This post is inspired by Stefanie’s recent post which made me think of all of the moves I have done since starting college. I have a move coming up in just a little over two months, and I just know that time will be flying by and the day (sometime in late August) will be here before I know it.
Not all moves required moving all of my possessions (and I own very little furniture as it is, as I have always lived in furnished apartments), so saying that I have moved seven times in the past 7.5 years makes it sound worse than it is, though whenever I send an email to my friends saying that my address has changed once again, I feel like this may just be the time they grow tired of them. I have lived in seven different houses/apartments since the fall of 2002: one in Munich, three in Heidelberg, one in the US, and two in Spain.
When I moved to Oklahoma, my parents moved most of my stuff to Munich for me. What an ordeal that was for them! I started packing way too late, and ended up having to leave some of the packing and pretty much all of the cleaning to them. Definitely a rookie mistake I learned from. When I moved to Spain, I was able to leave a lot of stuff in the basement of my old house in Heidelberg, though I had to move everything from the old house to the new one in 2008 which my brother and a friend helped me with.
All the moves abroad involved taking very few of my possessions due to the baggage limitations on airlines. When I moved to the States, I had thought that being limited to two suitcases was tough, and that was in the times when you were still allowed two suitcases of 70 pounds each on transatlantic flights. Coming back to Germany I had those two suitcases, a carry-on bag, a purse, a laptop bag, and a bag with a pillow in it. And no, no one said anything about it. I also had to ship a few packages back to Germany containing my books and a few clothes.
After an awful run around Gatwick Airport at 7am after two equally awful flights, I decided I would never buy another carry-on bag without wheels (another rookie mistake!). My route was OKC – DFW – LGW – MUC (two layovers, never again if I can avoid it). The first flight was three hours delayed, making me miss my next flight. That got me a very unlucky middle middle seat instead of a window seat on the previous flight – like OO OOXOO OO – where the X would be me, for a 9 hour flight, I know, don’t be jealous! And that flight two hours after the one I was originally booked on, in turn, left me with 30 minutes to make my flight to MUC instead of the 2.5 hours I was supposed to have. I barely made the flight, but I made it. The alternative was a six-hour wait, which? I don’t think so. My parents were told by BA that there was no way I was going to make it, as the flight from DFW was delayed and I was still waiting to get off the plane 10 minutes after boarding had started for the flight to MUC, so they decided to go to the grocery store. Luckily my best friend managed to get to the airport just in time to pick me up, and my mom baked a strawberry cake for me in the meantime, so something good did come of it. Needless to say, my checked-in baggage did not make it on that flight, but you know what? That was a good thing. That way I got it delivered to my house on the next flight instead of having to deal with it myself. I have since learned to appreciate temporarily lost baggage, because why carry it yourself, if you can have someone else carry it for you to your very doorstep (I’ll even accept a delay of a few hours for that). Worst travel experience ever, but it does make for a good story.
Little did I know how spoiled I was with those two suitcases of 70 pounds each until I moved to Spain. Turns out it is possible to move abroad for a year with one suitcase weighing a maximum of 50 pounds. I limited myself to the very basics and abused the coat rule shamelessly, packing all of my jackets in a bag. When the airline employee said I had three carry-on items instead of two (carry-on bag and laptop), I said all the third bag contained was my jacket (which it did, well, three of them, but she didn’t know that), and I could put it on if she wanted me to. Luckily she said that was not necessary, because I would have hated having to wear a pink spring coat, a black winter coat and a green summer jacket (or was it the blue rain jacket?) all at once. In August.
My moves from and to Munich were not quite as exciting, and I certainly hope the one coming up in just a little over two months will happen without any major issues. I have already canceled my landline and my gym membership here, and it is odd for me to think about leaving this city that has been my home (off and on) for so many years. Just a few months later I am hoping to move again. It is no secret that my parents and I get along better if I don’t live with them, so I am hoping that I won’t have to live in their house for very long and that I will be able to find a job within a few months that will allow me to move out (and maybe away from Munich).
Do you have any fun moving stories to share? Any nightmare experiences? I’d love to hear them.
P.S. If you have a question you’d like me to answer in my upcoming vlog, drop me a comment on Wednesday’s post.
