Moving? Done.

After spending 5-6 hours per night after work (starting Tuesday) every night and all day Saturday, I am officially moved in here in Waltham. I am absolutely in love with my apartment. Moving in here has made it clear to me how different my attitude was in Melbourne (where I knew things were short-term). Here, where I have a long-term job with what is quite possibly the best employer EVER, my apartment feels much more like a real home rather than a place I'm just trying to furnish enough to get by. My place is cozy, but it's very "me." On Friday I woke up feeling light-headed and nauseous (I had been coming down with something for a few days prior to this), and ended up leaving work before lunch to take a sick day. I worked on unpacking as much as I could in the evening, but decided to stop by 7pm and just get some yummy food delivered, watch crappy TV on my computer, and try to recover. Every night before this I had come home from work, spent hours unpacking, then grabbed a quick bite at around 11pm before heading straight to bed, waking up early for work, and repeating the scenario the next day. To actually enjoy a leisurely dinner here followed by a good night's sleep (before once again facnig my giant pile of boxes) was pretty freaking awesome.

There are actually 51 different restaurants that I can order from online for delivery to my apartment, which is both awesome and dangerous. For my first night here I went with Thai food from Tom Can Cook. Overall I would say it was a good experience, with one exception. I ordered Tom Yam Soup, Crab Rangoon, and Massaman Chicken Curry. The soup was the exception to the goodness. I ordered it with shrimp, but it came wtih chicken. It was nice and spicy, but not particularly flavorful. I expect some good solid lemongrass, galangal, and lime leaf in my Tom Yam broth, all of which were lacking here. I don't think I would order this again even if they hadn't messed up the protein.
The Crab Rangoon, on the other hand, more than made up for the soup. This version was much more rich and creamy than the one that me and my people often make. I may have to do some tweaking of my recipe to try to replicate this brilliance...
The curry was actually pretty damned tasty, too. Now that I'm settled in, one of my first orders of business is to make my own curry pastes (starting with Massaman) to try to replicate some of the kick-ass curry that I had in Thailand. Still, as far as Massaman curries I've had here in the States go, this was awesome.
After sleeping in a bit (until 8am) on Saturday, I got to work finishing up the bulk of the unpacking. While putting away some glassware that required me to get up on my kitchen stool, I discovered this incredibly tasteful salt-and-pepper set that had apparently been left behind by the previous resdients (shoved into the back of one of the top shelves). I have censored the image for my more sensitive readers:
Below are a few apartment pictures for those who are interested. It's hard to capure the colors properly, so you may have to take my word for it that it looks totally awesome. Starting in the kitchen, where Pedro and Rico pretty much dominate things:
I've taken to hiding dried cranberries (which are like crack to the little guys) in the tube to encourage exploration... but that backfired when Pedro took his new-found love of tunnels one step futher, went exploring under the heater (the exit of which is blocked by the cage), and got stuck. Poor, stupid little guy. In non-bunny news, I've had to utilize some above-cupboard space for storage, but it actually seems to be working quite well.
The living room is dominated by a wall of bookcases (full of books) and a corner of bookcases (full of my cocktail shaker collection). I hadn't seen my cocktail shakers in about 2.5 years, so it was a lot of fun unpacking them.
The office/guest room/TV room/den is one of my favorite rooms (and where I'm hanging out as I type this). The bookcase in here is full of my cookbook collection (those books that could not fit are being donated to a charity book drive). This room is super-comfy and looks great. Assuming you're not a stranger reading my blog, consider this your open invitation to come crash in this room (on a blow-up mattress... you wouldn't have to sleep in the chair) if you ever make it over to Boston...
Now that I'm settled in, I'm planning to take it easy for the rest of my 3-day weekend (Yay, Presidents' Day!) and revel in the fact that I really live in this totally awesome place...