No Rent, No Jobs, No Problem

Friday was Nathan's last day at work. His supervisor took him out for an exquisite farewell lunch, and he ended the day forgetting his prized name placard on his desk, perhaps not quite prepared not to come back. Even still, his first, real, big-kid job is now a past-tense, bulleted list on a resume. No turning back now. Mongolia or bust.

Sunday, with the indispensable help of Leslie's parents and our friends Justin Stuempfle and Mike Lilly, we packed all of our worldly belongings into a 17’ U-haul and two cars, one of which we towed on a trailer. A couple hours of cleaning later, we hit the road for Erie - security deposit in hand - with an overnight stop in northeastern PA at a White Haven Comfort Inn. Monday morning we made our way across a rainy Pennsylvania, tailed by Leslie's parents, to our storage facility in Erie. After an early dinner we transferred the world’s most comfortable king-sized bed, coma-inducing couches, and most everything else that won't be going with us to Mongolia snugly into their new home.

We took a little trip to Tinseltown movie theater for “Baby Mama” (2 thumbs up), and then crashed hard for the night. Though we slept well, the moving hangover carried on through the day as we zombied the U-haul back to its rightful owners, creaked to the mall for some odds and ends, and shuffled to the lawyers office to sign over our powers-of-attorney to Leslie’s parents. We clearly have a case of the blahs.

Tomorrow, Nathan is looking forward to golf at Peek’n Peak Resort in nearby NY, where we found a great deal: $13 for 18 holes. Leslie will be working on her final project for grad school and trying to work in a massage at the resort, where, incidentally, she worked in high school.

We have a ton of administrative things to accomplish for the Peace Corps in the coming days as well, and we have to move ahead more aggressively with learning the language. We’ve read through the 104-page welcome book, and we continue to learn more about our future home each day. Even still, it's been hard to pursue with so many other life events converging at once.

We’re also debating buying a second computer to take with us. We’ve found one from Dell we might like, and even though it might be in our price range, we just can’t decide whether we’ll need two. The debate continues. Bulk and weight remain a concern as we are only allowed 100lbs of luggage.

Though we’re homeless and unemployed, all in all, we’re holding up well and looking forward to the wedding this weekend of our best man, Eric, to his sweetie, Emily.