I never expected cars to be so complicated...

It's true, you know, I really never thought that moving overseas with our vehicles would cause so many headaches and so much stress. It has really been ridiculous. Not all of it has been bad. There are parts of the process that have gone smoothly, and for that I'm thankful, but I could really do without all the other silly beeswax, I honestly could...

You heard me mention before that Big R's race car was not waiting for us in Atlanta as it was supposed to be. Well, I'm happy to say that it finally broke free of its three weeks in customs' hell and found its way to Atlanta. We were in the middle of a much needed vacation with family and friends out west when Big R got the news, so plans had to be changed so he could fly back to Atlanta and bring his beloved race car home. Aside from an extremely long wait, the pick up process was relatively painless compared to the awaiting its arrival. We spent over two weeks calling every other day to be told that two weeks stuck in customs was the "norm" for vehicles coming overseas. Ha! Yeah, right. We knew better, but there was little to nothing we could do about it except rejoice when it made its way to Atlanta.

I stayed behind to hang out with my mom on the ranch. There was more horsin' around to be had, and I was enjoying the bonding time. The next auto madness was related to the tracking and arrival of our BMW. The whole process was a huge mess, but I had no idea how bad it would finally get before we had the car in our possession. BMW has hired a contractor to handle the shipments. My contact started out fantastically helpful, only to have that assistance fall to the wayside. We had been told by others that they send you your invoice (yes, the hidden fees are marvelous - they pay the large chunk of shipment costs, but don't be fooled by the customs and handling fees), and provide a tracking database to you within that first week or so of shipment. We somehow didn't get any of this information until the BMW was ETA into port.

The data tracker made me feel like the hugest idiot. Don't you hate that? Maybe I am missing a few marbles, but you'd think a couple of attorneys could figure this stuff out. The mere fact that the instructions state we would have a 9 digit number linked to all the information, and a 7 digit number for customs, was compounded by a few extraneous digits and inconsistent information across both of them. I was making myself blind trying to read the thing. My mom defintely thought I was losing it. I made sure to fill out the paperwork to pay the invoice with the hope the BMW would arrive any day. The hope work, but the payment did not. When the BMW was released, we weren't any closer to having our payment processed nor did we have any clearance documents. I felt like I was constantly on the phone and emailing these folks and it was getting us no where.

I know you are wondering how this got all crazy balls on us at the last minute, because it exploded into a mess of colossal proportions. Big R is buried in in-processing appointments and a need to expedite things to get to work. The army doesn't mess around when it decides it needs its lawyers. I have two kids - enough said, this lady wasn't heading to port to collect a vehicle with these crazy bears.

I called to check on the status and our contact informed me the documents and payment would be wrapped up in the next hour. Big R made his arrangements and noticed the flight was $75 cheaper than it had been the last two days, so he bought his ticket to Charleston to get the BMW out of port. We knew better, we really did because nothing in this process has gone as it's supposed to. By the next morning, the credit card hadn't even been charged yet. Not a good sign. Big R was long on his way. Turns out the card was denied (thanks a million USAA, your timing was impeccable on this one), and yet no one informed us despite our sharing the plan that we were heading to port the following day to collect the car. Oy... It gets better... I know, your thinking, dumb, how could we go without documents, but the afterthought is much more hasty than the reality at the time.

I'll make this part of the story quick, despite our rep being MIA, we managed to get updated credit card info to the company and our clearance papers were released. Big R grabbed a cab to downtown Charleston from the airport (which was built before the civil war and is apparently an old disaster of an airport), and walked to the port.

Let me back up just a tiny half beat of a second to let you in on what I was doing while Big R was handling this side of the arrangements. I was packing up to leave Vegas and my mom after an amazing vacation. We used frequent flyer miles because is has gotten painfully expensive to fly in the US (I had no idea how spoiled we were in Europe), and it was a red eye flight... Kind of... It left at 1am PST, stopped in Houston for a super fast layover, and then went on to Nashville to arrive at 9am CST. That sounds painful even to the most able of moms, and to add insult to injury, baby c decided to wake us all up at 5am and then refuse to let any of us nap later in the day. Needless to say, I was seeking Wonder Woman strength to make it through.

We beat the rush at the airport, just in time for the boys to melt down at the gate. We walked onto a very full flight to find out we were sitting next to "that guy." You know, the one you always pray is not sharing your seat. He looked liked the guy from American Choppers (you know the show, I know you do), covered all over in tattoos, and reeking of booze. At several points during the flight I was certain he was going to ralph, but he managed to hold it together. He was a huge person, and my boys could contain themselves no more. Until 20 minutes into the flight when they both decided to give into the exhaustion, I was seriously having an out of body experience. Pure mayhem. But it ended. I had to pull poor little r to our connecting flight on the opposite end of the terminal while he cried from exhaustion, only to collapse in a chair and fall back asleep.

