Sarah, Henry, & I met up with some of the wives from Craig's company today (they have a group here, like they did in Qatar). I met a couple of nice ladies who had loads of advice for me about where to live, etc. I probably won't go to another coffee with them until February when all three kids are in school though (Sarah & Henry didn't last as long as I had expected them to which was very frustrating!).
When we got back to our apartment, there were a couple of guys re-finishing our front door. The smell from this was pretty bad and there was a big mess all over the place. We hit the bathrooms, I grabbed the car keys, and we set out on an adventure: my first driving experience without Craig. Thankfully I had the GPS though. I kept thinking today that I don't know if I would have been brave enough without the GPS. I guess I would have studied the map a bit harder and written down directions.
We went to pick up Sarah's tile from tile art class (this was out by the airport). I got to use my parking coupons (you have to buy a booklet of parking coupons and in coupon-parking-areas you punch out the date & time you are parking for. Each sheet is 50 cents and it pays for 30 minutes of parking (I think you can get 25 cent/15 minute parking sheets, too, but you can only use the sheet that matches the parking lot. Thankfully I had 50 cent sheets and it was a 50 cent parking lot). It's possible I'm not explaining this well: it's not that complicated but it's something I wouldn't have known about without the tour Craig's company gave us our first weekend here. If you don't display the proper coupons on your dash, you can get a $20 fine or something like that so it's worth it to just toss an extra sheet on the dash if you think there's a chance you won't make it back on time. You can get the sheets at 7-11 (which I did yesterday at the Newton MRT on my way to go Christmas shopping).
All that to say: we picked up Sarah's nice art, had lunch, and then decided to drive up to Woodlands to see if we could get her sweater back that she forgot at this week's art class. I was really glad I had the car to do these two errands! I relied entirely on the GPS except for one street in Woodlands and two streets near our apartment. I imagine the more I drive, the easier it will get!
When we got back it was starting to rain and the guys were still working on our door and it smelled even worse! We still had some time before Anna came home so we went to Novena to find something to put my phone in while I run (it's a huge phone) but we were unsuccessful. Finally it was time to meet Anna at the bus. And the guys were still refinishing the door. They were almost done and the fumes were horrific! We went down to the wet playground and stayed down there for nearly an hour before we braved going upstairs again. This time the guys were gone and the door was finished. The smell wasn't as bad (still there, but it didn't make me light-headed any more).
