There! I hope you have the song stuck in your head now too.
10 days from today and we should finally be in Wiesbaden! ***frantically turns around to knock on wood****
This is pack-out week, which was always going to be crazy and busy. Yesterday we mailed several boxes of stuff (mostly extra clothes and shoes and some dog things) so they can get there around the same time we do.
We had a vet appointment this morning to get the dogs cleared to fly to Germany. After an hour of the vet double and triple checking the paperwork we had to try three times before we found a Fed-Ex shipping counter which would let us buy a pre-paid overnight envelope to send to NY with our paperwork so that we could get it all back in time. Hopefully we did everything correctly and the dogs will have the proper paperwork by Friday.
Tomorrow we have our unaccompanied baggage pack-out, which is supposed to be things that will arrive 30-45 days after we get to Germany, but will probably show up 2 days before the rest of our stuff. This pack-out is also tricky because we’re limited to 700 pounds of things, but the binder that work gave us to help us prep for the move is ridiculously out of date for this section, so the list includes super useful items like “alarm clock,” “deck of cards,” and “thank you notes.”
Thursday we will be moving more stuff to our personal storage, and trying to get prepped for the big move on Friday. I also have a going away party for work, which will be a nice break packing, sorting, and cleaning.
Then Friday is the big day. We will have two different moving companies in the house at the same time to move stuff in two dramatically different ways: household goods going to Germany (which should arrive 45-60 days after us) and government storage, which will be crated up and sent to a warehouse until we move back. Luckily our house is big enough that we will be able to stage things fairly easily and keep the two shipments really separate from each other.
And if you’re reading this and wondering why we have our own storage unit if the government will store stuff for us for free — well, the government storage isn’t temperature controlled and we don’t want to come back to moldy, damaged stuff, so we’re being really careful about what we are sending to government storage. And if you’re reading this and wondering why we are sending so much stuff to storage for 6 years — we have a pretty big house in Maryland with a big yard, but we’re expecting to live in an apartment or town home a quarter of the size, so we’re only bringing the stuff we really think we need. Plus, if it turns out we get a larger place and need more things, we can always ship stuff from our personal storage unit, as long as we’re willing to go in there and excavate the specific things we’re looking for.
Once the house is empty Friday afternoon, Chris, the dogs, and I will move to a hotel room for the final 6 days, which will give us time to get the house cleaned up for rental and take care of a few last minute things, like hauling any straggling things to the storage unit and selling our remaining car.
The Thursday after pack-out will be our last day in Maryland. We will go to work for a couple of hours to take care of some final paperwork, then drive down to Dulles Airport to catch a red-eye to Frankfurt, with a delightful 0730 (Frankfurt time) arrival. Luckily, we will have work sponsors meeting us at the airport to help us through the first crazy day. We’ve already been warned that one of their biggest priorities will be keeping us awake to help get us over the jet lag as quickly as possible. Our sponsors also have several tasks lined up for Friday, including getting ID cards, opening a bank account, and getting a German cell phone plan.
It’s all really overwhelming, so we keep trying to focus on the next immediate steps instead of thinking about the absolute madness that the next few days will be. And when all else fails, I start planning our first real trip from Wiesbaden… right now Barcelona over Labor Day weekend is sounding pretty appealing.