We started our journey at the U.S. Customs Office on base in order to get the paperwork we needed to meet our container at the German Customs Office. It wasn't fun and I don't want to talk about that experience again. It involved a lot of stamps and questions I didn't have answers to.
But the German Customs Office was a lot easier. We met our truck driver and container in the parking lot bright and early at 8:00 am. The customs official came out to make sure our container seal hadn't been broken. And then we were on our way.
That's our container. Big Tex. |
The driver parked the huge truck in our really crowded neighborhood around the corner from our place and then it was time to unload! Don't worry, only the red container was ours. And it wasn't even full.
Big truck, very little street. |
Breaking the seal. |
Heavy lifting. |
Kristin standing guard with our treasures. |
The movers sent the truck on its way (which wasn't an easy job with the tight streets in Stuttgart) and carried up 115 boxes/pieces of furniture to our apartment on the 6th floor.
So we had all of our stuff, but no place to put anything (other than the kitchen, which we both unpacked immediately). As part of the moving package, the movers were required to unpack all of our things on to flat surfaces in our apartment, so all of our stuff spent the next week on the floor until ...
Moving Day Round 2!
Because the movers weren't able to carry our big stuff up the stairs, the moving company had to order an elevator to lift everything up to our balcony. So one week later, we got a permit to park the elevator truck (which we somehow didn't need for a HUGE moving truck) and a second set of movers arrived with the elevator.
And then things got very quiet. The movers worked to get the elevator up and safely attached to our balcony to lift up our furniture.
There are two more floors you can't see. |
A good perspective of how high it really is. |
And then the movers decided that it was too dangerous to try to use the elevator. More disappointment. But these guys were a bit more industrious than the original movers. After removing the railing on the internal staircase of our place, they carried all of our big pieces of furniture up to the 6th floor. Success!
Matt actually did a lot of heavy lifting. Just not at this moment. Kristin supervised and took pictures. |
A tight fit. But the armoire made it. |
The big red cabinet is happy to be in its new home. |
And that's the story of how it took 7 weeks of waiting and 2 sets of movers to finally be settled in our new place. We can't wait to share pictures of it now that the furniture is in place!