Home Sweet Home

At the end of June all of our belongings were wrapped up, boxed up, and crated. It was hot. It was muggy. And it took a very long time. Everything was bound for Bolivia. Little did we know how long it would be until we saw it all again.

Last week we finally got the green light for moving into our new place in Belgrade. Our stuff had completed its trek from La Paz, to the Pacific, through the Panama canal, across the Atlantic, and over Europe to the warehouse here and was ready to be delivered Thursday morning. 

We spent our first night in the new, mostly-furnished-yet-empty-of-belongings apartment, on Wednesday. Without curtains we needed to close the "blast shields" (technically, I believe these are external shutters) in the bedroom which created a cave-like effect. The movers weren't due to arrive until 10 so when the alarm went off in the morning we hit the snooze button a few times and didn't rush to get up. After a while I hit the shower and eventually wandered into the hallway where I could see out a window and noticed that it was a little brighter than normal. It turns out we had had a little snow. 

A moment of panic ensued. I had a feeling this would not bode well for our moving schedule. Sure enough, we got a phone call 30 minutes later from the warehouse asking if it was alright if they didn't drive the car over today. Yep. That was fine. Surprisingly though, everything else was going to go as planned. The movers were due to arrive between 10 and 10:30.

We live on the 6th floor. Ideally, one would take the elevator to our apartment. Especially if one were moving boxes and boxes of stuff to that apartment. Around 10:30 we heard a knock at the door leading to the stairwell. A breathless mover informed us that our elevator was broken. They wanted us to "call someone". Errr. Ok. I began to wonder what else the day had in store for us.

After about 30 minutes of confusion our doorman surfaced. As did an elevator repairman. By about 11 or 11:30 we had the elevator back in service and all was right with the world. 

It's been a long week and a half now of unpacking, sorting, and organizing but we're getting there. It's amazing what a difference it makes seeing your own things in your apartment.   Suddenly, everything feels much more familiar. It may have taken almost 8 months to get here but we're so happy to be home now.