Here we go again, off to Cincinnati, but this time with our Visa and a resident permit good for 2.5 years. Easy as 1-2-3… Wait. In fact, not as easy once we actually got there! Why hello, formalities! For the first ten days, we opted for a rented, all furnished apartment and got a rental car just to get us started before finding our own, not furnished place and vehicle. We also had tons of technicalities to take care of: obtain a social security number, open a bank account, find health, car and home insurance, find out that we needed to take a driving test -again- in order to get our Ohio driver’s licence, and the list goes on 😉 All this, of course, on top of Arnaud’s work and my activity as a volunteer assistant coach at UC (University of Cincinnati), our daily training sessions, and my two indoor races (1k in Findlay, OH, and mile at the Meyo Invitational in South Bend, IN)… In short, it’s been two really intense -but fun- weeks! Icing on the cake, a lot of those formalities require some prior paperwork, like for example in order to get an apartment (thus an address) you must pay your first month rent by check, to have bank checks you need to open a bank account, and to open a bank account you need a proof of address in the US… Luckily, sneaky Arnaud always find a solution!

So now here we are, all settled in our new place that we found in less than a week (that must be some kind of record, right?!), and driving our new car. I must admit though, the first few days in the new apartment were more like camping as we only had a bed -and everything we needed to bake homemade bread because American bread is, let’s say, well, not quite as good as the one we have back home. But slowly our nest is starting to look more and more like a home, and I can spend some time doing two of my favorite things ever: looking for cool second-hand furniture and decorating the place. I’ll post picture of the apartment as it gets more and more complete! In the meantime, here are a few photos of these first few weeks to get started with.

I hope all is going great on your side! Xoxo

Off we go!

To quote Arnaud : “Our rocket ship… Next to our new car”

A taste of Home with my Marine D slippers 🙂

The necessary homemade bread

Sweet tooth!

Mile at the Meyo Invitational in South Bend, IN (I’m in the blue uniform on the left!)