With the arrival of the cable guy today, and the phone, internet, and tv connection he brought with him, we’re finally feeling settled. Nearly all of the boxes are tucked away in the attic or ready to be recycled, and our furniture is probably where it will stay. We’ve been steadily unpacking, putting things away, and beginning to get our Rochester bearings over the past week.
The last-minute re-scheduling of our move worked out in our favor; we picked up the truck one day and didn’t have to move out until the next day, which was lucky, as it would have been a very long day, otherwise. After getting the truck in New Haven and picking up our items at IKEA, we headed home for the move. After packing all of our stuff in the truck the next morning, with the help of Dimo and Julian, our friendly movers, we took off and drove six and a half hours to Rochester. We arrived just as the sun was setting (and just as my iPod battery died, after over a hundred songs on random), and we parked the truck behind the house. Phew. 
The first night, we slept on a sleeping bag on the floor – not completely uncomfortable – and looked around our great new place. The next morning at nine a.m., we started on our third consecutive day of moving. What took three hours to move out and pack in a truck only took two hours to move up to our second floor apartment, and by 11:30, we could take the truck back – hooray, no accidents! – and begin the great unpacking.
As the weekend approached, we counted ourselves very lucky in our timing, as we heard about the Park Avenue Summer Art Fest, the 29th annual weekend-long celebration that opened up, literally, on our doorstep. We enjoyed the food and the booths (crazy lawn art, lots of personalized crap) and the amazing people-watching. We also couldn’t move the car out of our spot for two days, and it would have been totally impossible to move in that weekend.
Due to the heat and our moving-induced exhaustion, we’ve already been to four or five movies at at the multiplex, the Little, and the Dryden, my new home for the next year. I ran into some people from school, and I might head in to check things out later on this week. We’ve got a few more theaters to check out in the area; I think I’ll be just fine without Netflix this year.
We also visited the Rochester Museum & Science Center, where we took in lots of interesting hands-on exhibits as well as some informative Rochester history. There’s still a lot to learn, for sure.
Now that we’ve moved in, we have to take off again, to New York for a wedding this weekend, and then to Seattle on Tuesday to fetch my new old car and drive it back through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and so forth. Aimee has been busy getting her classroom ready for the start of school in early September, and it’s all starting to sink in: we’re here, we’re excited, and we’re ready to explore our new home.
