Moving Day #2

This post is delayed for several reasons - the first and most important being that the day we left for the hotel after our move was the day my hard drive decided to die.  As I type this 2 weeks later, I'm still in recovery mode because I couldn't do the recovery on our cruise.  Anyways, better late than never, I'll have a bunch of entries from our move to our cruise and our time in the States coming up!!

For some reason day 2 of the move was harder than day 1. Boredom perhaps?  No furniture to sit on other than the very uncomfortable dining chairs maybe?  The silver lining at least is that I was ridiculously productive during these two days and caught up on more work than I had in 10 years. For the first time in a long time, I'm caught up on all my projects. For now (and I never should have written that part because that's probably why my hard drive died).

Anyways, the move. I didn't realize how much stuff we had. When we moved to this apartment two years ago, the movers spent one day doing prepacking. Maybe it was because it was a cross city move rather than an international move, but not only were these movers more meticulous, but they catalogued everything. And I'm sure that explains why it took so long.

We also managed to double what we originally brought with us. We arrived with 110 boxes but are leaving with 230. Yikes!!  Now some I can explain.  Furniture that we purchased here, as we brought only one piece with us, electronics as we brought none... But does that really cover 100 extra boxes?  Apparently I have some purging to do when I get to Amsterdam.

The kids were painfully bored. Aidan went to a friend's for a few hours which was a relief. I don't think he could take one more day of sitting on the rug with his iPad. No toys, no tv, not even a pen and paper. Finally Josh decided around 4 to take them to the hotel to check in. But first he and I had to take care of tossing a few things - throw rugs and some old chairs that were on our roof. Plus returning our cable box.

It was just before 6 before they were on their way. And the movers were wrapping things up with moving truck #2. Yes 2. In my defense, they couldn't fit a normal sized moving truck on our street and my guess is they will transfer all the contents of the trucks to one large container for storage and then shipping in August.

So incredibly bored... ipads can only go so far over 2 days...

Using their imaginations and limited "toys"

Moving truck #2 is off - next stop - Amsterdam!

So part 1 is now done. The move.  We spent the night in a hotel in Poblenou, a cute family neighborhood where we really haven't spent much time as a family (but Josh worked there every day). I went out with some amazing friends for drinks to say goodbye (for now) and it was so strange getting into a taxi and not only asking to take me to a hotel, making me feel very touristy, but to not be going "home" to my apartment. It all still feels a bit surreal that we are truly done here.

Today, Saturday, we are having the apartment cleaned. Remember, here you turn in your apartment exactly as you received it, if not in better condition - there is no allowance for wear and tear.  The kids will both have play dates while I hang out at the apartment. Tonight Liam will sleep at his friend's house and Aidan enjoyed not one but two play dates today including an impromptu sleepover with Max. He was going to go to dinner with josh and I at Recasens, one of our favorite places in Poblenou, but now instead we lucked out with an unexpected date night (still to Recasens)!

Another play date for Liam tomorrow and then on Monday we do our final walk-thru with our landlord, hand over the keys and then head to the bank to release our aval money (this is the security deposit the landlord takes). The kids and I will head to Sitges to visit with friends while Josh has a dr appt and ties up any loose ends. Tuesday morning (way too early) it will be time to head out to Barcelona airport one last time as residents - the next time we come back it will be as visitors!

Besos,
Julie

Moving Day!!

The big day is finally here... MOVING DAY!  This has been months and months in the making.  Most of those months we didn't know where exactly we were moving to but we knew we were going somewhere.  I've been slowly purging and selling things off (though still have more to sell - where in the world will this stuff fit in our smaller house????) and stacking things up in the garage, hallways or in the bedrooms.  Really, anywhere that stuff would fit, I've found a place to stack it.  

I'm ready.  Josh is conveniently not here but arrives tonight around 10PM.  I know the kids are not ready to go.  Liam has a playdate this afternoon but I wasn't able to coordinate anything for Aidan unfortunately.  And the moving guys just asked if they can take the tv now (it's only 2PM!) - what do I say, no????  And so let the fun really begin.  Thank god for ipads!!  Perhaps in hindsight we should have done a hotel tonight too as I just went to make a peanut butter sandwich with my last bits of food and realized the silverware and plasticware are both packed already!  And so Oreos it shall be for lunch - a lunch of champions right?????  

But like I said, I'm ready.  This has been a long time coming.  We still have so many balls in the air at the moment and so many things happening over the next 7-8 weeks before we even get to Amsterdam that it will be nice to check one item off the list in the next few days.  I'm trying to not be overwhelmed by it all but it's hard.  So I'm chunking it up - moving, hotel, leave BCN, cruise, US before camp, US kids in camp and then back to Amsterdam to start our new lives (again).  

