Week 24: New Place, New Beginning!

For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!

Finally we shifted! Shifting your place is the biggest adventure one can experience because it is a roller coaster emotional ride with memories with the old place playing havoc in the mind and excitement of the novelty of the new place pumping your heart! You are so used to your kitchen orientation being a certain way, the grocery shops you visit often, the friends near your current apartment.....everything changes in a night! It is also a very physically demanding exercise with all the cleaning, packing and unpacking involved in the whole process! 

The bottom line of the whole shifting process is  - We love our new place :)

And why wouldn't we, when we wake up every morning to this sight - 

A little bit of sunshine, a little dash of water and a little patch of greenery!

Imagine me sitting in my patio, overlooking at this fountain and writing this post right now! Be honest, aren't you jealous?? It is a delight to be amidst nature and yet be at your home too at the same time! We love our new place :)

The second reason behind the love for this new place is my kitchen - 

No whites!! Happy me :)

No more white kitchen. My earlier kitchen was white like a ghost and trust me the effort I have put in cleaning it before handing over the keys was mammoth. Indian cooking and white kitchens do not get along at all! A little turmeric spilled on the kitchen platform and you are dead! No amount of any freaking washing soap/cleaner will remove the turmeric completely. So no more white kitchen for me! I hope finally my biceps stop pumping up with no rigorous cleaning required now ;)

The last week was spent in exploring our new place. The first and the foremost - the local library! Nothing makes me settle in a new place completely till I go and make my library card and hog the treasures on the book shelves! I did exactly this after coming to the new place. Devoured the books at my new library which apparently is twice the size of my earlier one with a plethora of books, dvds and even audio books - all of this absolutely free! One thing I adore about USA :)

Yes baby, the library card is here!

Next on the list was Indian stores. Indian store is a little far from our place, some 11 miles or so. But we do have a Mexican farmer's market which apparently has a lot of fresh Indian veggies too.

Look at those fresh vegetables!

So vegetables were taken care of! We needed to find a meat store now as we do not like the meat sold in Publix and other grocery chains. In general we do not like the chicken sold in US, it is very bland. And we also had to search for a shop which sells Indian legumes and the quintessential spices. We did find one - Asian Market which was nearby. 

When we entered the Asian market, I did not know my life was going to change forever! My husband and me love fish, he being a Bengali and me being a Konkani. The only difference is he eats river fish and me sea fish. But when a Bengali marries a Konkani, it is a fish riot at the dining table! Till date in the US, we have never got fresh fish which we used to eat in India like mackarel, king fish, pomfret etc. We have been eating fresh snapper, cat fish and prawns and frozen mackarel and pomfrets.

This Asian Market was like a heaven to us! There was huge variety of fresh fish here and I was kind of intoxicated by the sight of all the fish variety!

Since it was an Asian Market, we also had live frogs, eels and chicken feet. The funniest part was when I saw the chicken feet, it reminded me of my very good blogging friend Lily who is in Korea currently and did share an episode where their table was hijacked by an elderly couple in a mall without any preamble and that couple was eating chicken feet! (Sorry Lily, to associate you with chicken feet!)

I did not have the audacity to open these sections!

Next on the list was finding a new Toastmasters Club and that also has been taken care of! I have found my club and will be starting my club meetings from next week. Hoping to complete my Competent Communicator (CC) Manual by September this year, I still have 6 more speeches to prepare to win my CC title.

I have found a yoga class too! Starts this Wednesday! I am just wondering how much I have achieved in just a week in terms of exploring the new place. I can happily say, "I am all set at Palm Beach Gardens, bring it on baby!"