We were crazy tired when we got home, so I wasn't ready for the afternoon to up the anty on me. Let's flash forward again.. Big R is walking to the port from a Kinkos downtown (yes, he walked because he's nuts like that), and he gets to the port only to find out he's missing some critical number. This stupid number is so important, they won't even let him into the port without it. This is when things started getting really fun. Our rep remained MIA, so I had to do all the coordinating with an employee that was trying her best. Big R was in the meantime negotiating with the port staff to first get inside the gates and then to lower the military boom that sets the urgency clock in motion. Whether we like it or not, duty calls, right? Well, between that and his charm it somehow worked. He won them over. This was a good thing because the company I was working with was clueless. She had me convinced for awhile this whole deal was our fault because we really had them in a bind. Well, hey, try informing your clients when payments don't go through and then disappearing with the laptop that contains all the necessary information, and then tell me again it was us that caused the bind. Yeah, I'm not even going there...

I probably would have been more calm except that we were about 45 minutes now from the port closing on a Friday. Baby c had thankfully been napping, but he woke up with a crap-loaded diaper about 15 minutes before our deadline. How do that do that?! It's uncanny!

I'm mid-wipe on a screaming child when she calls to tell me she can get the much needed number but it'll cost us $100 and there is no guarantee we'll get the port to stay open to get our car out that day. I'm sure you can picture how I took that. She said she thinks it would be best if we waited until Monday to go back when her coworker was back in the office. Obviously she was in way over her head and had no idea what to do. But yes, we live down the street from this place and can effortlessly hang out until Monday. The woman hadn't thought this through nor was she aware of the repercussions of her suggestion. I'm racing from room to room doing that horrible thing mothers do and never like to admit it when they are trying super hard to handle business on the phone with a screaming child attached to my ankles, poor baby c. Didn't help that little r was being a maniac. It was pure mayhem in my house, and the timing was horrible.

At this point Big R's phone had died. Yes, seriously, it was dead as a door nail. I had to call the dock office to try to find him. Turns out Big R's charm had the entire port staff working to get his car out of hock. Nicely played, honey. The dock supervisor was livid and could not believe the shipping company was going to charge us to do their job. Ah, hell, I just wanted my car! Long story short, the port staff found us a freaking number and got our car out of port without charging us a penny. We're sending them at least one fruit basket and a crap load of chocolate. I mean seriously, what a colossal mess!

Ok, so we now have both cars, we are still waiting on two shipments that will start this week. I'm down one glass of wine with my body half into bed, and Big R is refueling with old friends stationed a short drive from Charleston. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I could really use a few less surprises and I'm ok with not having any more days like this one anytime soon.

Here's to more stories and madness to share because my life is never a full moment!

Cheers!

xoxoxo

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Un-nesting

We are about to cross into our last two weeks here in Germany.  WHAT?!  Yeah, that's kind of how we feel about it, too.  It is hard to believe that this adventure is coming to a close. Onward and upward - time to make new memories in a new place.  This is something we are starting to get pretty accustomed to, but it doesn't make it easier.  In some ways, it almost seems that with each move it gets a tad bit harder - probably because we know how tough it is to leave the places and people that we love.  

Overseas moves are especially interesting because the transition seems to last forever.  Whether we like it or not, all that "stuff" we like to live with every day has to climb onto a boat and sail across the ocean (vehicles included), so you live in a limbo state for a little while.  The government was sweet enough to lend us furniture, so it hasn't been too bad.  Sometimes living simply is a good thing, especially when you know it's only temporary.  That said, it is still a state of limbo.  A state of simplicity with a mix of creative complications.  Our house is relatively empty, but we are surrounded with endless lists and paperwork as we attempt to keep this transition somewhat organized (always an interesting feat).  

We had our pre-inspection back when they moved all of our household goods onto a truck.  The list isn't too long of things we have to do to clear housing, but there will definitely be some elbow grease cleaning involved. I tend to fall into this mode of thinking, "why clean much now when you have to scrub the floors in a few weeks?"  So, I go about my days sweeping floors and wiping counters, but otherwise trying not to notice that I haven't mopped in awhile, blah blah blah.  

This is where that whole "un-nesting" deal comes into play.  I decided this viewpoint was ridiculous.  Why live in a mess for a month just to clean it well and let the professional cleaning crew enjoy it.  Yeah, I opted out of that whole opinion and decided that it would be nice for us to have a bathroom floor so clean you could eat off of it, or a refrigerator be spotless.  I started cleaning like a crazy person between homework assignments, naptimes, yoga sessions, and publications.  I actually feel much better.  Weird how that works.

