Discovering Our New Home

Its been great here since we arrived a week ago, and interesting getting everything in order.  While I expected things to be different, it has been somewhat frustrating with the schools, and getting Sitara enrolled. To begin, the paperwork is approved on the main island, and not at the Education Office here on Gozo. Secondly, they required a notarized letter from her father that I didn't know about until Tuesday. Luckily her father was on top of it and got me the letter Friday. The original plan was to get it all submitted, but the Visa page from our passports was not copied as it should have when we were there Tuesday morning, and so the application that should have been submitted that day has yet to be submitted until Monday morning when I can bring the passports back down again. Work starts the same day, so Sitara will be accompanying me to work and may get a birthday gift sooner than expected to occupy her time.
But alas life goes on, se la vie, and so forth. For all my preparation to get here, so much is being tripped over now we are here as well. It should all work out though. Everyone has been very sweet, and Sitara has made a new friend even! The daughter of the apartment owners is about the same age, and they have been playing non-stop since Friday afternoon. That has given me some time to try to sort things out, and time to chill myself out as well. Since there is a distinct lack of good coffee in the grocers, I have been drinking far too much tea with honey and milk. Evenings are for the instant Vanilla Lattes with a good shot of locally made almond liqueur. I think by now most of my calories are liquid.
Realizing how much I do cook Thai and Japanese food, I am noticing a distinct lack of such foods here, and since my other main staple recipes are Italian--let's just say we've been eating a lot of pasta. And I still have yet to figure out how to light the oven. Lots of European style bread though, very cheap, makes lots of toast and jam or butter. Or cheese. Fresh produce is all over, but it is in carts that are only around in the towns until about noon, and by then it starts to look a bit wilty. We've gotten grapes and oranges, both of which were delicious (though the seeds in the grapes threw Sitara for a loop), and we also bought strawberries which we thought were a bit lacking. Not really the climate for them I suppose.
So here we are, enjoying the beautiful seaside, the sand in Sitara's shorts and all over the apartment floor, and the great, amazing sun. It did rain at the beginning of the week, and seems to have cleared. I see the logistical rain also clearing soon as well, I hope.