Wednesday, July 27, 2005

The Last Minute Always Arrives

Yes, the movers have been here for the last two days packing up all our stuff, and today is Move Day. I finally took the time to throw bag after bag out of broken toys and other unused items. We also brought a few bags of things to a local church that collects items for the poor.

We slept in our apartment for the last time last night, surrounded by mountains of boxes. While the move has gone smoothly overall, there have been a few problems and we've learned a few lessons.

1) Dispose of your car prior to one week before leaving. We didn't sell the car. This happened when we left the US as well. Our friend is going to try to sell the car when people come back from "les grandes vacances."
2) France created Bureaucracy, but the US is a willing student -- don't bring wine back to the US. We received a number of lovely going away gifts. One wonderful gift was a case of Bordeaux wine. Our moving company has given us a lot of grief because of US customs procedures about bringing the case back. The moving company had a three week notice rule so that customs procedures are met. Well, our friends didn't give us a three week notice about the gift. What are we to do? That question took up a lot of time and energy over the last few days.

I was feeling a bit down about the move and the problems that we've had when I went to the park yesterday with the kids. My son met a little boy the other day who spoke English. I called him over and asked where he was from. It turns out his parents are from Columbia, he was born in Mexico, he was living in Brazil, he's here in Paris for a month before his family moves to India. He is 7.

The boy had such a nice time playing with some English speaking kids (he attended an International school) that the mother asked when we were coming back to the park. We told her we'd be in the park Tuesday. The child met us at the park yesterday. He came with a babysitter and the boy's 5 year old sister.

The little girl has autism as well as some other concerns. The babysitter, who has studied autism, never sat down. The girl kept picking up leaves and putting them in her mouth. She would run off, sometimes near the street. That's when I realized my "problems" were small indeed.

For those of you who continue to read the blog, thank you. The move has been exhausting and I'm sorry I haven't written back to your comments. If you do have specific questions, please email me at my gmail account.

For now, I still have pictures and stories I want to talk about on this blog, so I will continue it for some time. I have a few posts already written and my sister will publish them for me, but I will be out of internet access before our return to the US.

Once I have figured out my next steps, I'll let you know. I've received several suggestions -- A Day in Washington, a Book, a rest from it all -- all sound good! Thank you for being there. I do appreciate your comments and read them all with interest.

-- said Auntie M in Paris
9:22 AM

29 comments

BACK TO MAIN PAGE