Moving is a time of turmoil - to say as much is to understate the obvious. There are dates and deadlines to work around - when you get the electricity shut off, when the phone stops working, when the landlord will inspect the apartment, or (show up and tell you he doesn't have time to inspect the apartment, so you can't get your deposit back. Sorry.) Then there are the boxes to pack, and ship, (and how will we get the boxes from the house to the post office? Will they fit in a taxi? Shall we call a truck? How does one do that in a language you don't speak?)
Moving from one country to another only adds to the factors that could go wrong. What language should the forms be filled out in? (Kind of a moot point since I don't speak either.) How much taxes and customs duty are they going to charge me for simply bringing in my possessions? If I write down everything that is in the package, will this tempt someone to help themselves? If I don't write everything down, can I get in trouble for undeclared items? What about insurance - how specific do I need to be? (fortunately the space provided is 3 lines long, allowing for about 6 words maximum, so once again - a bit of a moot point.) But where / how will we live till our blankets and bowls arrive?
Once you have turned the key, and boarded the bus for the airport, the move briefly takes on the appearance of a regular jaunt out of the country. Bags and books and carry-ons. Bus to hostel to bed to breakfast to train to bus to airport to check in to security to sit to wait to read to bus to airplane. This is probably the most relaxing time of the whole move, since it is the only time in which all your mistakes have already been made, and now you have nothing to do except suffer the consequences. For the first time in about 2 months, there are no pressing decisions to make which will most likely deprive you of hundreds of dollars if you pick the wrong option. Unless, of course, your airline goes on strike. Which ours did. But nevermind.
When you arrive at your destination, and go airplane to bus to immigration to baggage (side-trip to duty-free) to customs to taxi to friend's apartment to unpack the bags and books and carry-ons, to sit silently on the couch and stare at the darkened television screen and think - it is almost over. Almost over. Almost over. Soon, soon, the boxes will come, there will be some hassle, yes, the boxes will come, and then there will be some hassle about moving them, but then, then I will be done, and then I will have a home again, and then it will all seem worth it, and then I will have succeeded, I will have finished what I started 6, 7, months ago. Then it will be finished. And you drink your drink and you think your think and you crawl into bed and sleep the sleep of the just.
But you shouldn't. Because what you don't know, and for 3 more blessed days won't know, is that all your precious boxes, each of them bigger than you, and loaded with the detritus of a materialistic life lived on the run, loaded with accumulated crap of varying utility, expense, and sentimental value, each and every one of those boxes that you labored over and packed to within grams of the maximum weight allowed, and then covered in postal regulation brown paper, and taped firmly and fixed a curse on the lid of each one, promising to those who would trespass here such affliction that would make Tutankhamen's tomb look like an invitation to Disneyland, each and every one of your boxes is now winging its way to the wrong address, destined to be delivered (or not,) to an abandoned building down the road.
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