Moving: Thursday Friday

The tenant of the apartment we are moving into asked us if we wanted to move in early. He was already out of the apartment, early in the month and was interested in recouping some of the rent. We took it because we were dying to get in the apartment and we had plans for early October anyway. So we arranged to move in last weekend.

A bit of backstory first. I live in a large house along with four other people. The house was owned by a man named Klaus, who was apparently involved in politics, evangelism, textiles, and possibly legal affairs. He died a few weeks before I arrived in Germany. Apparently he left everything to the church, leaving his widow, Chista, in a bit of a tight spot financially. The house and everything in it, wound up in the hands of a lawyer representing a bank. From about a month ago, Christa couldn't even come to the house anymore. Apparently, the house had long been used as a storage and boarding house, and also as Klaus' office, and Christa had a home elsewhere.

My greek coworker Tolli called up Christa thursday at my behest, since I was interested in taking some of the furnature with me. She ended up telling him basically her life story over the phone and ending with basically, take whatever you need.

I invited Tolli over after work to do some digging. There was attic we were both interested in seeing. Armed with flashlights we dove in like treasure seekers on a reality TV show. The house is filled with stuff top to bottom, although it turned out to be mostly filled with old books on evangelical Christianity. And I do mean filled. Probably 1000 volumes through the entire house. Some1950s and 1960s furniture. And an old BMW in the garage, still with sunglasses on the dash and two bibles visible inside. Coats and stuff from over sixty years of accumulation. Apparently Klaus was a member of a Reader's Digest book of the month club, so Tolli took home a two still-unwrapped volumes on gardening and herbs in cooking.

Anyway, after Tolli left, I packed my room which took me until about midnight.

Friday morning, I woke up before 6 am to make it to the office by 7am, two hours before work normally starts. I had to make some progress on some renderings that needed finishing. The renders came out well.

Friday, right after work, Rafa met us outside the office and Tolli and Lukas drove with me back to my apartment and together we loaded up my belongings. We were considering taking the bed, but it was too big and too disgusting with all the springs covered in years of dust and grease. It was a bit of an awkward moment when I was carrying out the hallway hutch, but the record player inside was broken, I'd specifically notified the other residents I was taking it, and had the explicit permission from Christa. Along with a chair, my stuff filled the van we had borrorwed from the office. I couldn't believe it. I had arrived with two suitcases and a duffel bag, and less than six months later, I had filled a 'space runner' van.

We dropped the van near the new apartment building and then I headed up to Saori's place around 8.

Saori was still working on a big presentation for a very big and demanding client so she didn't get back until close to 11 at night. In the meanwhile, I tackled dismantling the Ikea bed. The bed, which we didn't realize until that night, was actually an adjustable bed, meaning you could raise the foot and head like a hospital bed. It was an extra layer of complexity, so I had to take many notes and drawings to make sure I was going to re-assemble it correctly.

We made some more progress packing Saori's room and then called it a night around 1 am, both of us exhausted.