Moving is sooo exciting! One chapter ends, another begins. Yeah, sure, looking at the bright side is over once boxes get in your way. Where did all that stuff come from? That can’t be all mine…
We’re leaving Europe for New Zealand. All my past moving seems now like a piece of cake. The longest I have stayed in one place was two years, so I know what I’m talking about.
This situation requires little planning ahead. We started to find out fairly soon how much it would cost to get all our stuff on the other side safe and sound. There’s only two options, by air or by sea. By air somehow induces feeling that all the stuff will be delivered safely no matter what might happen. When it comes to the option by sea, all I can imagine are squashed boxes in a shipping container or in the worst case all the stuff floating in the ocean somewhere far, far away.
First choice was made, we’re moving things by air. I contacted companies whose websites promoted that moving stuff overseas is their everyday routine. According to the replies I received there are 3 types of those companies:
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- Moving is what we do, moving is what we love…you’re moving to…New Zealand? Errrh, where is it? Ahhh, nah, we don’t do that.
- You’re moving to New Zealand, no problem. Your stuff weighs less than 10.000kg and you’re private person? Ahhh, nah, we don’t do that.
- You’re moving to New Zealand, no problem. Hopefully you won’t mind that it would cost as a one way ticket for your whole family to New Zealand.
Second choice was made, we’re not moving things by air. A question arised. Do we have to move the stuff? Yeah, too much stuff for check-in luggage. Since it’s pretty close to our flight in the end we decided to send boxes by post. It’s a lottery. My experience is that sometimes parcel makes it sometimes it doesn’t. No one even knows how long it’s going to take. Maybe the boxes will arrive before we will, maybe the boxes will make it there till Christmas, maybe we will never see them again.
We’re not moving too many things. In fact just so-called personal stuff. I didn’t know that for customs purposes you have to described all the items in the box in detail as much as possible. You also have to count them. Lets say you have ten things in the box and you have to fill it in a piece of paper with tiny five lines. It’s a good mind game. I’m wondering if someone’s going to count my socks or underwear and tell me I got a number wrong. Thinking of it, taking clothes with us is pretty unnecessary. We can buy it there. Or we don’t have to like that guy in undies who walked in the post office and was just waiting in line…it takes me years back when I visited New Zealand for the first time, but that’s another story. Just take it easy, mate…you’ll get your box or you won’t.