The Big Day!

Last night we saw a huge truck parked outside our apartment building and we realized it was our container! With an early arrival, it was obviously ready for our 8:00 am appointment scheduled for this morning. Maybe it was due to that glimpse of our container or the thoughts of my clothes and shoes dancing in my head, but last night felt like Christmas Eve. I could barely sleep anticipating today's unpacking and rediscovery of all our stuff!

Bright and early this morning, we heard the bell announcing the arrival of our lovely team of delivery men who would spend hours with us unloading all of our precious belongings that spent the last 6 weeks floating to Germany. The man who initially rang the bell didn't speak much English, but repeated "container" over and over just to make sure we understood who he was.

I went off to work because I figured it would be okay to put in my whopping three hours while John remained at the apartment, but I only got to 10:15 before his text saying, "Can you come home?!" I immediately told Christina I had to book it and luckily my position allows me that flexibility. I dropped what I was doing and ran home...literally.

What I found was complete mayhem! A team of six movers were quickly unloading boxes, bringing them into the apartment and wanting to know where they should go. The small rooms would quickly fill with stacked boxes and I could immediately see why John called for reinforcements. I have to say that many aspects of moving to Germany did not come easily to me, but the unpacking is one area where I reign supreme. If unpacking was an olympic sport, I would be a gold medal champion. I dived into boxes, pulled out the contents, and stuffed them....ANYWHERE there was room. You see, the unpacking process is not about leisurely organizing one's belongings in the new home. Nope, it is a complete frenzy of trying to get items out of boxes and then empty boxes the hell out of the apartment as quickly as possible in order to keep up with the pace of the delivery men!

At various points during the unpack, one of the delivery men made comments that caused me to have a series of mini heart attacks. At first he said, "You can call the company, but there is no way we can get this all unloaded today..." then shortly after that he said, "this place is way too small for all this stuff, it's not all going to fit in here..." Finally towards the end of the unpacking after they had brought in the box spring, he said, "you don't have a mattress?" to which I replied, "what? yeswehaveamattress! Wait, there'snomattressinthecontainer?!!??" all the while having a near panic attack. At this point he started laughing at me, told the other guys in German how he just tricked me, and they all started to laugh uproariously because it was SO funny that he convinced me our mattress was lost/stolen/missing. We had quite the comedian on our hands. They left around noon, so his notion that it was impossible to unload the entire container must have been another part of his comedy routine, but it sure sparked me into action and I definitely tore through every box at full speed. The men kept insisting, "ma'am, I do," but I was a woman on a mission!

Now, I can't say I was surprised by this, but it was one of those moments in life where something that you already knew, and you knew you knew, becomes so crystal clear that the problem seems a lot more daunting than ever before. It screams INTERVENTION!!! DO SOMETHING! STOP THE MADNESS! What am I referring to you might ask? Well, my husband is an addict. He has a problem and today it was blatantly clear. His drug of choice? SHOES. As the movers brought in box after box containing this word written clear as day in black sharpie, as I unloaded box after box, pair after brightly colored and uniquely designed pair, the ugly truth began to sink in. We could probably fill our entire guest toilet room, floor to ceiling, with adidas shoes. Tennis shoes, basketball shoes, street shoes, colorful shoes, varying styles of plain white shoes, custom designed shoes, brown shoes, blue shoes...you name it! You would think he was a shoe wearing centipede! Needless to say, we had to go on a little excursion to Ikea to get some shoe organizers for John's wardrobe that house 12 pairs each because we need homes for all his little friends.

After the movers left, the hard part began. We had to undo the disorganized craziness and put things where they actually should go. We had to make some changes within our wardrobes because the distance between the high and low hanging bars was not big enough and John installed those lovely shoe organizers as well. The only boxes we have not opened yet are the ones containing our kitchen stuff, since we don't have one yet, but we will probably delve into those tomorrow just to make sure nothing is broken.

We are both happy, yet exhausted and we still have lots of tidying to do, so I will post some pictures later on this weekend.