I remember the day we left Attleboro 4 1/2 years ago.  I cried so hard as we pulled out of the driveway. Josh and the kids overall pretty stoic (Liam having no idea what was going on as he was only 2).  That house had so many wonderful memories of our family as it grew.  We got engaged there, married, got both dogs, had both kids and spent so many wonderful days and evenings with friends and family there.  To leave it was so hard.  

What I didn't realize until we were settled in Barcelona is that while it's a house we've loved, it's just a house - the memories are ours no matter where we live.  And I think that is a piece of why I'm ok with us leaving Barcelona.  The memories will be ours forever - that won't change.  I will miss our friends here, though 90% of them have moved on and no longer are here - but the ones that are still here will be our friends no matter what - I know that these friends that we've made here will last beyond the Spanish border.  

That doesn't mean I won't be sad when we leave.  Just ready.  Too many difficult things have happened in the last few weeks that have just cinched the deal that our time has come (the last being the exploding hot water heater on Sunday that wasn't repaired until Wednesday) to say hasta luego to Barcelona.  For now.  If Aidan has his way, we'll be back in a few years ;)  

I'm heartbroken for the kids though.  I remember leaving home and my heart breaking for Aidan (again, Liam being too little for the move to have much impact) knowing that he was leaving his friends behind.  He wanted the school year here to last at least another month so he could extend out his time with his friends.  At least unlike the last time, he's better now about emailing and is starting to get into it. He's not very loquacious with his email but it's a start.  

Liam, on the other hand, sees this as his first move.  He knows we lived in Attleboro but he doesn't remember it.  So this is his first big move in his memory.  He's not happy.  And yet, he's totally going with the flow.  He's really good about expressing his emotions though and has told me how much he's going to miss his friends and he's excited to Skype with them.  I'm terrible at Skyping so I need to be better at that for his sake!  But he's accepting of the move and is kind of excited about a new house.  I just don't think he realizes how far that new house is from Barcelona.  

And so the movers are packing up everything.  They are going faster than I thought they would but I'm excited to see things happening.  Finally some movement in our lives!!  

Boxes I prepacked in the office and the kids chilling out before they took the couch (now apart in bubble wrap)

Aidan's room (they haven't made it up there yet but we sold off the bunk bed last week and repainted too).  And the playroom, also newly repainted and cabinet doors reinstalled.

Stuff I've been stacking out in the garage

Stairwell to the roof, full!  And the living room is full of boxes.  Good thing the table belongs to the apartment or I'd be sitting on the floor already!

Liam's room - just a few things.. and the playroom about to be put away til August!

Garage and hallway

Kitchen before they took it all!  And the playroom before we put the doors back up last week.

Stuff stacked in the kitchen.  And the playroom.

Office

My glamorous room with my mattress on the floor.  And notice it says MUY FRAGIL on the boxes of lego sets that are already assembled - the test will be, do they arrive in Amsterdam assembled?  I offered to pack them but they said they would do it... fingers crossed or we are going to have one very upset 10 year old!

All the living room furniture except the tv and tv stand - how did our soft, coffee table and chair with ottoman end up in a stack like this??  I was going to toss the rug today (after 2 years of dog puke, chocolate milk and other food products, it's time to go) but it's the only place for the kids to sit so I guess it can wait til tomorrow!

So we're close.  They'll finish the prepacking today and then move everything out.  I always like to see what it looks like empty - the before and after.  Then the cleaners will come on Saturday and our key exchange and final walk thru on Monday and we head out of Barcelona on Tuesday.  The countdown is on - 4 1/2 days left to go!  More to come as we wind up things here in Barcelona!

Besos,

Julie

Half Past Done

As we enter our last week in Barcelona, I can say it... I'm ready.  I didn't think I was ready before but I keep getting sign after sign that the time has come - our time here is up.  And I'm ready for it to be up. I'm ready to start our new adventures.  I'm ready for our lives to have some semblance of normalcy back to them.  I don't even remember what normal is any more.

It's been 8 very very long months.  Hell it's been a long 4 1/2 years, but it's the last 8 months that have pushed us to the brink.  We've been thru the wringer.  There have been times where I've wondered if our family was going to come out of this whole.  Hell, I was wondering that yesterday as Josh and I had a (much needed) explosive fight.  I think we are both just so far past our breaking points that we just couldn't take it any more.  It's amazing how much better you feel after a good fight though - ready to take on the world.

