Oh my God! It has already been 6 months! Well, actually 6 months and 2 weeks to be precise... Free time has been rare over the last couple of weeks and I have been unable to sit down and write about our first major milestone in the US...

So, in a nutshell, these first 6 months have gone at the speed of light. We have kept busy... Insanely busy!

It all started with the first hesitant steps in early Feb, the discovery of our new universe, including the hilarious first food shopping the night of our arrival, totally jet-lagged, unable to find anything we knew.

The first 24 hours were followed by the couple of weeks of insane discovery programm (one part of LA a day) and the major pain of paperwork in early March (and the vicious circle around credit and utilities), the driving licenses and the new cars for the both of us.

Somewhere in between, we moved to Montrose and went through the real adaptation phase and the first reality check. We were no longer tourists, no real residents yet, but stuck somewhere in between, learning a new thing almost every day (and this so far hasn't stopped yet).

So, discussing this milestone with Mike on Friday, the mentor asked the pupil another one of his tricky question which was: "So what is the main difference between the UK and here?". I didn't even go over the usual cliches (weather, space, cable TV, large cars and fat people) but thought more about how people are, how people behave here... and this is on its own, a major difference between the new world and the old world...

First thing first: The layer of bulls**** or fake "Politically Correct" bollocks! It seems that no one here is used to be yelled at and finishes every discussion with a "have a GREAAAT day!" despite not caring at all how the rest of your day will be. Passed the fact that this sounds very polite, we tend to wrap every chat, every communication and relation with some kind of artificial sweetener, using numeral PC formulas, always going around what the matter is without really nailing it on the head. Why not calling a cat a cat?!? If someone sucks (e.g. a rep from Charter Cable on the phone), tell them! And replace the "Have a great day!" by "Thank you for having been so useless!". If someone doesn't understand after the 3rd call to the very same desk what your request is, RAISE YOUR VOICE. Let them know that they are making you lose your time and that it is time to go for plan B....

Plan B might be the other main difference... Or the lack of it actually! It seems that everything around here is scripted. Every request has been planned in advance and has an answer ready to come out of the "Book of Rules". Even the barista at Starbucks follows a methodical plan and set of instructions. So asking anything out of "the plan" often results in a pair of starry eyes, a puzzled face (or a long silence if on the phone) and a desperate need for a plan B, a place to hide and a hug from Mummy (sorry Mommy!)...

Speaking about Mommy, the last main difference to me is that it seems that a large percentage of the population here has been totally infantilized. They're just big kids that don't use their brains and accept every stimuli and set of directions given to them... TV is king (I won't complain, it provides me my pay check) and media is gospel. Vacations are not an adventure or a discovery experience  but a trip to the nearest entertainment park where everything is predigested for you from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. There is no space for self decision, second thoughts or non scripted surprises. And to make sure that no such thing happens, everything is subject to a disclaimer: "Achtung, Achtung, trying to dry your pet in your microwave oven might result is sudden and painful death of the animal". "Achtung, Achtung, you live in California, you might hence experience earthquakes that might damages the content of your home!". No s*** Sherlock!?! Come on guys, grow up and try new things! :-)

But to be fair, all in all, life here is pretty sweet and despite these slight differences (which can be sometimes annoying), this all experience has been pretty positive. People are extremely polite and helpful (a vast improvement compared to the average London Bus driver). Thia is enjoying the sun, the pool and sushi. Sarah is getting fitter by the day, thanks to gym, pilates and other physical activities and I love the new job. Next step.. we might move back to Burbank soon...

One thing I am still missing though: Footy and Rugby at the pub with Jef, Nono and the pack!

So here ends my little list of major differences and our first 6 months check up!

Well, many things have happened in the meantime and I will try to summarize as much as possible as well as doing my usual time machine effect and post several entries retroactively.

Pictures will come as well but a little technical glitch currently prevents us to get them out of my old Powerbook...

Last night, using various excuses and the fact that several of our former European colleagues were in town for the annual NAB in Las Vegas, we had a little gathering in our new home, also known as housewarming...

