Huzzah!

Big big big news. I have officially moved into my own place.

It all happened very quickly - getting the approval from PC, buying new locks, then repeatedly walking all my things from my old bedroom down the road to the new place. Then quite suddenly, everything was there, and then I was spending the night.

And I have to say, I love living alone. My host families were very wonderful and generous, but something about living in someone else's house lends your life a permanent guest-like feeling that is hard to adjust to. Peace Corps likes you to stay with your host family as long as possible to help with your integration, but after just two days of living alone I can tell that, for me, being someone's neighbor is going to help me feel a lot more like part of the community than being the guest holed-up in someone's spare bedroom.

And there's the food thing.

As much as even being in control of what I eat (no rice for me for a while), I just love love love to cook. And naturally the first thing I did was completely un-elaborate: I made a grilled cheese sandwich.

Grilled cheesing before I've even really moved in. That little cardboard tube in the upper left-hand corner is a Peace Corps-issued stool sample kit.

Hello beautiful. It's been a while.

I actually got teary-eyed with happiness after the first bite. I couldn't help it. Familiarity is a wonderful thing.

Welcome to my kitchen.

I like to think of these water-stained bathroom walls as having a nice natural patina.

A bucket to call my own