It's been a little over a week now since we moved half way around the world. It's been a busy week, but good. We also had my daughter's birthday party and celebrated Christmas this week. We are over jet lag (or just about over it!) and have spent lots and lots of time outside (I thought we would). We started a routine of going for a walk/run in the morning, working in the yard for an hour or two, and then going somewhere (the park, the beach, running errands, etc...) in the afternoon. Of course when we start homeschooling our schedule will change a little bit. There's lots of gardening to do and a big greenhouse to fix. I've LOVED being able to garden so much (Charlie and the kids too!). Some things we have been amazed at and have had a bit of culture shock so far is:
-How much sky we see every day. Without having any big buildings around us, it's bene great to see so much sky.
-How beautiful this part of the world is. We regularly see the ocean, the mountains, fields of green grass (with sheep and cows), and beautiful clouds and sunsets.
-Getting outside so much and not having to worry about the smog.
-How much sugary foods and packaged foods there are here. The other day I went to the grocery store and was surprised to see "vegetables" on the top of the aisle in the middle of the store. Normally vegetables are in the produce section on the side of the store. Then I realized: it's canned vegetables! For the sweets, part of it is because it's Christmas. We've had to limit how much our kids have so we don't go crazy on sugar. We want to keep our healthy eating habits as much as we can.
-One of the biggest things we miss is our own kitchen and cooking so much from scratch. I miss my rolling pin, my wish, my bowls, my bread pan, my oven, my kitchen knife (we ended up buying a new one here...it seems that many people who move here from China also buy a Chinese kitchen knife because they are so used to working with it), porridge (we had porridge in the morning almost every day in China).
-Having to drive almost everywhere- not much is in walking distance.
Our room is more organized. We finally have a bookshelf, which is huge! We are hoping to convert half of a shed into a homeschool/ office/ music room (we bought a saxophone for my oldest son to learn to play, a guitar for Charlie, and a drum pad for Charlie to practice drumming on) but have to wait until all the boxes and stuff that are inside it can be sorted and moved out.
I hope you have a great Christmas. The pictures below are from a beach that's about a 15 minute drive away. It's beautiful!
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