On Saturday afternoon we loaded all of our stuff into a car that Hasmik sent to help us with the move. She's incredible awesome- I don't know how we'd get by in Sisian without her help. The driver- who works at Hasmik's hotel- was also great, and manage to get all of our bags into the car in one load, and have enough room for both Sam and I to fit in the car at the end of it. It was a little like a clown-car full of luggage, but still, we got all of our things from Hasmik's house to our new house in a single car ride, which was pretty awesome.
The house was freezing when we got there, and it took us a few tries to figure out how to light the gas heater reliably. But soon the living room was comfortable, and we turned on the electric radiator on in the bathroom, which made it pretty comfortable in there too. That just left the bedroom and the kitchen in the cold, but both of those things were okay with us. After we got our stuff inside and had figured out how to work the heat and hot water, we cleaned the kitchen enough to cook in and went grocery shopping.
I'll admit, we overindulged on this shopping trip. We bought crackers and cookies, tea and coffee, meat and eggs, and vegetables- so many vegetables: potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, green onions, parsley and - to my delight- we even found some really fresh, crunchy, green broccoli! We feasted. We ate dinner on the couch, watching TV in our pajamas, drinking wine from actual glasses instead of sharing it from a single mug. It was amazing.
At the end of all that, we were exhausted. And because the house didn't come with any sheets, we pulled out our sleeping bags, tossed them on top of the bed, and went to sleep. It wasn't until half way through the night that I woke up to an unpleasant discovery: all of our bedding smelled like mildew and cigarettes. I made it through the rest of the night by throwing my pillow onto the floor and trying not to breathe too deeply, but neither of us slept well. We woke up exhausted the next morning.
The first order of the day was to collect all the removable fabric from around the house (blankest, pillows, mattresses- which are more like large, firm pillows than what you think of as a mattress back home, sort of like a futon mattress- the fabric covering the couch and armchairs, the cushions to the couch and arm chairs, etc) you name it, if it was fabric and I could move it, out it went. I had wanted to hang them all outside, but unfortunately were were in the middle of a massive snow storm, so instead I stacked them all in the hallway.
After this had been accomplished, we needed a new sleeping situation, so we set up the tent in the living room, laid down our sleeping pads, and decided that until we got the bed situation sorted out, we'd do some indoor camping.
The remainder of the day was spent cleaning every dish in the house, and unpacking bit by bit as we clean new rooms and spaces in which to put things. There's still a long way to go, and we're exhausted, but despite all of the challenges it continues to entail, We're really very, very happy with our independent housing.
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