Normal-sized garbage cans

It has finally cooled down enough to sleep by 5am tonight, which, of course explains why I've woken up now. Apart from my nightly bathroom jaunt (the bladder is still having much in common with that of a hamster's), I woke up to both the pupper and the baby moving about. Maybe they are both dreaming hard. From the dog I hear thwapping, and paws on cloth moving in strange rhythms - perhaps she's just circumnavigating the new apartment in her head. It has a round-track feature, from one room to balcony to another room back to first room which both the dog and B's toddler had fun with yesterday. I also learned that recently-learned-to-walk kids can navigate little steps down in floor height and large doorway speedbumps. So the dog is dreaming up a storm, probably also happy that it is cool air coming in the window finally.

It's a dry heat here, too. Just like in Arizona. But there are no air-conditioners or swamp coolers in the apartments. Just fans. Which makes a block of 86 F days pretty oppressive towards the late afternoon. I think both the pupper and I got a little too much joy out of the air-conditioned tram ride home. Luckily, most buildings are also build with thick walls, so the heat inside can be kept down with open nighttime windows and then closing them during the day.

Now the dog is back to just gently snoring, and the baby seems to have quieted down, too. At the same time the dog was dreaming, the baby was doing the same. Or, I thought, showing me what it felt like to be inside a person who was moving so much yesterday. "See? You went here, then there, then turned around, the unpacked on dish at a time and brought it to the table....you walked, like, 2 miles in that apartment!" My other guess is that the kid is just rearranging womb furniture, because there is motion everywhere.

Two other things I actually learned yesterday.

First, how unhelpful the old trams must be for a baby carriage. They have stairs to get up to the seating area, and especially at rush hour there is no elegant way to get in them. I think people do help you, but having a suitcase, two bags and the dog was not an easy load on the older trams. Funny how B had just told me something like this about baby carriages about 5 days ago, and it only really sank in as I was contemplating hauling the overstuffed rolling suitcase up 2 narrow stairs. Always good to get a reminder about how crucial experience actually is to learning. If it isn't personally relevant, it isn't as much of a lesson. This is a good thing to remember when working on teacher training.

The second thing I learned was how big things are in America. Overall, I was fairly happy with what we chose to bring with us (yesterday was the first time in 5 months I'd seen most of our shipped stuff) - the matress, the dining table, a mess-load of kitchen things....and I'd thought we'd need to buy a strainer. Ha! But some things were just comical, especially as the movers helped unpack the boxes. The boxsprings won the "are you kidding me?" competition, since they use bed frames with or without springy support here. And then you get underbed storage. Oops. And then the garbage cans. Yes, I brought garbage cans. And a broom and old dust pan which actually came in very useful after the unpacking of shredded paper and china. But the garbage cans almost physically screamed "we use lots of things and throw even more away, if you can believe it!!!!" I think that is their American-ness coming through. The one I packed for the bedroom is huge by Swiss standards. Granted, some of what they sell here could only hold two clean tissues, or one used tissue, but mostly there are 17 L. bathroom bags and 35 L. kitchen bags which are about $1 per bag to convince you to throw out less. Mission accomplished.

One more day of movers today. Given the garbage discussion above, the option of "movers unpack and take packing material with them to throw out" is a special treat here. You feel like you've just won a big prize. I intend to keep winning today.