Making Ourselves at Home

Well, needless to say, it is pretty wonderful to be back in our home country. Europe was fantastic and I miss it already, but there's really no place like home. Everyone speaks English! We can see our families and friends. Stores are open late, at lunchtime, and on Sundays. We can eat out whenever we're ready - not only within the hours of 12-2 for lunch and 7-10 for dinner. There is delicious and cheap food everywhere.There are screens on the windows. We can pet our kitties and use our old stuff. We have been looking forward to these things for a long time! So, it's good.


God bless America and its huge, gleaming grocery stores! You should have seen our glee during our first visit to Haagen.

It's fun to see what has changed and what hasn't during our three-year absence. Meier & Frank is now Macy's, G.I. Joe's is now Joe's, and it looks like Tracy Barry has had some work done. Washington Square has also had quite a makeover and there are many new shops and restaurants in our neighborhood. But everything else seems about the same, which is nice. We have new appreciation for typically American things like the wide availability of health food, big buttons at crosswalks, and giant parking lots. We're still trying to get used to how much people insist on trying to helping us in shops.

Ants in the Pants

Our flight from Amsterdam was on Northwest Airlines. It was smooth and as pleasant as can be expected in economy seats, but unfortunately it began with almost three hours sitting at the gate because they had to replace a part. Then the 10-hour flight itself seemed like forever. We did have individual video screens with on-demand movies, which helped. I might have dozed a little during Kung Fu Panda, but mostly we didn't sleep on the plane since it was midday. Both moms met us at the airport, which was great.

It's been less than two weeks since we landed, but things have been moving very fast. We stayed with David's parents for the first few days, which was wonderful. It was really nice to see them and be in a family home, plus they have a great place! We had anticipated staying with them (and probably also my parents' place later) for maybe a month after our arrival. We were going to take things slow, rest, and save some money before putting down roots.

Well, so much for that idea! We spent a couple relaxing days recovering from jet lag and the cold I'd caught on the plane, but soon we realized that no matter how nice a house might be and how delightful the hosts, we were done living out of a suitcase. We wanted to unpack, put our own food in our own pantry, and start clearing out the storage unit we'd left behind. And I wanted to get back to work, which requires setting up a desktop computer and locating a bunch of books.

New Home

So, we had arrived on Wednesday, David's parents left for the beach on Friday, and by the time they returned on Sunday we'd moved out and into our own apartment! It's in a new apartment complex near Orenco Station, which is in Hillsboro not far from our previous place.


View from our window to similar units across the way.

We have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a modern kitchen, a balcony, and a big central living space (with air conditioning!) for a rent that seems like almost nothing after paying for European hotels for so long. The location is good - Starbucks and a natural foods store are across the street and we got to see some of the Oregon International Airshow from our balcony!


Another view from our window - this is supposed to become a swimming pool and lawn by around October.

Since then our days have been mighty busy - mainly moving our old stuff out of our storage unit and a spare room at my dad's house into our new place and making multiple trips to Fred Meyer and Costco for various household items, along with several social engagements with family and a little bit of work on my websites when I can. And we've been revisiting many of our favorite shops and restaurants, of course, particularly Chipotle, Muchas Gracias, Burgerville, Red Robin, REI and Banana Republic! Tonight we plan to reacquaint ourselves with the natural-cut fries at McMenamins.

Our apartment is still mostly filled with boxes and our living room furniture consists of two (surprisingly comfortable) lawn chairs from Joe's that work great for watching the Olympics. Last week we went couch shopping, which is something neither of us has done before. We settled on a dark brown sofa and light green chair from Macy's, which will be delivered on Wednesday.

New Car

As for wheels, we were able to borrow a couple of cars from David's parents at first, which was great and really nice of them. Especially since his mom drives a little BMW convertible! Was that ever fun. Then we drove a U-Haul for a few days while we did the most intensive moving. And last week, we bought a car! Well, leased one for three years. Again, it seems like a remarkable deal especially compared to what we had been paying in Europe.



It's a Honda Ridgeline, which on first sight I said was ugly and "not a truck", but it grew on me. And David loves it, because it has everything he needs for hunting and camping as well as safe and comfortable everyday driving. It really does have a lot of great features, including good gas mileage for a truck, and it's quite nice to ride in.

If you can believe it, I had not driven a car in almost three years - the entire time we were overseas! The main reason is that I don't really drive a manual, which most European cars are. I've been taught several times but never practiced much, so it's not all that smooth or enjoyable for me or a passenger. But also, David likes to drive and he's very good at it so we just got into the habit of him as driver and me as passenger, and it worked well.

My first time back behind the wheel was last week, after we bought the truck - I drove our borrowed '97 Pontiac Sunbird (automatic) home from the dealership. It was like riding a bike, of course, but felt a little weird after so long!

If things are going well financially a few months from now, we'll probably buy "my" car, which will be a smaller one. I'm looking forward to that! :) I still have my beloved truck but unfortunately it's in terrible shape, especially after sitting neglected for three years. I will probably have to get rid of it soon. :(

New Life

So - what's next for us? Well, first it will be another couple weeks before we're fully settled in our new apartment and our new life. Many more boxes need to be moved and unpacked, a few more things need to be bought, and more people need to be visited.

But sometime after that, David will start looking for a job and I'll hopefully settle into the regular routine I've been looking forward to for years - lots of reading, lots of work on my websites, lots more cooking and lots more working out. As you can imagine based on the blog, I have thousands of pictures of Europe to organize, caption and post to Sacred Destinations! I can't wait to get started. We also look forward to taking some small trips around Oregon soon to feed our travel bug, with longer trips to follow before too long.

Our apartment lease is only for six months, so it won't be long before we'll be starting the serious house hunt as well. We're not sure where we want to live exactly, but it is highly likely to be in Oregon or Washington.

I still plan to keep this blog updated, but probably only once or twice a month on average. I'm so glad I kept a record of our magnificent adventure overseas, but I'm really looking forward to not having so much "homework" anymore. :) I will post some pictures of our apartment when it's presentable.

The main reason this post isn't more photo-heavy is because I left my camera in our Amsterdam hotel! Arggh! After being so responsible for so long, I blew it on the last day. I blame the space-saving drawers under the bed in that wacky hotel room, which is where I left it. Good news, though - the housekeepers turned it in and the hotel's manager has promised to send it to us! So hopefully it will turn up in the mail sometime.

Below is our new address and our new phone numbers, which you can now find on the right side of this blog page as well. Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch with us and supporting us while we were away!

1195 NE Orenco Station Parkway #B215
Hillsboro, OR 97124

David e-mail: djoyal@gmail.com
Holly e-mail: holly.joyal@gmail.com

David cell phone: 503-866-0641
Holly cell phone: 503-866-0538