adventures in mundania

Moving to Ireland is not one major change -- it's a million little changes.

I could list a few, or a few dozen, and it wouldn't seem like much of a big deal. I mean, does it really matter if the yogurt here has less than 5% protein and is made with whipping cream? Not so much. But when it's *every little thing*, it keeps you perpetually off balance. It's hard to get into a flow state, because flow requires ignoring everything except the one thing you're immersed in. I miss having the real world fade away for hours at a time...

Even things that are the same are different. For example, Xan bought the exact same brand and type of hair colouring she always buys, but discovered that the chemicals and the instructions were completely different. I walk down the aisles of the grocery store, and not even 5% of the brands are familiar. Sometimes it feels like i'm living in a totally foreign country!

We miss a lot of things, it's true. Especially in regard to the extremely healthy diet we had in Canada. Oh what i'd give for a big bowl of 3-colour coleslaw with diced dill pickle and creamy cucumber dressing. I had that almost every single day at home, but *none* of those things exist over here! But then, there are just as many new things that provide ample compensation. Nevertheless, the constant need for learning and adjusting and improving solutions gets to be a bit of a drag after a while. (Listen to the whine of a comfort junkie).

Xan neglected to mention who our first dinner guests were -- the finest of the fine, Aaron and Christine. Our transition would have been thrice as hard without them having already figured out the hardest things.