The First Few Days

We have now been in Prishtina for a few days. It has been a whirlwind of trying to figure out bank accounts, cell phone usage, how to get around, and how to shop in the grocery store. It has been nothing less than overwhelming. And to top it off all of our luggage was delayed.

We arrived here on Tuesday morning. Because of multiple factors, including a delayed flight and an airport worker strike, we got off the plane on Tuesday, but our luggage didn’t. For the first 48+ hours here we literally had nothing but the clothes we were wearing and whatever was in our carry on bags. Thankfully, all 10 pieces of luggage made it to us on Thursday afternoon and we spent most of today unpacking.

My kids are amazing!

Here we are on our way from DC to Austria.

I always knew they are some of the most resilient kids around, but these first few days have proven that to be true. As we had a family “check in” discussion Wednesday night, I was crying and they all said they felt great. I can tell they are ready for school to start, (lots of comments about their friends at home already starting) but the running around in a country that really doesn’t speak English, hasn’t seemed to phase them too much.

We still have to get our home internet set up soon. They will be glad to be able to freely call Mamaw and Nana whenever they want. We have a very nice three bedroom apartment about two miles from the school. We tried to let Ellie sleep in a regular twin bed, but we’ve already abandoned that idea and have bought her a small crib. We are all much happier when Ellie sleeps well at night. And our living room has a door on it so we can close it off from the rest of the apartment. Genius design for sound control.

We are slowly figuring out how to use the bus line. We rode around on it last night.

We washed our first load of clothes somewhat successfully and purchased a drying rack because there is no dryer (which I have now learned is fairly common in Europe).

The milk is not refrigerated. It comes in boxes that you can put in the fridge. I’m not sure about that, but when Ellie is yelling, “milky milky” when she wakes up, I’m pouring it into her cup.

On Monday we are planning on starting to go to the school every weekday. We’ve got one week until back to school night. Our family craves routine and Derek and I are ready for school to start too.