Mrs. TBF wished me a happy Thanksgiving yesterday morning, and then I forgot about it. You see, it's not Thanksgiving here in Switzerland...it's just an ordinary day. I forgot all about it again until I received an e-mail from my ex-next-door-neighbor Chris wishing me a happy Thanksgiving. So...a happy belated Thanksgiving to all of my family and friends in America.
This afternoon, after my kick boxing class, I'm going to pick up Mrs. TBF from work and we're going to head into France to pick up our turkey at Géant. She ordered an eight kilo (17.6 lbs.) bird. Actually, she had a co-worker who speaks French order it for us. Hopefully everything goes as planned. Otherwise I'll be doing charades in front of the butcher at the grocery store since I speak about ten words of French. We're going to be having our Thanksgiving dinner at Andy and Di's house this Saturday night for the third year in a row. I will barbecue the bird on my Weber, and I have to shuck a bunch of oysters. Mrs. TBF is preparing something too, but I'm not sure what exactly.
Yesterday, I had a man come to give us a moving estimate. He said we're going to need about 100 boxes. I'm going to do most of the packing myself, and then have the moving company move the boxes and the big stuff. It's going to involve using an outdoor elevator or crane at the new place, so I have a feeling it's not going to be cheap.
Moving in Switzerland is a real hassle compared to moving in America. In America, you just move. Here, you have to de-register at your town hall. Then, you have to re-register at the new town hall. Also, we have to have our ISDN phone box disconnected at our current house, and re-installed at our new house. The good news is that it means we'll keep our current phone number. The bad news, is that we have to pay some guy an exorbitant fee to do it for us. I was fortunate to find a man who does this service (and speaks English) this morning parked in front of a neighbor's house who's moving today, and I got one of his business cards. I also took the phone number off of the neighbor's moving van so I could call another moving company for a moving estimate. I called the office, tried speaking in German, realized that my knowledge of German moving terms was limited, asked for an English speaker, and spoke with three people before I found somebody who spoke perfect English. He's coming out next Wednesday morning at 8:00.
After getting the moving estimates, then I'll have to arrange the moving date. The people who are currently in our new apartment will be out by the first week of January, but our lease does not begin until February 1st. Since the apartment has to be repainted before we can move in, the trick is to try to get the management company to do it by the middle of January so we can rent the apartment back from the current tenants for the last two weeks of January. If I can do this, it will give us a lot of flexibility in moving. Plus, it'll be cheaper to move if we can do it on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. If not, the move will have to take place on the last day of the month. It'll be more expensive, and it will be a total hassle.
Stay tuned. Don't touch that dial.
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