I've also decided that I'm going to stop focusing on how much I'm going to miss it here and start letting myself be excited about moving home.  The sadness has been overwhelming.  It's not a big secret that we love it here. The travel is one thing (because seriously, who could NOT love all this travel), but mostly we just really love living in Germany.  It's a place we have learned to call home, and we feel at peace here.  When we moved to Germany, I honestly couldn't think of anything that I missed about home except for my family and friends (it has definitely been tough being so far away from the people we love and care about these past 3 years).  I started making a list of things I'm excited to go back to now that it's right around the corner.  Simple things like having a mailbox at the end of my driveway, being able to pay for gas at the pump, having a gym membership at a place with daycare, being in a closer time zone with our friends and family... silly little things like that.  I am beyond excited about our plans to visit family this summer. Literally making my heart smile every time I think about it and the people and places we haven't visited in over three years.  

So, here's to un-nesting and enjoying the hell out of Germany for two more weeks.  We have one more adventure this weekend when we head up to Sweden to visit with Big R's family one last time before we leave Europe.  Then we get home and the moving madness goes into full gear - we ship the car, get health certificates for the pets, pack up the remaining items for our final shipment, and I finish up my finals and move one step closer to that LLM degree.  

Speaking of school, it's time for me to get back to work.  See you all when we get back from Sweden!

xoxoxoxo

Turning the first page of our last chapter...

Here we go again (as a good friend of my so eloquently put it).  Today was moving day, which in an overseas assignment means it's the day your house gets packed up so that it can start its two month journey across the ocean.  Today is that day that so many of the items on your "to do" list converge and get crossed off.

pictures are always cuter with Lando in them :)

It feels like there are a thousands pieces floating around that need to be pulled together at just the right time, but somehow things are falling into place for us on this transition.  So, the normal stress that goes along with PCS season aside, and we are all doing pretty well.  Big R's race car got shipped yesterday, our household goods head out this week, and we will have about a month or so before we have to start worrying about more deadlines when it's time to send the BMW and get ready for our last shipment.  In the meantime, we are continuing to check those items off our list and soak up as much of Germany and our good friends here as we can.

So, whether we were ready or not, the packers were here.  It seems no matter what you do to prepare, you never feel quite ready, or you discover during the process that you forgot to add a few more items to that list.  Oh, and I have to say, the only thing more stressful than movers that are insanely late (i.e., our move from Bischberg to here when they showed up at 4:00 p.m.!) is when they show up to pack your house for an overseas move EARLY.  Yeah, I really could have used that extra 30 minutes this morning.  Can't tell you the last time movers were even on time to pack us up, so I never thought that I needed to hurry things up.  Although, I have to admit that I didn't realize how many little things I crammed into that last 30 minutes until that time was somehow gone.  I had dropped into bed like a zombie after midnight working on a paper that was due for my class and completely forgot that we hadn't cleaned up after dinner.  If you know me, you know this pretty much never happens.  I usually can't sleep if my kitchen isn't clean (yes, I'm that person, sorry), and the timing on this one wickedly unusual oversight was not terribly great.

The moment kind of escalated into that perfect storm where it felt like everything quite literally happened at the same time.  I had looked at the clock wondering if I should holler down to Big R to wake up because the movers could be here soon (wanting to let him sleep because he usually has to be up at 530 every day), baby c was starting to lose his cool over breakfast, and little r was definitely ready for school.  I had just finished making little r's lunch when I heard a strange man with a thick accent shout for me outside our kitchen window.  I immediately yelled, "wake up, the movers are here!!!!"  Somehow my hands were full. I don't even remember what they were full of, but I had set baby c down on the kitchen floor to unload the pantry, when I let the packing crew in the door.  They were ready to get to work, and I was no where near ready for them to start.  But I immediately went into my spiel about what was to be packed, what was staying, which rooms to avoid, yadda yadda, meanwhile picking up incredibly important items scattered throughout the house to place them into the "safe room" so they wouldn't accidentally get packed.  I kept peaking into the kitchen to make sure baby c was safe, but by the time I unloaded my arms and ran back down the stairs, he had started pulling things out of the cabinet.  Not a big deal, this has become his favorite past time, until a huge glass bowl hits the floor and literally breaks into a million pieces.  Seriously?!  I'd like to tell you all the steps that happen next, but it was pure mayhem in here, and I remember very little of it except that Big R got the boys to school after yelling at me over and over again to "take a deep breath."  It was hard to explain to him that I was perfectly calm and all was well in my world until about 5 minutes earlier.

Meanwhile, baby c had drenched his clothes playing in Lando's water (another favorite past time), and he had also crapped his pants.  Neither of these were probably acceptable conditions to send him to the krippe.  At some point Big R got the boys out of here and safely to school while I secured the kitchen of glass shards and readied it for packing.  Phew... and the rest of the day remained relatively painless and actually rather boring.    

So, the first page of this last chapter in our Germany book has been turned.  We are really sad to see this part of our lives coming to a close.  We are looking forward to the next assignment though, and it will be a treat to not only be near family but to be in a closer time zone.  With that, I'm going to sign off, open a bottle of wine with my sweet and very patient husband, and get my butt up off of this cold floor (currently the most comfortable place in the house to sit - haha).

xoxoxoxo