Settling in

Okay, so it has been awhile since we added a post. The movers came 2 weeks ago, the same morning as the comcast guys. It was a bit crazy, but it all got set. Only 2 things were broken, and my car is quite scratched, but nothing missing. It was interesting trying to decide how ot unpack, as we had very little storage bins or furniture! We drove to Boston that weekend to go to Ikea. As it was a tax holiday, ads claimed Massachusetts to be New Hampshire for the weekend! Between the tax break and the college shoppers, it took us 4.5 hours and Ikea was out of some things. We saw familiar faces, meeting the Knutson and stopping by the Dougherty's (my Grandma et al.). We were happy to get to watch Olympics on a real TV (not poor Internet - sometimes it would skip over the most important parts) and organize all week. We spent the next weekend apart, with Brian at his 10 year High School reunion (he is so old) and me at my Grandma's and cousin Mary's. I went back to Ikea, and there were out of more stuff! But we are making good use of our gift cards on these trips.

Brian became an official resident, with driver's licence and all, but I could not get one until I changed my Social Security. This made me really excited, as I had spent hours at Social Security in TN, only to be told to change my licence first! Needless to say, I was ecstatic there was no wait at Social Security in NH, and am now officially Estrada. The Driver's license window in our town is only open a few days a week!

Oh, New England style hot dog bun are split on top. Wayyy better than normal.
We are debating whether we should join the co-op. It is pretty neat, like a tiny Whole Foods with very organic products, then a few mainstream items. I guess I thought it would be just for farmers, but we stopped by the Producer's Fair, and the stuff is good.

We went to the Lebanon Opera the day our stuff arrived. We saw the Magic Flute, by Mozart, and it took me awhile to see the English text. I was wondering why everyone was laughing at the German jokes. It was hard to decide what to wear to an event like that in a small town. The guy in front of me was definitely from the farm, with a clean checkered shirt and suspenders! Who knew there would be something like that in a small town, not associated with the college.

I had a meeting with the head of Primary Care Pediatrics at Dartmouth Hospital today. They are looking for a research nurse or NP, and may hire a clinical PNP soon. Let me know if you have experience in clinical research!

We have met some of our neighbors, mostly the elderly ones, but have not had too much opportunity to make friends, so I expect we will get lonely pretty soon. Maybe that will change if I get a job or we choose a church.
Enough of my random thoughts! Our wedding pictures are up, so email me for the link, if you are interested.

A week ends with the Olympics

My sense is that many newly started blogs quickly fall out of use once the initial excitement and flurry of posts fades and topics become harder to find. I have often found blogging to be a self-indulgent form of expression, with many people using blogs to write of their unimportant daily exploits as though they were news the world needed to hear. That said, we would like this blog to be a window into our New England lives for our far-flung family and friends who we won't get to see or talk to as much as we would like.

Let the self-indulgence begin. After starting my job and living at the Hanover Inn last week, and a weekend spent making our furniture-less apartment somewhat liveable until our stuff arrives, this week was a little more ordinary. I became acquainted with my fellow Orange Route bus riders on the Upper Valley's Advance Transit system, which is what I hope will be my primary method of commuting to work. The bus stop is about a 1/2 mile from our apartment, downhill in the morning and regretably uphill in the afternoon. We'll see how that walk goes in the winter months.

Kate flew back to Nashville in the middle of the week to be with the movers as they picked up the bulk of our stuff still in Tennessee. I know she enjoyed seeing her Nashville friends one more time. With her taking our one car to the airport, I lived a simple life for a couple of days, taking the bus to and from work and spending the evenings in a sparsely furnished apartment with no TV. I mainly watched Flight of the Conchords on my computer. Good show - thanks Dunning.

With no TV, we spent the week wondering how we would be able to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Being that it was anticipated to be the most watched television event in the history of the planet, we did not want to be left out. The solution turned out to be simple: Dartmouth. With many Dartmouth students taking classes during the summers, there was a watching party in which the ceremony broadcast was projected onto a large screen in one of the dining areas. We joined the crowd of 100 or so students and had a nice time. If you had asked either of us at the end of the 2004 Athens Olympics where we would be for the start of the 2008 Games, an Ivy League student center in Hanover, NH would not have been the obvious answer. The Ceremony was eye-opening and spectacular - ones politics or views on China aside, I felt as though I was watching a true achievement of the creative and artistic human spirit. The torch lighting was one of the most breathtaking events I've ever watched, surpassing the gold standard of the flaming arrow lighting the cauldron in Barcelona at the 1992 Games. I am glad Kate and I did not miss the show - or the party.

Where we live and the local rag

So, I was thinking that one question that may be on the minds of the faithful readers of our young blog is, "Where exactly do Brian and Kate live again?" Allow me to elaborate. My job is at Dartmouth College, which is located in the town of Hanover, NH (population 8,000 or so). Hanover, however, is part of a broader region of communities that surround the Connecticut River in both New Hampshire and Vermont. This region calls itself the Upper Valley, which is especially interesting to me since my parents hail from a region of Texas known locally as the Upper (Rio Grande) Valley. In any event, Kate and I have chosen to rent an apartment in an area known as West Lebanon, which is about 4 miles south of Hanover and the College. West Lebanon is not a real city; it is part of the municipality of Lebanon, the heart of which is about 3 miles to the east (making West Lebanon, well, west of Lebanon). We live less than a mile from a bridge that crosses the Connecticut River into White River Junction, Vermont.

As nice as Hanover is, a town of 8,000 would be tough to live in if it was not surrounded by some other communities. When you combine Hanover and Lebanon/West Lebanon in New Hampshire, and add to that towns such as Norwich and Hartford/White River Junction in Vermont, what you really have is a region of perhaps 50,000 or 60,000 people. This number of people means that in our vicinity we have the resources to support a population of that size. The highlights include several grocery stores, a bowling alley, Kohl's, Best Buy, Home Depot, Borders, JC Penney, Wal-Mart, and even a Panera Bread within 2 or 3 miles of our house. No Starbucks, unfortunately.

One community resource our area sports is the Valley News, a daily newspaper earnestly trying to report news in an area that teters on the edge of being able to generate enough news to fill a daily newspaper. Kate and I, wanting to learn as much about our new community as we can and also to learn about various happenings in the area, have picked up the Valley News several times. It has been helpful - for instance, we learned about a Farmers Market and a Town Square celebration over in Norwich, VT yesterday and were able to attend both. They were both delightful, and we now have some expensive, organically grown local produce in our fridge.

However, we've also seen some curious articles in the Valley News, such as the one about a local family's missing parrot (started on Section C, Page 1 and continued on page C5). Another nice article was the one about some heated exchanges on the Thetford, VT town list-serv (in the past year, three listserv administrators have resigned due to contentious cyber debate). Excellent stuff! The Valley News has a few too many AP stories for my taste, but does do a good weather forecast and, as mentioned above, has a thorough community calender. Small-town news gems like the two articles above are part of the fun of small-town living, and, while I don't think we'll become subscribers, Kate and I will certainly enjoy an occasional dose of the Valley News.