The New Apartment

Well, posting in the summer didn't turn out as I had hoped - between the lack of internet and the surplus of interesting things to do, I wholeheartedly failed to keep up with this blog.

However, now that I'm settled in Boise, I have plenty of time for blogging, and the internet here is quite reliable.

I love my new apartment!  It's light and open, and the location is great.  Within a 1-4 miles, we have access to downtown Boise, the Greenbelt, Boise State University, and Camelsback Park, which contains several miles of hiking and biking trails.  There are also bike lanes connecting our street with downtown.  Biking is so much easier now; I have lived here for three weeks now and haven't had any rude comments or obscenities screamed at me from car windows.  No one has tried to run me off the road.  The only problem I've had is that occasionally Google Maps has inaccurate information about where the bike lanes are (but they're usually close). 

Other bonuses to our apartment: balcony, nice pool, exercise equipment, and a blackberry bush.  I am a happy camper.

Inside the apartment, we have a whole bunch of new (to us) furniture.  We gave away most of our furniture in Norman, so we had to replace our couch, table, chairs, bookshelves and dresser.  We were able to find everything we needed at thrift stores and garage sales, and I think we got amazingly nice stuff for the price.

I think the concept of thrift stores is awesome - it employs perfectly the principle of re-using, which is even more important than recycling, in my opinion.  We were able to get everything we needed for around $250, and no new materials had to be used.  I am especially excited about our new table and chairs, which is solid wood and has two removable leaves that can extend it to seat 10 people.  I can have so many people over for dinner!  As soon as I find enough friends.

As far as that goes, I've made some inroads.  I have joined a bunch of things - I am now a volunteer at the Discovery Center of Idaho, the local science museum.  It's really fun to work there; you basically just clean stuff and play with science experiments with little kids.  The people are nice, too.

I also found a church near the University that a lot of the students go to, so that brought me to a large group of friendly people my age.  I'm going to a barbecue there tomorrow, and on Monday we are going to float down the Boise river.  (First I have to locate and purchase an innertube.)  They also want me to go to Tijuana with them in January on a mission trip.  Apparently they go every winter to visit with and vaccinate the group of orphans they sponsor throughout the year.  That seems interesting to me, so I'll look into it, although I think Mom might die if I went to Tijuana.

Next week should bring some new opportunities as well.  I auditioned today to be in a choir at the University, and apparently it's a good mix of students and community members, music majors and not.  That meets twice a week, so I should see a lot of those people.  All in all, I'd say it's going well.  It's hard to get used to a new place, and it's been a little lonely so far, but I think things are looking up.