But then that world thru more at us.  Last night I got an email from our tenant in Attleboro.  A few weeks ago we had termites (which we found when spraying for ants).  Now we apparently have a water leak.  I still don't know what the end result was as I haven't heard back from her regarding what the plumber said.  But it was one of those, yeah, we're moving this week so of course something had to go wrong somewhere.  

What I didn't anticipate was waking up to water in our apartment here in Barcelona this morning.  That was the nail in the coffin.  The fuck you (sorry for my french) moment of ... it's time.  What started off as a little drip, drip, drip this morning, literally was exploding this afternoon after I got home from dropping off the kids.  And unlike in the US, the tenant is responsible for pretty much everything here. So you know who's dime this is?  Yeah, likely mine.  Oh, I'll fight it.  But it won't be pretty.  And it's not something I need to be dealing with right now.  

The whole apartment is in chaos.  Furniture half apart.  Suitcases partially packed.  Not a room doesn't have boxes in it.  I'm ready.  I just want to get the show on the road.  Counting down the days now - only 5 more here in our apartment.  As of Friday we'll be in a hotel and this portion will be done or at least almost done - our landlord will still have one month of our 4 month deposit until the middle of next month.  It won't be til we get all 4 months back (insert crazy lunatic laughter here because that won't happen) that I'll feel like this part is truly behind us.  

Then on Tuesday, July 1 we head off for vacation before going to the States on July 13.  I'm just chunking off the time (not that I want to rush my vacation or my time home) til we get back to "normal".  Apartment.  Hotel.  Cruise.  USA.  Amsterdam.  Almost one down, 4 to go.  We'll get there.  There is a very small light at the end of the tunnel but I can almost see it... we're almost there.

Besos,

Julie

The (Not So) Glamorous Life of an Ex-Pat

So as we pack our lives away, I'm once again reminded of how this life is not always so glamorous. Not that I need much of a reminder - while it gets easier as time goes on, it's not "easy" like my "normal" life at home in the States.  But like anywhere you live, you get comfortable and every day life takes on some normalcy.

But when you are an ex-pat you have to be prepared for the next move.  For us, we'd always thought that next move would be back to the States ... 2 1/2 years ago!  Alas, that's not the way it has worked out and we're excited for our new adventures in Amsterdam.

And while we are excited about the next steps, the current step... the moving one... is not so exciting. In fact, it's a pain.  When we came here, for 2 years, we left all of our furnishings behind.  Now that we are going to be in Amsterdam indefinitely, we are planning to bring our stuff from the US.  And so now we must sell all our "lovely" IKEA furniture before we move.  It's gone quicker than I expected thankfully.  But in addition to our already chaotic house filled with random boxes for moving, purging, selling etc, we are now semi furniture-less.

Yesterday our first buyers came to get some of the big furnishings, including my bed and Aidan's.  And so we took apart those beds over the weekend in preparation.  All I can say is that it has been many years since I've slept on just a mattress - there is nothing glamorous about this.  In a way, it's reminiscent of our just out of college days when we lived at 17B and all Josh had was a mattress on the floor in his room.  Ahhh those were the days.  Though now, umpteen years later... not quite as fun. And since our stuff from the US won't likely arrive til end of August or early September, we will be sleeping this way in our new house for some time as well.

So while this isn't much of a long entry, I thought I'd share some pics of our disaster of a house with you.  Ahhh the beauty of moving.

My "beautiful" room with a mattress on the floor, no dresser and living like a college kid.

The office/guest room - storage of boxes that haven't made it to the garage and waiting to sell the bed still (mattress has been sold).

The garage - will be a lot more space for things once the car is gone on Friday

Stairs to the rooftop - full of stuff

Hallway full of things to go and things to donate

Liam's room is just a disaster but he deserves a picture on here too - his furniture stays here though...

Playroom - cabinets need to be put back up (they were glass and we had them removed) and the table needs to be sold.  Those are all lego sets on the table.  Aidan would like those shipped EXACTLY AS THEY ARE to the Netherlands.  Challenge accepted...

Aidan's room... bunkbeds sold

In an update to everything else.  The car is going on Friday.  Or at least that is the plan.  We shall see how smoothly that goes, fingers are crossed.

School is done on Friday.  We're trying to plan playdates galore before we leave on July 1.  Our repairman is coming on Wednesday to start doing repairs to the apartment (different rules in Spain than in the US on how you return an apartment or house) and just in time since there is a massive hole in the kids' toilet pipe that I noticed the other night (awesome timing on that one). The movers are coming on June 26/27.  The cleaners are coming on the 28th and then we exchange keys with our landlord, hopefully getting back our 4 months of deposit, on the 30th.  On Tuesday, July 1 we are leaving on a jet plane to England for our 2 week cruise before jetting off to the States for another 5 weeks.  We are still waiting to find out if we have secured the house in Naarden or not - hoping to find that out in the next few days.