After much debating and a late invite sent to most of the people (sorry, it seems I still managed to forget one or 2 persons on the list... I apologize profusely) most of our old and new friends made it to our new home and mainly to our patio.

Many made it and it was great to see some of the old friends on this side of the pond. 3 of the guests (Keith, John and J) were even at both our leaving do in London and our housewarming here in California. Amazing! It was good as well to meet with some new people (some parents from Sarah’s “Mummy and Me” group and some new Disney colleagues and their partners) and to finally have a drink out of the office with some not so new people.

Kudos to both Keith and Simon, who both have the commuting record to join us, coming respectively from London and Hong Kong.

Kudos as well to Arnaud who quickly replaced me at the BBQ position as Sarah and I were running like nutters, trying to see as many people as we could and delivering food, drinks, etc to our guests.

I must admit one thing: I never ever saw so many kids playing together in a garden at a given time. I think we might have reached 20 kids in our backyard, without having one explosion of tears or a crying youngster!

The party was great and did last, as you can expect, well into the night...

One slight issue though: I totally forgot to take any picture of the evening! So all you get is a shot of one of the table on the following morning, around 7:00AM...

Our container arrived last week in LA, bang on time and managed to clear customs a couple of days ago (pretty efficient).

From there, time to arrange the delivery and the logistics surrounding it and here we are, Sarah is in our new place, running around, trying to give directions to the movers while running after Thia who seems (from phone conversations) to enjoy being where she should't be while making extremely loud noises!

We will probably move in by the weekend, well, as soon as our bed and TVs are in place! :)

I can't wait to sit on our new sofas, watching a movie while some food is grilling on the BBQ in the garden!

Home sweet home, here we come!

• We have a new home address
• We have a new land line (officially since Tuesday)
• I got my mobile almost as soon as I arrived at the office
• My office number is printed on my office phone...

But now Sarah has her US mobile, also known as a cell on this side of the pond.

Watch you inbox for updated details as soon as we have 5 minutes.

I can't seem to remember if I already mentioned this, but a couple of weeks ago, we ordered a set of sofas for our Eilinita home. Not that we don't like our old sofa from London any longer, but the main issue is that it would have looked like a kid's toy in the middle of our new living room, simply due to habitat size differences between London and California...

The whole ordering process was an experience in itself. We first had to drive to the the middle of nowhere (if there is a nowhere in LA), far beyond any place we visited so far. We then met with the sofa company owner, Mr "one eye" Pablo Carpio. Great character telling us that he can create almost anything... We then gave him the pictures of the Selfridges catalog (or was it Peter Jones) and after a short pause, he announced us a price that we simply couldn't believe (beating Ikea pricing to death).

The next step was for Sarah to try to give Pablo the size of the sofa, while I was trying to catch Thia running between a fish tank and several sofas.

We European tend to use centimeters (vs. inches) and the poor guy had a brief moment of panic when we gave him the size... Once we realised that we had to divide everything by 2.54 to make it match his standard unit system, things changed rapidly and agreement was reached!!! Down-payment was made and delivery date discussed.

So there they are, less than 2 weeks later, with our tailored made, hand made, home delivered by Mr Pablo himself fantastic sofas.

The man took great pride in his work but we must admit that he really can. The work is impeccable, the quality of the finish is stunning and the comfort of the sofas beats anything I put my delicate bum on... All we need now is the rest of the furniture and our new TV to be moved into our new palace (HD cable TV was installed at the same time that sofas were delivered).

Thanks to Mr Pablo for the quality of the service and thanks to Yvonne for the tip...

Another day, another step in the settling in process.

From this morning, we are now able to do regular shopping at any store (almost as I am sure there are some exceptions here and there), using our brand new debit cards. Not our "Visa Credit" yet, but we're getting there!

From now on, we can stop spending our UK Pounds and paying stupid exchange fees and use our newly acquired US Dollars.

Second weekend in SoCal and we are blessed by a long weekend / bank holiday, special time for us to recharge our batteries and spend some time looking around... Well, not exactly...

