Sterre relocates

[sterre]

Best of luck on the move! So excited!

 

Thanks! I'm also pretty excited, in a super tired sort of way.

 

Glad you got packed up, safe travels.

 

Thanks! Getting packed yesterday definitely helped make today go better, even if it was still pretty busy.

 

Sounds like a super busy day. Good luck with the move, safe travels!

 

Thanks!

[sterre]

Week 1, Day 3

 

Today was a sprint to the finish for sure. Apparently we'd forgotten how many extra boxes and plastic bags we'd acquired and kept in the last two years (even though we try to avoid getting plastic bags). The people who were saying how they wanted so much stuff didn't show either so we ended up having to throw away much more than we'd planned on, which was sad. Anyway, it's done, we're at a hotel near the airport and all we have to do tomorrow is put some money in my bank account (my partner's bank card doesn't work overseas, but mine does) and exchange some cash.  Oh, and cancel our internet since the stupid company has the worst customer service ever.

 

I'm also going to have to put off checking the rest of the forum until tomorrow, I'm too beat to do much else.

 

Quest 1: Yoga

Did some yoga for a good night's sleep. It was good, but my left leg is definitely pretty sore. (2/5 yoga sessions this week)

 

Quest 2: Moving around

Again, a lot of walking and a lot of stairs. (3/7 walks or runs this week)

 

Quest 3: Vegan day

Also not vegan day. I definitely started the day with some cheese (or "cheese", more likely, I'm never sure).

 

Life Quest: Take care of business

So this is what we did:

• Mailed gifts to family
• Paid taxes
• Got rid of everything
• Wrote the inventory list, scanned it and sent it to the company
• Turned in keys
• Booked hotel
• Checked in for flights and purchased extra bag

Maybe there was some more stuff. I don't know. I think it's time to sleep so I can wake up early, eat some breakfast and head over to the airport (which is actually not daunting at all since I can look out the window and see the airport if I wanted to and there's a nice shuttle). We have to pick up the bags we had delivered, reorganize our luggage a bit (we discovered a few things that need to be brought as we were cleaning up) and take care of a few things, but otherwise it shouldn't be too bad of a day.

 

I also realized that if I don't sleep on the flight, it's basically okay since we're chasing the sun. I'm so used to flying from Japan to Canada and totally reversing my schedule. Granted, for how little sleep we've had the past few days...

[Briniel]

Wow, that sounds super busy. I hope everything goes well tomorrow, you have a save flight and a good start in Edinburgh. I'm super excited for you and wish you all the best! Take your time getting comfortable over there, we'll still be here whenever you have time for NF again

[SpecialSundae]

Best of luck with the flight! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help when you arrive!

[sterre]

Well, I definitely woke up way before my alarm. Probably a bit of nerves and a bit because I'm sort of hungry, but I've tried to make the best of it once I gave up on sleeping and I got my yoga for the day in already and made myself a bit of tea.

 

Wow, that sounds super busy. I hope everything goes well tomorrow, you have a save flight and a good start in Edinburgh. I'm super excited for you and wish you all the best! Take your time getting comfortable over there, we'll still be here whenever you have time for NF again

 

Thank you! I think things should get much less busy when we've arrived... hopefully anyway. At least the deadlines for things we have to do when we arrive aren't quite so harsh. So I should have much more time soon (though more of it will be occupied with sleeping).

 

Best of luck with the flight! Let me know if there is anything I can do to help when you arrive!

 

Thank you! I'll definitely let you know if we need any help. We might be okay, the owner (or manger) of the apartment where we're staying sent us a long email telling us where a bunch of things are (and that apparently there are delivery services for groceries!!) so we might be reasonably okay, but I'll have a much better idea when we get there, I think.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I'm very excited for you, let me know when you find a haggis restaurant. 

[sterre]

I'm very excited for you, let me know when you find a haggis restaurant. 

 

I suspect there aren't restaurants that only sell haggis. They'd probably have to sell other things too.

