Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville is a University town 2 hours drive south of Washington DC, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We are based here for nearly a month where Jeff’s PhD Supervisor from Mizzou now works. David and Linda met us at the train station on a balmy dark evening and it felt like that dark summer night way back in June 2001 when we finally arrived in Columbia, Missouri with our 4 young children and mountain of luggage to begin Jeff’s PhD studies. We knew Linda from her time in NZ. We both had postgraduate nursing classes under her and my Dad was her PhD supervisor!  She had suggested Jeff do his PhD in Missouri.  David and Linda took us under their wing during the next 5 years and it was wonderful to see them again.

David and Linda had helped us to find a place to rent which is actually within walking distance of their place. We have a 3 bedroom townhouse which is working out really well. It is nice to spread out and settle in for a few weeks. It is in a row of houses which is part of a relatively new subdivision. It is close to running trails which Jeff and Tim are enjoying, and also has a community basketball court we are using and getting more skilled at sinking baskets.

View from our back deck.

This is our place.

We are in one group of about 20 groups of houses like this in the subdivision.

Laura back to doing what she loves!

Down at the basketball court.

Looking down our street. We are about halfway down on the left.

 

It has taken us this first week to get settled and find our way around. Driving in Canada took the edge off the getting used to driving on the right side again and, with Uncle Gilmore’s borrowed GPS in our rental car, we are doing pretty well. I drop Jeff in at the University each morning and then come home to do school with the kids, who are enjoying being back into semi normal routines. After lunch we generally go into the Public Library for some internet access and see some of the local sights before or after picking up Jeff. I will write about some of these outings in separate posts.

Getting back into normal everyday things such as grocery shopping is taking extra time as it always does in a new country. Nothing looks familiar except the fruit and vege section! It does my head in for the first few times getting used to thinking prices in per pound instead of per kilo, and reading all the cereal box and bread labels to find the best options (ie least amount of sugars and chemicals) takes a while.  We are enjoying home cooked food again after our days on the road, but also trying a few old favourites from our time living in the USA.