Moving to a new home is always both hard work and fun. Hard work as you have to get all your belongings sorted, pack everything up, rethink if this particular item you bought few years ago has a spot in your new home or should better end up in the trash bin (probably it should already years before) and sell furniture you don’t need anymore. Fun because it is basically a fresh start for you, you are able to set up in the new home everything how you like it (as it was nearly impossible in your old home because of the mass of furniture and other stuff). Now think how much work it is just to move to another building, street, city or province and then think about how damn hard it is to move with all your stuff to another country.
Yes, it is nearly time for us to move finally to Germany. Wednesday my parents will arrive with their car and a trailer. However we won’t go directly to Germany but first to the cottage again as my parents decided to take our sofa and washing machine. This trip to the cottage is actually a nice idea as it will give us the opportunity to relax for a few days before starting the next part of our journey. Okay, we anyways have to get out of the apartment before we can go to Germany as our renters will move in right after we leave.
Now there are a few things which come in very handy when moving and they show that I am just really unable to plan such events. First of all my I want to share my original plan. My grand idea was to rent a truck, pack it full with our stuff and I would drive it , have my father with our car and my mother would be with their own car. This might sound pretty good until you see how much it actually cost to rent a truck in Finland and use it only one-way to Germany. Latest the truck costs for a ferry spot would blow your budget! A ferry? Yes a ferry as we do not wish to drive thousands of kilometres, especially with a little baby in the car and our bed on the car roof.
Now I come to the part where it is just great to have parents or people who think a bit different and looking always for how to keep any costs low, to have a wife who is really fond of internet auctioning websites and last but not least be able to admit that the own plan is a horrible one. You see, my parents have friends who visit Finland every summer and few agreed to take several boxes filled with our earthly possessions with them to Germany by car. I am not talking about one or two boxes which might find a little corner in their trunk but about over 20 huge moving cardboard boxes! Then also the fact that there is my old man buying all those moving boxes for us and bringing them to Finland in the first place. My own idea was to put all our stuff into, well, I have absolutely no clue at all, probably scattered around in the truck.
Now why it is so good to have a wife who loves internet auctioning websites? We had to either sell much of our furniture or simply throw it away. Thanks to my wife we were actually able to sell most of the stuff and earned few extra bucks which can be used later to buy great new things for our new apartment. Yay, to my pathetic plan…
Now to the sad part of us moving away and not to have enough space in the car: Our beloved George as to stay in our old apartment and will find a new home with the people renting our apartment. George, I am sorry and we will miss you! But don’t worry, we will do our best to take you to Germany as well some when in the future. I hope you are not too hurt by the fact that I don’t remember whether you are a Dracaena or a Yucca…
Crazy Chinese Family 
Ahhh, moving. Moving countries. That is always such a hassle if the countries are separated by water. Sounds like you have a lot of stuff, Crazy. But it looks like you have them all neatly put away in all those boxes. When I moved to Melbourne from Singapore, I packed my stuff in boxes too…and until this day some of the stuff are still in boxes 😀 Just…never gotten around to unpacking. Like packing, unpacking can be a big headache. I am sure when you have moved to Germany you will get a new plant…
I am probably also a person who would keep many boxes unpacked for a long time, however my wife changed that pretty quickly about me 🙂
A new plant would be of course a possiblity however nothing can replace good old George, our first plant in the house which didnt die!
I feel your pain! I’m moving back to Shanghai in a couple weeks from the US and so far I’ve only been able to think about what I should be doing…
I am really great in thinking what I should do but it usually stays with that thought. Like I have been thinking of updating the list of blogs I like already for 3 months 😛
Moving is a lot of work. How nice that you have people to help! My last move was eleven years ago. I don’t even want to think about how hard it was.
Its great when many people can help but even with these extra helpers we will have to leave a lot of stuff at my parents cottage for now until we can pick them up in the following years
Well, good luck!! Think about the good part… how wonderful your new home will be after you have finished arranging everything! 😀
I don’t even want to think what would happen if I move back to Spain from China haha. I guess I would need to rent a shipping container…
I am planing to make another blog post when the apartment is done with the renovation work. So far I have one post where everything is about 30% done or so 🙂
Some people I know rented a shipping container when they moved from Shanghai to Finland. I still wonder how expensive that is
Ask them if you have the chance! I would also love to know. And would you need to pay customs fees for your own things??
I think tomorrow the woman is coming to our place for a last visit so I hope to remember to ask 🙂
Good luck with the move! When I decided to stay in China I gave most of my furniture to my brother and the rest to charity. Other little things are still in my mom’s storage, but I try to take a little bit with me every visit. And of course I’ve thrown away a lot of things too, just like you said, they probably should have been thrown away a long time ago.
It is always amazing me how long I can keep really useless stuff around. Each time I found the things by chance in some dark corner I just thought to myself “You might need it later!”. Yeah, later never really comes 🙂
Great post as always – I nominated you for a Liebster award – to see the rules look at my page here https://achinacat.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/ive-been-nominated-for-the-liebster-award/ thanks
Thank you for nominating me, lets see how quickly I get around to follow it up 🙂
Best of luck with the move! Always lots of work. A big adventure to head to a new country!