 

Anyway, we arrived safely (though I realized after landing in Edinburgh that I'd left my scarf on the plane in London ), got a little settled in to our flat, found a falafel place, found the local Tesco, bought some bagels (because Japan barely believes in bagels), some Innis & Gunn (delicious tasty beer) and have decided to take it a bit easy tonight, even if we're going to try to stay up until some hour that's reasonable for this timezone.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Glad you made it safe. Sorry about the scarf. I was going to make a smart aleck comment about how there are probably scarves on sale in Scotland but then I thought "What if this is some super special Japan scarf?" so I edited.

[sterre]

Glad you made it safe. Sorry about the scarf. I was going to make a smart aleck comment about how there are probably scarves on sale in Scotland but then I thought "What if this is some super special Japan scarf?" so I edited.

 

Oh, no. It was a pretty normal scarf, I think a gift from my mother-in-law, but she gave me at least two scarves in the same year. It was a nice scarf and I missed it a little tonight because it was the warmest scarf I brought with me to Japan, but it's not a huge deal. I have a box of scarves in Canada that I didn't bring because I didn't have room for them.

 

 

Now if it had been one that I'd knitted...

[JessOfAllTrades]

Glad you guys made it safely and are getting settled in.

[sterre]

Glad you guys made it safely and are getting settled in.

 

Thanks!

[sterre]

I realized that I hadn't done daily updates since day 3, so I figured it would be good to catch up now while I'm awake a bit early (I actually tried and failed to continue sleeping for a few hours... stupid time difference). Anyway...

 

Week 1, Day 4

 

This was a pretty good, if really long day. I woke up around 5 am in Japan because I was nervous about the flight. I did some yoga, had some tea and then waited for my partner to wake up so we could go have a nice buffet-style breakfast where I enjoyed my last helping of natto (fermented soy beans) and tamagoyaki with grated daikon (if you've had egg sushi, the egg part is tamagoyaki and daikon is a large white raddish, which is also depicted in the non-Japanese version of Super Mario 2 as one of the things you kill things with) for a while along with a bunch of other food because I was apparently super hungry.

 

Then we got to the airport, checked our bags, exchanged some money, got on one airplane for more than 12 hours, got off in the UK, got bumped through the customs line in Heathrow because our next flight was soon, ended up behind some Japanese couple who spent a long time arguing iced tea was totally for babies with the British security people (in Japan, the iced tea doesn't have sugar and people totally feed it to babies, but that doesn't mean you need to take it on a flight instead of just buying more tea) so as a result we ended up sprinting for our last flight and barely made it.
 

We had a nice cab ride (where the driver didn't use and GPS and was very chatty which are both quite different from Tokyo) to our flat, got in, put our stuff down a bit and then went out to look for a supermarket, got a bit lost, found a falafel place first, got falafel and new directions to the supermarket, found our way home and passed out pretty quickly because that was a long day.

 

Quest 1: Yoga

Got my yoga in first thing! I also did a few stretches on the first airplane, but nothing too serious. (3/5 yoga sessions this week)

 

Quest 2: Moving around

Apart from walking through airports, we probably spent at least an hour wandering around when we got to Edinburgh. (4/7 walks or runs this week)

 

Quest 3: Vegan day

Not vegan day. There was tamagoyaki and scrambled eggs at breakfast and vegetarian meals on the airplane. I'm pretty sure one of the falafel sauces also had yogurt in it.

 

Life Quest: Take care of business

It was a travel day, but we did get the following done:

• Exchange currency
• Find falafel

Week 1, Day 5

 

It was another busy day. We had to go to my partner's office (which turned out to be much further from our flat than we thought) so he could meet his supervisor in person and get his passport photocopied. Then we found a place that sells baked potatoes with vegan and vegetarian toppings (!!!) for lunch and got way too much food (my partner ordered a large sized potato, which turned out to be two really big potatoes and I got a medium, which was one really big potato and one smaller one... we're apparently used to the Japanese idea of "large") and went back to the flat to relax a bit. After that, we went to get our resident cards and wandered around the new town area, found an art gallery with free admission and went there for an hour until it closed, wandered around a bit more and came home. We had planned on going to a pub, but we were just too tired so we just ate dinner and went to bed. 

