Thursday 8th November 2007

Welcome to America – thanks to my very good freind Toni, I had company for the first 2 days while I tried to find my feet.

Who would have thought it would be so difficult to find a supermarket, after much driving around we managed to find one. Then realised it was geared totally toward the Latin American market (well it gave us something to giggle about) it made for a very interesting time just trying to find basic foods!! luckily I have since found something a little more “normal” and stocked the very large fridge with some decent food.

I spent last Sunday driving around looking at houses with my Realtor, I have shortlisted a few but will look some more next weekend. My apartment is fine and I have it booked till the end of January at the moment.

Drove into the office on Monday across the Hudson river, the journey takes about 20 minutes. The banks of the river still look very beautiful as the trees still have most of their Autumn leaves.

I have spent all day in back to back meetings for the past 3 days but at least the days go fast. It is starting to get quite cold and I will need to get some winter boots etc very soon.

Today (Thursday) was an eye opener drove to downtown Newburgh (a real US ghetto!) with Rosemary from HR and visited the Social Security office so that I could get my ID – took my number and waited one and a half hours to be seen!! Interesting people there. My number should be through in about 6 weeks which will then allow me to get a tax number and simplify my life a bit. Later drove over to open a bank account — thank goodness that was a lot easier than anticipated.