Wolfstad » The Big Move

Emptying our house

Arthur — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:29:54 +0000

Today we moved our couch, a cabinet, Amy’s bike and some other things to our family in Roosendaal. Our house is getting pretty empty now, and we just have some essential furniture left. We rented this small truck at Bo-rent to move the stuff:

I never drove a truck like this before, but it all went well. Actually it was quite fun to drive. Luckily there were hardly any cars parked in our one-way street this morning so we had no problem getting it to our house. It was a good car and the cheapest we could find. It says €70 per day, but with the insurance and extra kilometers we ended up paying about €130 for the day.

Boxes shipped [2]

Arthur — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:09:47 +0000

After sending off our boxes yesterday we heard back from Worldwide Baggage Services today about the costs and schedule. The costs are pretty close to what we had already calculated on their website, which is great. This is the only company that we could find where you could just fill in details about your shipment and destination online and instantly get a quote. Good stuff. Our things will be transported on the ship on the photo below (this actual ship!). It will leave in about two weeks and then arrive in Chicago two weeks later:

Today we took a day off from packing and spent the day in Amsterdam! We visited the Rijksmuseum and saw Forbidden Kingdom (starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan) at the cinema.

Arthur getting train tickets in Leiden

10:30 train to Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum, Holland’s National Art and History Museum, is housed in a very large building that is currently being renovated and work is expected to last until 2013! Until that time a small collection of masterpieces can be visited in the Philips Wing. It was a shockingly small exhibit but very much worth the visit.

Amy at the Rijksmuseum

Boxes shipped

Arthur — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:46:48 +0000

Today we have finally shipped out our boxes for our move to the USA. Yippee! They will be shipped by boat and should arrive in Chicago in 6 to 8 weeks.

These last weeks we have been busy packing up all the stuff that we want to bring to America. We decided to only ship boxes on pallets (instead of filling a whole container) and thus not bring our furniture and other big items.

We are using Worldwide Baggage Services to move our boxes. We filled in an online form yesterday with the transporation request and right away received an email that the boxes would be picked up today. At 4pm a truck came to pick them up.

So far the communication with WBS has gone smoothly. They have been very clear in explaining the process and their emails have been efficient. Within the next 24 hours we will hear how much it is going to cost. We already got an estimate using their online calculator but now they will see exactly how many cubic meters it is.

Hopefully all will go well and we’ll see our stuff on the other side of the big pond some time next month.

Deep into packing

Amy — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 18:32:34 +0000

We’re trying to get our stuff shipped out by next week. Arthur’s doing most of the packing. I’m mostly just freaking out, chanting these songs: Let it Go and Give It Away and this one from RHCP.

What’s wrong with Kingsport, TN?

Amy — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:34:58 +0000

What’s wrong with Kingsport? Well, it’s not Ocala. It’s also not Durango. It’s not Lakeland, Cincinnati, Nederland, or Rockford. It’s not even Asheville or Greenville. It’s not any of the dozens of places we thought we might like to live, but it was the number one pick when we went through the survey on FindMySpot.com a few months ago. We’ve done the survey a few more times since then, and Kingsport comes up in our top 10 every time.

On FindYourSpot.com you can pick your lifestyle preferences in categories like weather (we like seasons, but keep it mild, please); culture (museums & music – yes, zoos and operas – no); recreation; region (we have no particular preference); and housing cost. Affordable housing is a priority for us as we would like to buy a house.

Some other towns that come up under our preferences are Sheboygan, Wisconsin (too cold in the winter); Salem, Oregon (too far from home); and Tulsa, Oklahoma (too tornadoey).

So what’s wrong with Kingsport?