get in! I told Mom to bite her tongue when she said that the other houses on our street reminded her of some of the duplexes and quads in Los Alamos.

Next installment: The Easiest Move We Ever Made – Except Not