Now, I can smile again. But last Tuesday I thought I’d never smile again. What a fucking mess it was, once the moving company had dropped some 260 boxes and furniture items in our new place. But let me take a step back…

When we arrived, we were immediately confronted with the well-known “parking-problem” in the city. Eventually, I found a spot only to get a ticket for $115 two hours later. Apparently I had parked to close to a fire hydrant. Ok then, I moved the car further away - only to get another ticket for another $115, for the same violation. Still not far enough away from the bloody hydrant. Hmm, eventually I figured it out. Now, we have the parking scenario somewhat figured out. After the first 2 days we were ready to sell the car - but now we’ll give it another try.

We were expecting the moving company some time Tuesday morning. When they still weren’t there by lunchtime, I called them and was told that they’d arrive shortly. Well, at around 3.00p they arrived. Immediately it became clear that they won’t be able to unload the stuff for the appartment and the storage facility on the same day, as the storage facility closes at 5.30p.

Well, they started unloading. And they weren’t impressed with how narrow the staircase was and they also weren’t impressed that there was no elevator. Hey, but that’s what I paid them $7000 for, right? Anyway, it all went ok until they got to the couch and some big IKEA shelf. I had to take the shelf apart on the sidewalk so they could carry it up in pieces. And the couch? Well, that wouldn’t go up at all. An hour later or so, I had the idea to take the whole ballustrade off the staircase and to also take the legs off the couch. Wow, after that there was around half a centimeter on each side to spare and the thing actually went up and into the living room.

They finished at around 7.00p or so and were planning to come back the next day for the storage stuff. (Which they actually did and there were no hickups there). That evening we were so tired that I just put the ballustrade back on, grabbed a six-pack, had a beer and went straight to bed.

It was only in the next morning, that the whole mess became clear. There was so much stuff everywhere, that it was literally impossible to get anywhere in the place. So, the bottom line is, that everything had to be touched 10-20 times until it had reached its final place. Add this to the fact that around 5 larger items just would not fit in the places we had planned for them. Usually they were around half an inch too wide or so.

On another evening I started wiring the whole entertainment setup in the living room. There goes a TV, a Receive, an XBOX, 2 Playstations, some external hard-disks, a Slingbox, a WiFI Access Point, a DVD Player, a Cable Box and kilometeres of cables. It took me around 4 hours to wire everything. When I got to the point to plug everything into the receiver, I found out that the damn thing wouldn’t fit into the cupboard properly. So I re-arranged everything the next morning, drilled some holes and now everyhing is connected. I still need to hide 2 wires from the TV and install the rear speakers, but other than it looks and sounds pretty impressive. HiDef goodness :)

Remember that bookshelf I had to take apart on the sidewalk? Well, I put it togeter again - only to realize that it was one of those things, which were half an inch to wide to fit properly. So, on Saturday, we drove to IKEA in New Jersey and bought some new, smaller bookcases. Upon our return I took the big one down again and put together the new ones. We then gave the old one away to some neighbour.

Other than that it was just very stressful. Get up at 7.00a for a quick breakfast - and work through the day until midnight - only to re-start that cycle the next morning. Noah was not impressed at all with us doing stuff - rather than playing with him.

Well, anyway, we’re now in a livable space. It’s pretty much there. There are 2 boxes left to unpack and some pictures to hang. After that some fine-tuning and then we should be done.

Today’s my first day in my new job - and so far it’s nice to just sit on my butt and don’t carry things around the house. We’ll use the evening this week to put up some curtain, blinds and pictures. So, by the weekend we should be 99% done.

So, this gives you a glimpse into our last week. It was actually much worse than described above :)

We’ll keep you posted!
 Torsten