Our house

Well, it's been fairly busy for the last couple of weeks, hence no updates. We had a long weekend in San Francisco (the joy of being 15 minutes away from an airport), then last Monday all our stuff arrived and I've been unpacking it ever since. This means the house is not exactly tidy but I did have the foresight to take a few photos, and here they are.

Front room upstairs

Breakfast bar

Kitchen (with Ozzy)

Garden (with Patrick) - it isn't quite so green now of course

Basement

Lamb's Canyon

So one thing we've started doing is going hiking. Just short hikes, lasting a couple of hours, and not over particularly difficult terrain because I'm not totally acclimatised yet and it's very easy to get out of breath. It's a really nice way to see the scenery. I've put a few photos up on Facebook but for non-FB people I thought I should put some here as well. These are from last Sunday on a hike up Lamb's Canyon. It was a lovely sunny day but as we got higher and higher there was more snow on the trail - I am very glad to have proper boots! It feels quite bizarre to be walking on snow in the sunshine - in October :) - but it does mean you can get some nice photos. I'm not sure how Blogger will format these but hopefully you can see them.

Driving

Today I went to the Drivers License office with the following documents:

An application form
My UK licence
My passport
My visa
My I-94
A rental agreement (proof of address 1)
A bank statement (proof of address 2)
My social security number

This was still not enough for me to be allowed to take a driving test. Immigration need time to verify my identity.

So I drove home.

Om nom nom

One of the things I like best about travelling is all the new food I get to eat. America is no exception. These are the new things I have had in the past week:

Kohlrabi (OK, so I could have had this in the UK but didn't)

Cheese curds (and now I want to try them prepared in the traditional manner - deep fried)

Chocolate granola (it's like Coco Pops for grown ups)

I have also become a massive fan of all things buffalo-flavoured. Not the animal, the spicy vinegar sauce. Of course this is traditionally served with chicken wings, but you can also have it with breaded chicken, on pizza (have not persuaded Patrick to let me have this yet) and possibly best of all,  buffalo bleu Kettle Chips which combine both the spicy sauce and the blue cheese dip that usually accompanies it. Genius.

It is 1st October and I just put sunscreen on to walk to the local shop. I suspect that would not be the case in Cambridge.

However in Cambridge noone is worrying about the government just having shut down. I guess I'll be waiting a bit longer for an EAD and a driving licence.