Our POD was delivered to my parents a week or two ago.  My dad has been slowly working thru taking some things out and putting them in the garage of his house.  It is so greatly appreciated having him do this as it will save me lots of time having to pull it all out.  I'll have less than a week to get the kids ready for summer camp (still have things to buy, labels to iron on all clothes and packing to do) before their goods are shipped up to camp in Maine and then I can plow thru the storage unit as the movers come to the US on July 31st to do that move.  I also need to coordinate some updates to our house in Attleboro while I'm home but most of those have to wait til our current tenant leaves in September so will need to do from abroad.

That's it in this crazy life for the moment.  Lots going on but all seems to be coming together. However, if one small thing goes wrong, it's all going to fall apart.  Hoping for smooth sailing in the coming 2 weeks - we need it!!

Besos,
Julie

My Rooftop Haven

One of the great things about the apartment we moved into back in June is the rooftop.  It took a little manipulating, a few pennies and a little elbow grease but it's come out quite nicely.  And I don't understand why I haven't used it more.

The weather here in Barcelona is pretty mild, even in the winter.  Now, I agree, perhaps December and January overall aren't the best months to spend up there but we actually celebrated Thanksgiving with friends up there at the end of November...yes, it was warm enough!

But I never venture up to the roof by myself and I'm asking myself now why is that?  Because like with the rest of my life I don't like to leave my comfort zone.  And I just don't hang out there by myself.  It's, well, it's lonely.

Lately however, I've had a lot more time alone than is the norm for me.  I've been isolating for a number of reasons (no doubt a blog entry in the making) and refocusing on other aspects of my life like work.  But in this time at home, it's also been pretty cold... and my office where I spend most of my work day, down right freezing.  Even with the heat on.  I find myself working in the living room a lot which is all fine and dandy, but something has been missing...

This week, we've had a little taste of spring here in Barcelona.  With temps in the mid 60s and a real feel of closer to 70, I have most definitely caught some spring fever.  But not enough to open the windows yet ;)  However, I thought it might be nice to sit up on the roof and do some work the other day.  And why, oh why, have I not been doing this more?

It's quiet, shielded from much of the noise of the city.  It's bright, albeit at moments a little too bright where I can't see my computer so well.  It's comfortable.  And it's mine.  All mine.  I imagine that I'm going to find myself working up here much more often this spring (if only I could get my internet to work up here it would be perfect).

Yes the sky really is that blue

Working from the rooftop

My office :)

And so, little by little, I leave my comfort zone of my living room and venture out.  No, I'm not venturing far, but a little vitamin D is good for the soul these days and that's exactly what I need.  Who needs to be stuck inside all day to be productive?  Not me!!

Besos,
Julie

Spectacular Super Mario!!

When we were considering moving to a new apartment, we talked it over with the boys.  Aidan was absolutely dead set against a move.  He even went as far as putting "move" and "stay" in a hat (of course he loaded the hat with "stays" therefore narrowing our chances of a move to slim to none.  We tried all sorts of ways to try to convince him that this move was a good thing - he'd have his own bedroom, he'd have a huge patio (bigger than we had before), he'd be at least 5 minutes closer to school (when you walk 1.5 miles from school on days you don't take the bus, 5 minutes makes a difference!), he'd have a huge playroom...and so on.

But it took my friend Cristy to make the game winning move.  Aidan has been long obsessed with Super Mario.  He's been playing any and all versions of the game since he got his first DS at age 4.  Cristy knew this and used it to our advantage.  She sent me this picture: 

And an idea was born!  How cool would a Super Mario room be for Aidan?  I showed Aidan the picture and he was suddenly totally on board with the move!  I found the stickers for the "New Super Mario" on Amazon (he decided he didn't want the old ones like in the picture).  We arranged to have his room painted a blue to be like the sky and looked forward to the final version.

However, I'm not super creative with stuff like this so I needed Cristy's amazing creativity to make this project happen.  She left for the States the week we moved and got back while we were there so our first opportunity to put everything together only happened this week.  But it was so worth the wait!  What do you think????

Of course, I also took video of Aidan when he saw the room for the first time.  He was beyond stunned at how amazing it looked and was pretty much speechless.  Oh I should also mention we (I mean Cristy) did Liam's room too, Lego Ninjago style.  But the stickers are a lot smaller and while the room is cute, it's just not as cool as this one.  He was super happy with his room too though but unfortunately I am having problems with the video upload... maybe later!

All in all, it's perfect, exactly what Aidan wanted and a great start to our next 3 years in this apartment!

Besos,

Julie

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