 

Quest 1: Yoga

I did not do any yoga. My partner wanted to get in to work in the morning and we were out most of the day. (3/5 yoga sessions this week)

 

Quest 2: Moving around

We basically walked all day. (5/7 walks or runs this week)

 

Quest 3: Vegan day

Also not vegan day. I wasn't too bad though, I had a bit of cheese a few times during the day and some milk in my tea.

 

Life Quest: Take care of business

Another productive day. We got our residence cards and found an additional power converter (there was one in the flat, but my partner needs one for work and we figured it would be a good idea to have one that we own).

[SpecialSundae]

Good news... Most museums and galleries in Edinburgh are free (and a huge proportion across Scotland).

The baked potato shop is awesome and a total Edinburgh institution. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how many vegetarian and vegan places there are (even most meat places have good vegetarian and vegan options). Edinburgh was recently voted the most vegan-friendly city in the UK.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Good to see you're still winning at goals even with traveling halfway across the globe.

[sterre]

Week 1, Day 6

 

Yesterday, I took things a bit easier. Instead of walking around all day, my partner and I met up with SpecialSundae for coffee, which turned into drinks at possibly the fanciest looking place I've ever had drinks, which turned into dinner at a yummy pizza place. It was a lot of fun.

 

Quest 1: Yoga

I slacked on the yoga a bit again. SpecialSundae gave me a mat though, so I don't have any excuses not to do it anymore. (3/5 yoga sessions this week)

 

Quest 2: Moving around

There was definitely some reasonable amount of walking, even if not as much as previous days. (6/7 walks or runs this week)

 

Quest 3: Vegan day

Also not vegan day. That means that day 7 will have to be it this week.

 

Life Quest: Take care of business

Got a yoga mat and started to look for a place to live.

[Briniel]

Glad the move went well so far! I'm also impressed on how much stuff you got done in addition to an 12 hour flight O_o Sorry to hear your partners work place is farther than you thought, long commutes suck. But you're going to move to a long-term place soon, right? So hopefully you'll find something closer then

[sterre]

Glad the move went well so far! I'm also impressed on how much stuff you got done in addition to an 12 hour flight O_o Sorry to hear your partners work place is farther than you thought, long commutes suck. But you're going to move to a long-term place soon, right? So hopefully you'll find something closer then

 

Yeah, hopefully soon we'll find a place. I contacted the only one sort of nearby that didn't explicitly say "no pets" and haven't heard back (but maybe they don't check emails on the weekend). I'll try some of the "no pets" people today to see if cats are okay (I'm hoping that "no pets" really means "no dogs" in many cases so I can bring my cat).

[Briniel]

Yeah, hopefully soon we'll find a place. I contacted the only one sort of nearby that didn't explicitly say "no pets" and haven't heard back (but maybe they don't check emails on the weekend). I'll try some of the "no pets" people today to see if cats are okay (I'm hoping that "no pets" really means "no dogs" in many cases so I can bring my cat).

Ugh, moving with pets is so hard. In Germany it's forbidden to generally forbid pets when renting, pets held in a cage are allowed all times and bigger ones need to be assessed on a case-to-case basis. Still, there are a lot of people writing "no pets" into their announces and will not rent their place to people with pets, regardless of the circumstances. And there's no way to get at them, because they can simply claim other reason's for not renting to you. Plus, who would want to start a new living arrangement on such a bad note (this is also why I wouldn't just leave out the info that I have cats, despite having the right to do so)? It really bothers me that there's a sensible rule in place but no way to enforce it.

[sterre]

Ugh, moving with pets is so hard. In Germany it's forbidden to generally forbid pets when renting, pets held in a cage are allowed all times and bigger ones need to be assessed on a case-to-case basis. Still, there are a lot of people writing "no pets" into their announces and will not rent their place to people with pets, regardless of the circumstances. And there's no way to get at them, because they can simply claim other reason's for not renting to you. Plus, who would want to start a new living arrangement on such a bad note (this is also why I wouldn't just leave out the info that I have cats, despite having the right to do so)? It really bothers me that there's a sensible rule in place but no way to enforce it.