It seems that each and every bank holiday in this country are the theatre of major sales, from cars to chiropractors, including telephone handsets, BBQ, washing liquid, super large portions of food, well, you get the drift!

So anyways, as we saw a couple of commercials on TV (yes, we have been watching the commercials here, as we only have an old style TV) for Sears et al for their sales...

So first thing in the morning, the family is ready and we jump in our car having a clear plan of action in mind. Let's go "quickly" to Sears, Ikea, Target, Best Buy, Macy's, Ralphs, Trade Joe's and more if possible... I know, it sounds silly, but we thought we could complete this relatively rapidly...

FOOLS!

So we did cover most of these places but it took a bit longer than we hoped it would... Actually, it took us most of the day!!! Poor Thia spent almost 6 hours in her push-chair, sleeping through lunch time as we were still at Target trying to understand how this place works (following Sears and Ikea and a couple of ¢99 hot dogs).But the result was pretty impressive. We ended up coming back home with:

• A set of 2 cordless phones
• A US size BBQ (Still to be collected at Sears, if anyone has a LARGE car, any help would be greatly appreciated).
• A 32''HD LCD TV (following some tough negotiation from Sarah)
• An XBox 360 to replace the one I had to leave behind in the UK
• A Dual Tuner TiVo device
• A Wifi router (aka a rOWder in this country)
• A bag full of nappies, air freshener and baby stuff from Target

And the rest of the evening was spent in trying to install all this new AV kit, facing the challenge of a new set of standards, connections and set top boxes...

Thank you Mr President for this fantastic day.

I am a poor man now!

We made it! In less than 2 weeks, we have found our new home!

It has been a long week but we signed the lease agreement yesterday afternoon and already have the keys! Finding the place has not been a walk in the park and I guess that the 3 times 3 hours long relocation tours we had last week have paid.

After having visited several houses last weekend (thanks to the list provided by Yvonne, our relo guru), we had our eyes on only 2 properties. Once located in Studio City, close to Sunset and West Hollywood and spitting distance from the office.

The only issue: The estate agent sounded really dodgy, wanted a double deposit as we are foreigners here and wanted it in cash on the following day. Adding to this that the guy sounded totally paranoid and high on drugs, decision was made to put this one on the back-burner...

Second property, at the bottom of the hills of Montrose. Sarah first felt that this was a bit remote, but as she walked around the house last weekend, she met with a dear, soon followed by 3 of his friends... This turned into a major selling point to us... Adding to this that the city center of Montrose, 2 minutes away from the house, is fantastic. Small town feeling, loads of mums and babies with a farmers market every Sunday.

As they say here: A “Fantastic community!". Sarah went back on Monday with Yvonne to see the inside of the house and decision was immediately made: This was the place to rent! 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, double garage and top kitchen! So after a week of various discussions with banks, credit unions and other nice people, we signed the lease yesterday afternoon.

The landlord seems extremely nice, agreed to minor changes to the lease (pays for water and gardner) and gave us the keys 2 weeks earlier than expected! We then spent some time in the place, taking picture, walking to the communal pool (2 minutes walk, if that), meeting with our new neighbors and finally having a last drive through the town center...

Oh, I forgot to add that before signing the lease, we spent an hour in Montrose, bumping into Rosanna Arquette (shooting a TV show), having a bite and simply musing around. I already love the place. Especially after we found HUGE Cheese and Wine delicatessen!!!

Arnaud, Mike and Chris shown up with their respective families, and kids ran around with Thia for the most part of the evening, discovering hidden places in our new home, playing games and "watching the universe"

Excused were Philippe stuck on the east coast and James recovering from his Friday night (he might show up tonight, who knows!)...

MIA: Sylvain and family... shame! :)

Mike respected the inherited Russian tradition and brought salt and bread and we managed to try various types of beers and wines from around the world, as if we were in Europe (actually, even more diverse... Shocking!!!)

Conclusion of the evening:

Wherever you have a party in the world, it'll always end up in the kitchen (in our case, we didn't even leave the bloody kitchen).