And then thanks to unexpected bureaucratic delays with our bank, our credit card application is held up while they change their credit card policy so it is going to be at least another month. This was money that we were counting on to get all our things onto the container and on their way to us and having had assurances from the bank, we had already started the process of getting things ready for shipping.
A number of people seem surprised that we are shipping our goods over. After doing the math of two years worth of storage for our 7,140 lbs of goods vs shipping, the cost worked out exactly the same. And we would be saving the money that it would have cost to furnish this place here had we left everything in US storage (we couldn't have lived for two years with just a couch and beds as we have been doing for two months now!) A lot of fellow expats here had sold everything before they moved, but with the antiques and good quality pieces we have coupled with the depressed auction market, we never would have got what all of it was worth and replacing all of it would have been twice as expensive.
In preparation for getting everything ready for the container, I had been remotely wrangling boxes that we had left behind from various locales to get to the shippers. We had left 4 big boxes of household items with our dear friend John O. who has been a rockstar in helping us. Originally (before we were shipping our things), these were going to be mailed to us when we got settled. Once we decided to ship all our worldly goods, those boxes could go in the shipment and there were also been a few sneaky Amazon orders that John kindly took in for us and gave them, along with the four originals, to the shippers when they picked them up from him last weekend. Then there was also the 2 drawer's full of kitchen utensils that we realized on our last walkthrough of the Chicago flat that we hadn't packed - yikes. Into a bag with them and they were dropped off along with Nero in Rockford. Now thanks to the magic of UPS, they are with the shipment, so everything is reunited.
We also had the fun of having to go through all of our books and art work to leave in storage anything that might be offensive that we could not bring into the country here. There are potential huge problems if the customs officials find anything they feel is offensive in your shipment, the least of which is a fine and the worst of which is jail time. So, I spent three hours on the phone with the unfortunate warehouse guy who was charged with the task of opening every box. The books weren't so bad, as we simply determined to leave all art books full of bouncy cherubs, Greek statues and Reubenesque maidens in US storage. We had already found most of our fiction books for sale here at the English language bookstore so feel that they are going to be ok. But the pictures on the other hand....oy vey. With our large collection of, *ahem* nudes, we really had to make sure that we separated things out, which meant that the warehouse guy had to look at every picture, and describe it to me so I could determine stay or go. I don't think he realized when he started his day that he would be having a conversation with a client that went (and I quote) "well, I see a nipple in that one so it should stay and there's three inches of butt crack in this one".
So, we are trying to figure out other options for shipping both Nero and our things, but in the meantime our big, empty house is just a little sad. :(
No comments:
Post a Comment