A New Way of Life

We are settling into our life in Cambridge.  But we're not in the US anymore!!  We're learning new ways of doing things.

The house we are living in is Tyndale House, a wonderful evangelical study center, with library, where Buist has a special study desk and where he can leave his books and study materials without having to pack them up every day.

Tyndale House was built in the 1800's, with various additions through the years, so it's got various issues of old houses.  Our apartment is on the third floor.  Our guest bedroom is those windows on the side at the very top.  And the windows on the front are the windows in the stairway outside our apartment.

Yesterday was a big day for us.  We got a new washing machine!  There was a washing machine here when we got here, but it didn't work, and they told us a new one had been ordered.  It finally arrived at about 8:00 last night.  The poor delivery men had to carry it up three flights of steps (as pictured) and then carry the old one down those same three flights of stairs.

What fun to have a lovely new washing machine!  I did my first load of laundry in it this morning.  (I had done a couple of loads downstairs in an unoccupied apartment previously.)  It will be so convenient to have our washing be so accessible.  And pictured below is our "dryer."  It works pretty well, especially using the fan to blow air across it.

And pictured below is our dish washing system.  Fortunately with just two of us here, it's not too burdensome.

Our stove is rather interesting as well.  When we arrived there were no markings at all on any of the knobs.  You can see that I've at least labeled which burner is which.  And even the oven has no markings!!  We found a card taped inside a cupboard door that had a picture of three different temperature options--in Centigrade of course.  I used the oven earlier this week, and the picture seemed accurate.  Thank you, former tenants.

And to finish off this post, here is my key shopping bag.  It's a rolling back pack.  We are learning to live without a car this year.  Suddenly, walking isn't something you do for exercise, but it's a necessity.  The nearest good supermarket is about a mile and a half away.  I can shop for what we need (You need to load your groceries on to the checkout counter, and then pack them up yourself--a challenge if there are people waiting behind you.) and load it into my backpack and roll it back home.  Then I can either carry it up the three flights of stairs--or unload some into a bag if it's too heavy--and do a couple of trips.

Fortunately the weather is far nicer here for that sort of thing.  (In Dallas, it would be almost impossible in the summer.)  But our usual highs since we've been here are in the 70's--lovely weather for a walk.  And so far we haven't had to fight the rain either--a blessing.