Already tired again and its only a little before 5 pm, my time. We went with our handyman friend to the equivalent of a Home Depot and bought all kinds of things for the house we're renting. My favorite items were the area rugs for our kitchen, since they are very colorful with a nice pattern. When our stuff arrives by shipment, we'll have many more of our own belongings to add. Not everything we shipped will be used, though. Overall, wall space is less in our new home. It wouldn't be, but some walls have long radiators that prevent furniture from being put in front of them. In NJ, we had central air. The saddest thing we won't be able to use is my dining room table. It just doesn't fit in our new kitchen, though the kitchen itself is superior to my old one. The new one doesn't have a dining room, like our old one.

The handymen never want to accept meals from us, so we've resorted to basically forcing food on them. We even had my sister-in-law call the handyman (she knows him well) to insist he accept food. I know this sounds strange, but in my new country it is often customary that people will refuse things they really want. It's sort of like you need to beg them to have something they deep down want. In the US, or at least where I'm from, that's not so customary. If you offer something to a person and they say no, that's usually the end of the matter. It's an odd situation when we do push stuff on them, it is basically eaten up as quickly as my old parrot shelled and ate pistachios. Lightening fast!