On a clear day...

...you can see the Alps from Ulm. Even from the balcony of the apartment we'll be moving into next week.

Update on the last few months

As you probably noticed from Kristen's last few posts, we're no longer in Italy. We'll probably keep the name of the blog and its address, just for convenience, but our new home is now Ulm, Germany. But let's back up a bit.
Most of you regular readers probably already know that we got married last December in a small ceremony on the beach in Key West, Florida (email us if you want to see pictures). After that happy occasion, I returned to Florence, while Kristen stayed in the US for another few weeks. The middle of January, I started work in Ulm, while Kristen came back from the US a week later. We both flew to Florence for a week at the end of January to pack up our stuff and say goodbye to our friends there, before heading off to wintery Germany. We're currently in a temporary furnished apartment while we look for something more permanent.
We hope to keep updating the blog with our adventures in Schwaben (Swabia), though you might find that posting will be a bit slower, since the density of sights to see is probably a little lower than in Tuscany! Of course, we'd be happy to host visitors in our new home as well.

Busy Sunday

My parents came back to Florence yesterday to bring all the things that they took with them from Charlottesville, as well as a table and chairs as well as some herbs for the balcony. Again, their car was packed to the roof. So today, we went to Ikea to buy some other furniture for the apartment, especially a bookcase and a shelf for the bathroom. Since the apartment is still pretty small, storage space is at a premium. So the day was pretty much filled with shopping and then assembling the purchases at home. Now, however, the apartment definitely looks a lot more homely, and will do so even more once my pictures replace the ceramic plates and drawings of plants that were part of the inventory.

After dinner, I took my bike into the city, where I met Max and Caren, two friends from Charlottesville who are doing the typical Rome-Florence-Venice trip in Italy. Since I know them from dancing, it was only fitting that we decided to go to a milonga here in town. Luckily, the milonga I found on Sunday night isn’t too far from the city center, and we were able to walk there. Interestingly enough, the building where the milonga was taking place seemed to be affiliated with the communist party. Inside, there were already several people sitting around the dance floor at small tables, Buenos Aires style. We danced a bunch, even as the dancefloor filled up even more later on in the evening. Around 11:30, a band started playing, though they had to take a break pretty soon because they were having trouble with their bandoneón. Unfortunately, this meant that I missed most of their performance, since I left a little after midnight, since I had to work the next day. Nevertheless, I had fun dancing again, and am sure that I’ll be back there when Kristen is in town.

Graduation Recap

There haven’t been any posts in over a week, not because there was a lack of things to blog about, but rather because I was in fact out of town, more precisely: back in Charlottesville for Graduation. I flew out last Wednesday, waking up way too early so that I could catch the bus into town, and then take the airport bus back to the airport, which is actually located quite close to the apartment, but which has no way of getting there on foot (taxis are quite expensive). The flight itself, via Zurich, was uneventful, and arriving in Washington I saw my parents in the immigration line (they had arrived on a different plane from Frankfurt). We rented the biggest car we could in anticipation of the load of luggage we’d have on the way back, and drove down to Charlottesville.

Thursday, I stopped by the lab and went to group lunch with my labmates, exchanging stories about what we had been doing the past two months. After dinner, Kristen and I went to the weekly tango practica that we had been attending regularly in Charlottesville. I hadn’t done any dancing so far in Florence, so this was a good opportunity to get back in the game. Unfortunately, I think I’ve forgotten all the moves we learned in Buenos Aires. Then Friday evening we had a little party at our apartment in Charlottesville. It was good to see many of the people that had made my time in Charlottesville so enjoyable. Thanks everyone for coming out!

Most importantly, though, Sunday was Graduation. In previous years, I had done everything I could to get out of town on Graduation weekend, but this time it was the whole reason for being here. I walked with Kristen to the Lawn before the ceremony and then made my way to the meeting place for the Graduate School, where I found a few other physicists already hanging around. Unfortunately, it soon started raining some, though luckily we were waiting underneath the covered area in front of the lawn rooms. At 10, the procession began and we made our way through the light drizzle down the Lawn. After getting to our seats near the front, we had to wait some more for the thousands of undergraduates to make their way down from the Rotunda. The speeches that followed were okay, I guess. The graduation speaker was Hunter Rawlings, a classicist and former president of Cornell, who did have a lot of classical references in his speech and complained about Wikipedia. That’s pretty much what I remember of his speech. UVa does not pay the speakers or give out honorary degrees, so you won’t see too many celebrities at Graduation. Afterwards, I made my way to the Physics building, where the diploma ceremony had been moved to due to the weather. Here I got my diploma and was hooded by my former advisor. Now I can fly! In the evening, we went out to dinner with my parents and Kristen’s parents to Mono Loco, which was one of the few restaurants that did not have only an overpriced fancy graduation menu.

The rest of the time in Charlottesville was mostly spent packing. Even though I had already taken three suitcases of stuff back with me in March, I still had a lot of books, CDs, kitchen equipment and other things in the apartment, of which I wanted to take as much as possible with me. Luckily, my parents had used their frequent flyer miles to get business class seats, so they had a higher baggage allowance, but still we had to buy an extra suitcase and send two packages of books. You can imagine that the rental car was filled up quite high with all that luggage. In the end, it all fit, and Tuesday we got it all checked in and flew back. This time, I did take a taxi back from the airport, which was around 11 Euros for a 3 minute ride, since there are extra fees for leaving from the airport and for every piece of luggage that you bring.

Moving Day

Today was finally moving day. I went to the realtor's office at 10, where I signed the official contract, met my landlord, and got rid of ridiculous amounts of money (2 month's rent as deposit, plus 1 month's rent as payment for the realtor, plus registration taxes). The realtor did the best she could with her limited English in communicating things between the landlord (basically no English) and myself (basically no Italian). Then the landlord took me to the apartment, along with his son, who spoke some English, and showed me the utilities, and how everything in the apartment works.
I don't know if I've mentioned it, but most apartments for rent are furnished here. Getting an unfurnished apartment means truly getting something unfurnished -- no kitchen, and perhaps not even toilets! -- so you're not only looking for a nice apartment in a good location, but also judging the furniture. Luckily, the apartment I found has almost completely new furnishings and appliances. It's also in a decent style (ok, I probably wouldn't have gotten a bright red sofa-bed, but you know...). After being driven back to the center, I briefly went to the Mercato Centrale to pick up some fruit and lunch stuff for this week, then I just went to my old apartment and picked up the first bag to take to the new place.
I managed to do three runs back and forth today, each time taking one bag or suitcase with me, which took care of most of the stuff I already have with me here. In between, I went to Esselunga, a large grocery store, and Lidl, a German discount grocery chain. I was pretty glad to see that there was a Lidl nearby the apartment, since that will definitely help keep grocery costs down (EUR 1.38 for a liter of milk at Esselunga vs. EUR 0.70 at Lidl). Before the last run, I stayed at the old apartment for a while to use the internet, since I don't have that set up yet in the new place. From what I've heard, it can take anywhere from one to three months to get the telephone installed and DSL set up, so I'll get that process started as soon as possible. In the meantime, I guess I'll have to rely on the internet at work, and on reading material in the evenings and on weekends.
Finally, I made myself some pasta and homemade tomato sauce, with some Italian red wine (one of the few things that's cheap). Whew... now I'm tired!