Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Goodbye Ventalló, Hello Legalitat

Two days before my birthday we moved into our new apartment.  After several IKEA trips and some handyman work in the new place, the day had come to say Goodbye Ventalló, Hello Legalitat.  Having been in our apartment for 2 1/2 years, it was weird to clear all our belongings out and yet, I wasn't as sad as I had expected to be given that it had been our home for our entire time in Spain thus far.  I think the idea of doubling our living space may have had something to do with it.

The movers came on Monday to do prepacking.  It's amazing how quickly you can work when you don't need to weed thru things and just place them in boxes.  They had just about our entire apartment packed in less than 3 hours.  All they had to do on Tues was to move the boxes and unassemble the furniture that was going with us.  Seems pretty easy to me!!! 

Tuesday the kids headed off to school, Josh to work and myself to the gym for an early morning workout before a day of standing around saying "sí" or "no" to the movers.  I had gone to IKEA on Saturday with my friends Nasi and Ed (reference Moto entry for more on that) and we had arranged for IKEA to deliver between 2-10PM on Tuesday knowing that the movers should likely be at the new house at that point.  I know that they said between 2-10 because they are from here and therefore speak fluent Spanish and beyond that, I understood what they were saying which means nothing complex passed their lips - simple... between 2-10 on Tuesday.  So of course, IKEA called at 8:30 when my movers were arriving to say they would be there within 30 minutes.  Not sure of the purpose to giving me a window if you are just going to ignore it, but at least it would be done and out of the way. 

I left the movers on their own and met up with IKEA.  Quick in and out and back to the old apartment where they had already made significant progress.  By 11:30 we were on our way to do our first delivery of stuff to the new place (we needed to do 2 trips).  Not bad for the morning! 

My garage is full after just one trip from the old apartment!  How did we accumulate this much crap in just 2 1/2 years????

The rest of the day went equally smoothly with the exception of Telefonica not showing up.  It wasn't a surprise but annoying nonetheless.  We were so busy unpacking that we likely wouldn't have had time to watch tv but it would have been nice to have the option.  Or, you know, work or something.  We most definitely had our work cut out for us with the unpacking.  For some odd reason I thought I could do it in a day - not sure what I was smoking... but I could have sworn when we moved here that we had unpacked in a day.  Maybe less stuff??? 

I took a bunch of pictures on move day and in the last few days but will do an entry once we are completely settled - maybe this weekend or something - with pictures of the finished rooms (Aidan's and Liam's won't actually be done til mid-July as a friend is putting decals on their walls and I can't do much til then).  So no pics of their rooms til it's complete!

Table in the kitchen with new chairs - makes for much better seating than what was here before

Starting to unpack the kitchen (which is easily three times larger than my old one)

The start of the living room

Playroom before...

Playroom after - the kids LOVE it!!!!

More toys to be unpacked (all done now)

My couch delivery today

It barely fit but the beauty is all 4 of us can now sit on the couch at once

Some food for thought... what did the movers think of my American goodies obsession???? 

We were without internet for a good week and a half once all was said and done.  Yes, they had it on here within a few days of moving but given that we'd been shut off for the 4 days leading up til the move, it made for some serious withdrawal that resulted in some grumpiness in our house.  When Telefonica did show up, they only installed our phone stating that our cable and internet had been cancelled.  Ugh!!!  If it's not one thing it's another.  Finally yesterday (Monday) I had a call at 9:30 telling me someone would be here between 11-11:30.  Good thing I answered that phone call!!!  So now we are up and running again...whew!!

And with the delivery of our couch we are nearing completion on the move.  All the integral pieces to day to day living are in place.  We need some knick knacks now that we have more space and we need to do up our terrace on the roof, but for day to day, we're pretty much settled with maybe one or two more boxes left to unpack. 

We're all very excited about the new house.  The extra space is amazing.  It's like we had forgotten what it was like to not be constantly on top of each other!  The kids are getting along better because they can go to separate bedrooms or go to their super cool playroom.  They aren't up each other's butts any more which makes for a very happy mommy.  And Josh and I like that it feels like home in the sense that it is actually a house even though it's in the city!  I think we're all going to be very happy here for the next 3 years!!!

Now if only I could install an elevator to help with all those stairs... well, at least I'll have buns of steel by the time we move back to the US!!!  More pics to follow soon!

Besos,
Julie

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