Has it already been a week?

Let’s review the latest happenings.
Eight days ago we arrived in our new house having passed through customs without so much as a long glance. We spent the first night on the floor, and then slept in hotels until our mattress and other household goods arrived on Tuesday the 19th. We have been painting furiously, although it amounts to two rooms, they each required several coats of primer and two coats of pain in order to cover the colors that were there previously. We have unpacked kitchen stuff and are finally cooking instead of eating out, and the horses arrived on Wednesday the 20th and seem to have settled in to the new routine. Since we are new in town, we have established our electrical service, a new bank, received our Social Insurance Number (i.e. Social Security Number) and been treated to lobster for four separate meals.

So what is left to accomplish?
We have our internet coming to be set up in three days. Currently we are poaching the internet form our neighbors across the street that thankfully have a G-band wireless router that is unsecured, and an unobstructed view of their house. We still need to get Nancy set up with cellular service, and the hospital has been kind enough to supply me with my service (although I do not yet have my permanent number). I still need to apply for my malpractice insurance through the medical society and I have yet to receive my billing number from the government (although I am told it will be ready by Monday). There is some cleaning up from Texas that still has to happen, specifically I need to contact the state medical board and let them know that I have moved (same with the drug enforcement agency and with Medicare). That will pretty much clean up the loose ends from the states, and we will be free and clear professionally to jump into work here.

What are the differences?
Prices are higher for some things, lower for others. For example, in Texas it cost roughly $100 to fill up the Suburban if it was below a quarter tank. It costs more like $125 to accomplish the same task here. The costs for soda are marked up about the same amount, as are some other staple food items. The biggest differences that we are seeing at this point are the people. Things here move at a slower pace than they did back in Texas, and it feels like that mythical place called Mayberry RFD. People do not lock their houses, they leave their keys in the car at the store, and think nothing of letting their kids run around the neighborhood playing all day.

More people are walking or biking, especially in the small towns where it appears that everyone walks to lunch or to run their errands when they are at work. The tellers at the bank already know our names, and when we go in we do not have to have the deposit/withdrawal slip already completed, they do all of this for us while chatting about the latest news from around the town. We run into people we already have gotten to know when we go to the local store so every trip turns into a social visit.

Litter does not exist as far as I can see. There is no rubbish on the sides of the streets, no junk in people’s yards, no plastic grocery bags floating down the streets. People seem to take a great deal of pride in their yards which are al neat, tidy and full of flowers. The same holds true for the local parks and green spaces. They all look as if they have been freshly planted and mowed, and rarely do we pass the local cemeteries without seeing at least one that is being mowed and clipped. Speaking of which, every little church has its own local cemetery, if not right next door, then usually only one or two lots down. The churches themselves are an entire blog entry and once I have some photos of them I will be writing about them in depth.

Grammatical oddities……
Civic address= home address
Hydro= Electricity as in hydroelectric
You people= Ya’ll
Never hear tell of it = I haven’t every heard of it
Dairy Mart = Ice cream shop
Licensed (sign in restaurant window) = they can serve liquor
With the Works = indicated that the meal comes with brown gravy and peas
I will try to post more of these differences as they become known to me through my work as I am sure they will once I am in the clinic.
Finally, once the internet is up and running full time, I will post some photos from the house, and the surrounding area for all to see. Also, I hope to set up a web camera that will provide some real time glances out our front window so you can get a sense of what the weather is like and how the apple trees are doing. Remember we are two hours ahead of you time wise so you will want to look at the live photos before the sun sets out here.