Chicago, here we come!

Sorry for not blogging for so long. We had a few hectic days after the wedding, including a trip to Canada (which I hope the Sharons/Koesters will tell us all about!), followed by a long drive to Chicago (which was eventless), and then a couple of days to settle in. phew.

We arrived in Chicago late Wednesday afternoon, and received the keys for the apartment, and a cart with a jammed wheel, to move our stuff that was stuffed in the car to our home.
We skipped unpacking, and went on an exploratory trip westward, and came back with an awesome Xmas/wedding present – a cool high-def 32'' TV… thank you Mom&DadK, and Omer&Dikla&Dori!!! Ben couldn't wait, so we set it up that night, along with the DVD/surround sound system that we got for Xmas (Thanks Ron!!), and, by the way, also reads Israeli DVDs. Hurray!!

We slept really well on the air-mattress (thanks Moms&Dads!), undisturbed by the occasional hum of a train.

On Thursday, we went to work to start the paperwork, and continued to Skokie to get the rest of our stuff out of storage. We rented a truck, loaded it, and took it, half full, to the closest IKEA store. A few hours later, we loaded the truck with a stack of flat, specially designed, cardboard boxes. And a couch. Thanks to a couple of friends that gave us IKEA gift cards, Moms&Dads, Omer&Dix&Dori, Safta Sara, and, in fact, everybody – we were able to buy anything we wanted, and didn’t have to settle on anything. This was so much fun. The loading and unloading could have been easier if we had a few more big guys, but the two of us managed, in a couple of hours, to translate the contents of a medium-size truck to a small-size apartment.

We split forces on Friday, Ben went to work, and I stayed at home to build our furniture and start unpacking. My friend Birgit came for a while and we had some time to catch up, while putting things away…
The assembly of furniture spanned another day, and one by one the boxes became actual pieces of furniture. We emptied what we could out of the boxes of clothes, books, etc. into the apartment. But things being as they are, we don't have quite enough room for everything; we originally moved everything here assuming we would have about 200 more square feet of space than we do. Thus, some things will be sent back to their temporary home in Mom and Dad's basement.

And now, at last, we have a HOME.
Not just an apartment, it really feels like a HOME, for the first time since either of us left our parents' houses.

Going to bed now, we have an early start tomorrow (flying to Seattle early AM…), so good night to you all!