A few months ago, I moved from Mechelen, Belgium to Cape Town, South Africa.

No, that's not the view outside my window. But Muizenberg beach is just a few minutes away by car. And who can resist such a beach? Well, if you ignore the seaweed, that is.

Getting settled after a cross-continental move takes some time, especially since the stuff that I decided I wanted to take with me would need to be shipped by boat, and that took a while to arrive. Additionally, the reason of the move was to move in with someone, and having two people live together for the first time requires some adjustment in their daily routine; and that is no different for us.

After having been here for several months now, however, things are pulling together:

I had a job lined up before I moved to cape town; but there were a few administrative issues in getting started, which meant that I had to wait at home for a few months while my savings were being reduced to almost nothingness. That is now mostly resolved (except that there seem to be a few delays with payment, but nothing that can't be resolved).

My stuff arrived a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the shipment was not complete; the 26" 16:10 FullHD monitor that I've had for a decade or so now, somehow got lost. I contacted the shipping company and they'll be looking into things, but I'm not hopeful. Beyond that, there were only a few minor items of damage (one of the feet of the TV broke off, and a few glasses broke), but nothing of real consequence. At least I did decide to go for the insurance which should cover loss and breakage, so worst case I'll just have to buy a new monitor (and throw away a few pieces of debris).

While getting settled, it was harder for me to spend quality time on doing free software- or Debian-related things, but I did manage to join Gerry and Mark to do some FOSDEM-related video review a while ago (meaning, all the 2019 videos that could be released have been released now), and spent some time configuring the Debian SReview instance for the Marseille miniconf last weekend, and will do the same for the Hamburg one that will be happening soon. Additionally, there have been some comments on the upstream nbd mailinglist that I cooperated with.

All in all, I guess it's safe to say that I'm slowly coming out of hibernation. Up next: once the payment issues have been fully resolved and I can spend money with a bit more impudence, join a local choir and/or orchestra and/or tennis club, and have some off time.