First impressions

We've arrived in MuhGina. The Chou was a trooper yesterday through two flights, missed naps, random meals and a short visit with all the cousins. By the time we landed at 'home', she was up 2.5 hours past her bedtime, had seen two cities, made an airplane friend and was thoroughly done with being awake. She fell asleep on the taxi ride to our apartment and was so asleep I hauled her into the house in her car seat, undressed her, dressed her and laid her down for the night without so much as her twitching her nose. Poor peanut. She slept well, and managed to wake us up by 6:30 local time...that would be 8:30 Ontario time, thank goodness.

Today has been a whirlwind of missing our first meeting our real estate agent because Chou went down for a nap 30 minutes prior. But no worries, because, heck, this is the Prairies, where life is good and people are friendly and rescheduling just happens. By 10 we were house hunting - we looked at 10 houses, I'm sure, some of which were a total waste of time, a few others that were very promising, none of them yet feel like home.

The city is lovely - clean, good sidewalks, tonnes of parks, new stores everywhere and, here's the great part, we covered it from end to end in under 20 minutes. Our agent is a Vancouver transplant - he loves blues, sushi and unfiltered beer. In short, he's exactly the type of tour guide we need. The verdict? Five years ago Regina may have had one Indian restaurant, now it's got three, all that kick, and has an all you can eat sushi place with good fish (and he's from Vancouver. It must be good).

And while our agent was introducing us to our new city and prospective homes, I was busy introducing him to what it means to cart around a one-year old. As in, his car is now full of raisins and perky-o's, and he now knows that when I say, "We should head back now" that doesn't mean we should look at two more houses. Because then, the Chou loses her mind, screams and cries and I have to take off the seat belt, twist around and nurse her in her seat while he drives. He's probably totally traumatized.