It seems to be months ago that we boarded the plane on our way to our new adventure in the United States. But it has been only 5 weeks. So many things happened.

The trip itself was already a big happening. All of us in the business class to Detroit and on to New Orleans. Someone was waiting on us and brought us with a van to our first hotel: Homewood Suites. This was only a two bedroom apartment, but it much to the delight of our children every room contained a television. And every day we could make use of an all you can eat breakfast and dinner. In our second apartment we were fortunate to have three bedrooms but only one television…. We have a little kitchen but we also eat out a lot. Shell pays.

The first morning our rental car was delivered to our door. A brand new silver Dodge Caravan . The children were fighting who could sit in front or in the far back. It was difficult to get them out of the car again , because the air conditioning kept the car cool while outside it was between 95 and 104 F. (between 35 and 40 C). These are normal temperatures for time of the year. Also do American cars have more places to put your drinks than passenger seats, so there is always a drink at hand. Now we had a car we could tour the city in search for a rental house. That was not so easy. We were looking for a four or more bedroom house and most rentals were two or three bedrooms. The ones we found in the city, Uptown or Garden district, were in a bad state, had no garden or were too expensive (although we do have our Shell housing allowance). Well, lets look at the schools, because this is also an important factor in finding a suitable house.

Our school adviser advised us not to look for a public school. Shell is paying for the school, so let's look at some private schools: Newman, Country Day and St. Martin's. Newman and St. Martin's have their own official swimming pool. Of course that influenced what the children wanted. Newman's admissions department gave us the impression not to be very flexible, but St. Martin's was very open and friendly in their presentation. The general atmosphere on the school grounds was also very positive and this side of the city seemed to have more options to find a suitable house. The school wanted to see reports from the children. After translating it we presented them the information. Rebecca and Sarah got the results of the nationwide testing they participated in while we were still in the Netherlands. Rebecca is very proud that she has a 100% score in one of the grammar subjects of the Dutch language ( no one scored better than she did in the Netherlands!). Sarah had very good grades in the math section (she is in the top 3% best of the whole math section). Of course the schools like these results. Next week our children will take some other tests to find out what grade they will going to be in.

Back to our search for houses. Our female real estate agent showed us a house in decay (at least on the inside) in Uptown, two very large and expensive houses in Metairie, a beautiful house next to a golf course in Chateau in Kenner and an average house in Harahan. The last two were gone by the time we arrived. So we decided to start looking by ourselves. A lot of houses are for rent / for sale by owner and not or not yet by a real estate agent. Very quickly we find some nice houses near Kenner / St. Martin's. One of the houses is just on the market. The owner, a Mexican lady, wanted to sell at first, but she made up her mind. A reasonably new bungalow with 4 bedrooms, a large living room, a den and an office space. The price was only 40% of our budget. It was an easy choice. Because we are foreigners as well (with a beautiful Spanish name "Francesco Floris") she decides to leave the refrigerator / freezer, washing machine, dryer and microwave and to install a new dishwasher. What a blessing! Unfortunately we lack the blessing trying to buy mobile phones. The various companies offer attractive deals on family plans. You can buy extra phone lines for a cheap price for your kids and you can call free to other people with the same provider. Only we have to pay 2500 US dollars deposit, because we have not established credit yet within the United States. And you can only buy a family-plan if you have a local driving-license and a social security number!

To get this license is a totally different story. You can get it if you have a social security number (or a letter of denial if you are not allowed to work in the United States). It takes about two weeks to get the number. We already had to hand in the rental car after two weeks. You need a car to do the test! Fortunately Diana was able to get a license without a social security number (she passed in one time!), so we could buy our own car. Then it was my turn. Too bad our car did not have a brake tag yet. It is not allowed to use a car without a brake tag for a driving-test. Sometimes the rules here are a lot worse than in the Netherlands. And the flexibility is a lot less. (Frans was clearly frustrated when he wrote this! Note of the translator Diana) Finally he can take the test: he scored a 100% in theory, but failed the practice! I missed a stop sign and I drove 38 miles an hour instead of 35! Well I finally made it a week later.

Fortunately within Shell they have a lot of understanding for all the worries of the newcomers, so Frans doesn't have to go to the office full days the first weeks. To get used to the work Frans goes to some meetings and has a few sessions with the person who is leaving the job. The work looks promising and interesting. In September we are going to drill a new well. There are about 12 big projects in the team and I can visit a platform in the Gulf of Mexico in a short while. Of course not if a big storm or hurricane is on its way. We had a few of those already. Arlene and Cindy were tropical storms who passed very close by. The windiness was not so bad, but the power outages. Some colleagues of Frans were two days without electricity. This afternoon hurricane Dennis will pass by, which is a big category 4. Fortunately not too close, but this morning again we had a power outage. Apart from these storms incredible rain and thunderstorms pass by. In half an hour the whole garden is flooded. Fortunately the house is several feet higher than the road, so the water is gone quickly.

Now that we have chosen to live way outside of the center (about 12 miles) we also need two cars. Considering our experience and others lead us to buy a used Japanese car at a good dealership. After a quick research we found a nice Toyota Sienna 7-person mini van at the Toyota dealer for a very affordable price. The car needed some repairs, but we got it for free. A week later we found an almost new Nissan Sentra (2004) at the Ford dealership for Frans to commute to work. In contrast with the experience of a few of Frans' colleagues our insurance accepts our prove of 4 years driving without damage. It saves us 25 percent of insurance costs! Another blessing! However insurance in the U.S. is still very costly. Fortunately we do not need to pay car tax to the local government in this parish.

The children are enjoying the longest holiday they ever had. They start with a jumpstart in the beginning of August. It is sort of a preparation for the new school year. Children can improve their skills. For our children it is a chance to get used to the school-system. Zefanja is also doing Rocketry camp. They make their own 3 rockets and fire them at the end of the week. That is something he likes very much.

To get used to the English language we gave the children a laptop with a wireless web connection. Not only to go on the web, but also to work on school cd's. They have to answer questions, make puzzles and collect items to get to the next level. They have to use English of course. It is not always easy to get them doing it, but it is vitally important. For recreation we bought a table-tennis-table so they can get rid of their energy and Frans as well. For Diana we bought a cross-trainer, but all of us are using it.

The first few days in our new home we only had the new beds from Sarah and Zefanja and a few mattresses. Fortunately this weekend our sea-fright arrived, so now we are not camping in the house any longer. No plastic forks, knives and spoons, but real ones. Of course we bought a grill before the 4^th of July (Independence Day in the U.S.) so we could grill our steaks and hamburgers. Our Delft blue houses are in the window to remind us of twenty years in Delft.

Of course our move is incomplete without a good new church. The first we visited was impressive (1000-1500 persons), but very impersonal. After the service no one greeted us. Everybody did their own thing. The next one (Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Kenner) was a lot friendlier. Especially the children were thrilled after they went to the youth-groups. The third church is a cell-based church. On Wednesday night the youth have their meeting. Unfortunately the Sunday morning youth meetings were less organized. Also the music was not quite what we like. Because we had heard about an international oriented church we decided to have a look. It is on the other side of the Mississippi-river. The preaching was very powerful and the church members were obviously motivated. But there was no youth service, so our children could not meet other children their age. This is one of our number one priorities, so we scratched this church from our list. This weekend all the churches are closed because of the hurricane threat.

Our next projects will be finding out how to use the new lawn mower (to mow our big lawn), visit a golf course, testing for school and summer-camp, visit our friends in Houston and furniture the house.

From the United States lots of love,

Frans, Diana, Zefanja, Rebecca and Sarah

Email us at fransdiana@cox.net