Day 160: Closed but no cigar

This picture was taken on our first visit to our own property here in the US. Closing was an interesting experience. There was the 'everyone in the same room' part - including the seller angling for an invitation to the house-warming. The kids being a welcome distraction for those not having to read and sign dozens of documents. They were very good. The fact that most of the business was done by our attorney going through a pile of documents handing them to us (with an explanation) for us to sign, while on the other side of the table, the same thing was happening with the seller and his attorney. The weird thing of everyone going away with a check of some sort. Ours was signed over to one of the two sellers whilst everyone else (attorneys, real-estate brokers, mortgage broker and of course the sellers) went away with checks from our mortgage lender. At least it's all quite neat and we shouldn't have other odd bills coming in, except the ongoing ones of course!

It was all over quite quickly, not much more than an hour.

The house seems fine and we've met one neighbour and waved at some of the others. A few jobs to do and then we we can move in and start the next chapter of exile in a more settled way hopefully.

Exile #2 has now gone out to buy cake ingredients for tomorrow's birthday celebrations. We'll also be picking our car up at last, so another busy day lies ahead.