 

Yeah, in Ontario, Canada, it's actually illegal for landlords to forbid pets unless you share living space with them. Some landlords will say "no pets", but that's not binding and you can do whatever unless your pet is disruptive (then you can be evicted the same as if you routinely made loud noises and kept heaps of smelly garbage around that disturbed your neighbours). That's just a provincial law though so some other provinces allow landlords to forbid pet ownership (iirc, they're not even required to make exceptions for service animals).

 

Granted, some cities have limits on the number and type of animals a person is allowed to keep at their home. So you might be limited to five dogs and seven cats (and no goats) by the city even if you owned the place, but that's basically to keep someone from starting a farm in the city or having so many animals that they disrupt their neighbours.

[sterre]

Oops, failed vegan day. We were heading for a bigger grocery store and saw a place that advertised veggie burgers. Since food shopping on an empty stomach is a recipe for disaster, we stopped in (they had two different kinds of veggie burgers!) and it turned out that the burgers came with sour cream by default.

 

Oh well, they were delicious burgers and I can try an extra vegan day in a later week. It's a bit hard to avoid getting excited about all the veggie options here.

[Gaming_Jeweler]

I have to say, all the food you've talked about sounds good. I'm not a vegetarian, but since getting pregnant I have found that I don't care much for meat. Would you mind pming me a couple of recipes to try?

[sterre]

I have to say, all the food you've talked about sounds good. I'm not a vegetarian, but since getting pregnant I have found that I don't care much for meat. Would you mind pming me a couple of recipes to try?

 

I could, though to be honest I don't usually use recipes too much and more often use the approach of "throw everything into a pot/frying pan until it becomes delicious". One of my favourite recipes that I actually basically follow is for Snobby Joes (except I usually use red lentils because I like it when they fall apart here). I'll try to dig up some others that I sort of follow.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Glad you got to meet up with some fellow nerds. Have fun in Scotland, say hi to Nessie for me if  you ever get to the lake country.

[sterre]

I'm glad that your flight went well! Great job so far, Sterre! 

 

Thanks!

 

Glad you got to meet up with some fellow nerds. Have fun in Scotland, say hi to Nessie for me if  you ever get to the lake country.

 

Out of curiosity, I had to look up where Loch Ness was. It turns out to be quite far away and only accessible by car. It looks like there's a fairly large national park nearby though, which is maybe worth a trip.

[sterre]

Week 1, Day 7

 

Well, I slacked a bit, but I did get out of the house and found the bigger Tesco near our place. I also replied to most of the ads for flats in the right price range and area so hopefully something will come of that.

 

Quest 1: Yoga

Instead of doing yoga, I played around on the computer until I was too tired to do yoga. (3/5 yoga sessions this week)

 

Quest 2: Moving around

I definitely got in a good walk. (7/7 walks or runs this week)

 

Quest 3: Vegan day

Vegan day fail. I got somewhat close though, the only non-vegan thing I had were the veggie burger toppings. We made a nice lentil soup for dinner and I didn't put milk in my coffee without thinking about it.

 

Life Quest: Take care of business

Looked for a place to live. I contacted most of the people dealing with flats in the right area and price range. I also heard back from one letting agency who have yet to contact me back (they had to relay one of my questions to the landlord). Hopefully I hear from them early enough and we can make an appointment to see the place some time this evening. 

 

Week 1 Recap

 

Quest 1: Yoga

So I slacked a bit on yoga toward the end of the week. I'll try to do better this week and maybe make up for the missed sessions. 3/5 yoga sessions this week (B )

 

Quest 2: Moving around

I went out for a walk every day. I didn't get any runs in, but getting out and moving/exploring is definitely important. I'll aim for a few runs this week.

7/7 walks or runs this week (A+)

 

Quest 3: Vegan day

I did not succeed at vegan day this week. I came close a few times and I'm definitely thinking about it, so that's somewhat good at least.

0/4 vegan days

 

Life Quest: Take care of business

So far I got 16/19 items done, which I think already puts me into the range of getting an A for the challenge because so many of the things had to be done before we left Japan. This week, I'll hopefully find a running route (in fact, I think I'll go out today since it's sunny for the first time since we arrived) and a place to live. I'll potentially add a few other things like getting a UK bank account and mobile phone to the list, but finding somewhere to live is definitely top priority.