Empty House

Little update on the moving process ...which is sucking my will to live.

The house is finally empty.

Monday, Day One of Moving:  

Two British guys show up and, with Happy, they wrap most of the furniture as I finish packing boxes.  It took FOREVER! ...but the day was simple enough.  I was exhausted from all packing.  This day was by far the worst for me.  Luckily, a friend took Andrea and kept her all day long... or it would have been impossible.

Tuesday, Day Two of Moving:  

Same two British guys show up and finish a few things like wrapping up beds, etc...  Container shows up an hour early along with two German guys who were the "muscle-y loaders" ...since you only get three hours to keep/load the container.  

Little side note again:

So... when you move overseas you get a container, not a moving truck.  Of course a container is just a truck without wheels... so it's the same thing I guess.  The only thing is that containers are used for all kinds of things not just things that belong in people's houses ...and the first container we had had been used for something oily and greasy and sooty.  Yuck.  

After loading for a half hour or so we realized the sooty oil was getting all over the boxes, people, and floors ...basically everywhere.  Awesome.  Actually Paul was the one who was at home to deal with this little event, I was off getting lunch for everyone and returned home to find unhappy movers unloading the container and putting things back into the driveway where most of the house had already been moved to.  

Drama ensued and it was determined that we would get a new container the next day, which was fine for us because we actually wanted to stay in the house another night.  So we sent the container back to the harbor and the irritated movers started moving all of our things back into the garage.  The two German guys leave and the British guys finished up with things in the house.

So we started making cupcakes for school the next day and cooking steak and potatoes for dinner...  We were doing quite well; happy and eating...  Then another container shows up at 6:30pm.  There was no way on earth that the two British guys and Paul could load the container so we told the container driver that we had not expected, nor did we want the container ...that it was supposed to come the next day, not at that time.  Actually, we didn't tell him that, we had a neighbor come across the street and tell him for us ...bit of a language barrier to add to the fun.  :)

In the end the guy refused to leave, said he was paid to stay there for three hours and he was going to stay there for three hours and get paid.  So we left him and went back inside.  Hmmmmm.....  not really our problem, it was the moving companies so we went back to eating and just relaxing.  

THEN at 8:00 pm....

I turn around and three German guys are in the house grabbing boxes and running things out to the container.  I stood there in the kitchen for a bit, completely confused with what I should do...  I finally concluded that we would need a place to sleep and the kids needed to go to bed as soon as possible.

  

Knowing that there was not a hotel available in Hamburg due to a giant airbus convention... and any room I did happen to find would be over 300 euros... I called Kelly.  :)  She loves us, so of course she said to come on over.  I had to finish with our last minute boxes first though so I sent all the kids to hide in Michaela's room.  I finished up with a few packing things and then started throwing things into a bag for the next day.

At 9:00 pm my children and I are knocking on Kelly's front door.  

We came inside, the kids went to bed and I sat on the couch with Kelly and her husband for a bit then I went back to get Paul who was being a muscle-y mover.  

When I arrived at home around 10:00, I found three Germans, two Brits, and one Canadian still running things out to the container.  UGH...

Then the three Germans left.  Bigger UGH.

Then an American started helping.  (me)

We finished at midnight.  We went back to Kelly's and went to sleep in the most comfortable bed on earth.  

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday: Paul and I would show up at an empty house and clean, but truth be told, he cleaned way more than me because I had to run a zillion errands involving cars, kids, parties, and cats.

So there you have it, I'm not reading back over that to see if it makes sense.  :)   I'm just glad the week is done and I'd like to think the hard part is over.  :)