Moooooing to new pastures :-D

Well what can I say? We have already moo(v)ed to a new apartment ;-). But the process of shifting is unlike any shifting I've seen in India. In India, we have 2 options. One book a matador van and move all the stuff into it. The driver drives to the new place and you move all the stuff out. You can opt to hire some labour for the moving. The second, you book one of these packers and movers who do everything for you, with a bit of a higher cost. Here in US, both are available, but the cost of manual labour is very high, no matter whether its about driving for only about 5 miles or carrying stuff in/out. So most people living in US prefer only one thing, U-HAUL.

As the name suggests, you haul all your stuff. They just rent out either a container which you can tag along with your car, or a min-van, or other different size trucks according to your stuff requirements. The fact that the renting itself costs a lot, is another thing altogether. But its of lesser cost than anything else.

When Sri first told me about it, believe me I was scared. Not for myself, but a truck is a huge thing on road. Just a small turn and you can hit a poor car. I asked him repeatedly "Are you sure about this?" as he was the one who was driving :-D. So many times, that probably he got fed up with me, but he never showed it. What he did show was a kid-like amazement at the thought of driving a truck. I guess every boy's dream is to drive a truck :-D. I have never seen that kind of enthuasism on his face before, not even when we bungee-jumped :-D. Though I was reluctant, I said "Ok this is another adventure" and went for it. This is the truck we drove - a 14' Thrifty Mover:




Not a very good photo, I know. Its taken from the uhaul website. I wanted to take a picture of it, but our camera was packed somewhere, so couldn't. Anyways, thankfully it was a bit smaller than I expected, I really thought we were going to drive one the size of an Indian lorry. This one was a bit bigger than one of our Indian tempos :-o ;-).

We had started packing everything on Friday, 9th December 2005 night, so we had only last minute fridge-items packing remaining. Moreover since we were moving to an apartment inside the same town, no elaborate packing was required. On Saturday, 10th Decemeber 2005 morning, Sri went to the U-HAUL office to get the truck. I couldn't resist taking one last photo of the lawn in front of our house as I had taken one similar in the summer before. So here's the summer one:




Here's the one I took, before we shifted, at the same place:




Look at the bare trees!! And yup, thats snow on the lawn. It had snowed the previous night, but thankfully the day was bright and sunny. Still we did have a couple of difficulties as we moved our things from the house to the truck. One was that the house was in first floor, so the stairs were one big hurdle (or several hurdles :-D). The second was that we had to walk quite a bit to the parking lot. The paths were a bit slippery due to ice formation. But somehow we did manage do get most of the stuff into the truck. The only really heavy items we own are the bed parts i.e the bed itself and the box its kept in. These we had to double up (i.e me holding one end and Sri another) and transfer them to the truck. Rest were all ok. I am so thankful that apartments here come with a refrigerator, washer and drier. Otherwise, I don't know how in the world we'd have managed to carry those!!

After moving all the stuff came the adventure part. I was a bit apprehensive as I sat next to Sri in the front of the truck, but it was much easier than I imagined. The lanes are very clearly defined on the roads of US and hence Sri found it pretty easy to manage the truck within a lane. Moreover it seems that all the other people driving in cars recognize an U-HAUL truck when they see one and keep their distance :-D. I guess they have a right to be more apprehensive than I was :-D. Anyways the move was very smooth and we didn't encounter any hinderances as such :).

After we reached the new apartment, it was pretty easy to move stuff inside as the house is in the ground floor and right next to the parking lot. We dumped all the stuff inside (only kept the fridge items inside the fridge) and were off to U-HAUL to give the truck back. We returned the truck, finished all pricing formalities, had lunch at the nearest Pizza Hut and went back to the old apartment.

To clean it up ;-). Most of the apartments in US (I think, all) are owned by a group rather than a person. So they clean it, repaint it and rent it out immediately to somebody else. And if there's major cleaning/carpet replacing required then all that cost is cut from the deposit the previous resident would have paid. So we had to make sure that the kitchen and bathroom counters were all shining. Basically, make sure that the house looks and feels clean. We didn't have any carpet stains, so that was good. We finished some of the cleaning and completed the rest the next day.

Meanwhile, we didn't finish it on the same day since the internet guy had fixed up that time with us for the internet connection at the new apartment. So as soon as we reached the new house, he came along and was done with it. That was the best part of the move. The internet/phone were working in a matter of hours ;-) :-D. Then we still had the unpacking to do. But we finished almost everything within the end of saturday. Phew!! But it was worth it :). And here's the photo of the new house:




The new apartment name is SteepleChase apartments :). And we live in the ground floor, right side apartment on the photo :). Everything's settled now and is as comfy as it can get. So that was it, yet another adventure to yet another perfect end :).