We had a few funny moments with the packing - aside from the kitchen roll being packed! We had taken off our jackets and thrown then over the back of the sofa without really thinking about it. They were packed and had to be retrieved by Carlos. It was the same with Stephen's shoes. They had just left for the first night and we were getting ready to leave for the hotel when we discovered that Stephen's shoes were missing. D'OH! Thankfully we found the "living room" box that had shoes marked on it pretty easily, otherwise we were going to have to buy him some more whilst the others sailed across the ocean!!
We've spent the past two days in a flurry of activity - Stephen has been running around returning the comcast equipment and the car and I've been doing "Scottish Calvinist Cleaning" in preparation for the final walk through on Monday. We figured it wouldn't take too long once the place was empty...it took longer than expected (it was a big house!) and was flipping hard work - especially as I was doing detail cleaning. The place is gleaming! Certainly cleaner than when we moved in. Much elbow grease was expended. Kim and Aggie would be proud!
Saturday, 28 March 2009
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Packing up
A large sofa shaped package - beautifully wrapped.These guys must be ace to be around at Christmas!
Our ground floor in boxes
A truly gigantic roll of "executive stress relief". The bubble wrap isn't so much for packing - more for the stressed out homeowner!
Me with our worldly goodsWhere's the kitchen roll?
Walter and Carlos are packing machines! They got here just around 9am and its now 1:45 and they've packed a large proportion of the house. They were working much faster than we expected - we were upstairs sifting the air freight when they moved from the bottom floor to the sitting room. There were a couple of things on the chaise that we hadn't moved yet thinking we had hours before they got there...I got down just in time to see them packing the kitchen roll....
What is it with these guys and packing my kitchen roll?? It was beautifully packed (wrapped in paper and everything) on the way out from the UK too. I was laughing when I retrieved it from the box!
What is it with these guys and packing my kitchen roll?? It was beautifully packed (wrapped in paper and everything) on the way out from the UK too. I was laughing when I retrieved it from the box!
Time to PANIC!!!!
I woke up on Wednesday morning, looked around and had a huge panic when I realised that we were nowhere near ready for moving yet!! We've been pretty busy and although we'd spent as much time as we had available since Sunday sorting out, as I'd been spending a lot of time in work, it wasn't really enough. I pinged POQI to say I wasn't coming in to work until later and got to work. We got a huge amount done, but there was still a load more to do. Its things like finding the software for the printer that we're giving away...not something you immediately think of, but time consuming. I was in a pretty stinky mood last night as Stephen met up with work visitors promising that he'd be an hour. Three hours later he turned up at home!! I was mad and very tired as I'd been trying to do loads of stuff and having two of us doing it would have helped a lot!
Corts came to remove the rental furniture yesterday and the packers have begun to pack our stuff today. Its going to take them 2 days to pack us all, and due to changes in what we're taking back air freight (namely Stephen's golf clubs) I've just had to go through my clothes and shoes and down select the stuff I can live without for a few extra weeks. How can you ask me (Imelda Marcos of Old Town) to down select shoes???!!
Corts came to remove the rental furniture yesterday and the packers have begun to pack our stuff today. Its going to take them 2 days to pack us all, and due to changes in what we're taking back air freight (namely Stephen's golf clubs) I've just had to go through my clothes and shoes and down select the stuff I can live without for a few extra weeks. How can you ask me (Imelda Marcos of Old Town) to down select shoes???!!
Los Tios
The good news is that Los Tios did have a table for us on Monday. The bad news is that they got confused when everyone arrived separately and we had Julie and Andy on one table (unbeknown to us) and Paul, Stephen and I on another. We eventually found one another! The margaritas were just as good as we remembered them being - and just as huge! The food was pretty good too - excellent corn bread and fried plantains. Very yummy!
In action blogging away...
At Los Tios enjoying the ENORMOUS margaritas
With Julie and Andy in Los Tios
Enjoying an ice cream in Pop's
You know its Springtime in Old Town when....The man who plays the water glasses is back!
Monday, 23 March 2009
Que?
I phoned Los Tios (a Mexican restaurant) this morning to make a reservation for tonight. The Scottish/Mexican conversation was not an easy one!!!
"Can I book a table for tonight please?" I said in my best AmeriScots accent
"Okay. How many?"
"Seven"
"Six"
"NO! Seven"
"Okay. Seven. What time?"
"Seven pm"
"Six pm"
"NO! Seven pm"
"What' your name?"
Oh God. You can imagine the fun we had with that? Kerry is not a common name over here, nor in Mexico it would seem....
We got there eventually - although I worry that we're going to arrive there and find I've booked a table for 13 at 9pm a week on Tuesday....
I am going to miss confusing the heck out of folks with my accent. Only one week to go...better ramp up the use of arcane Scottish/British words and phrases which have no meaning here. Fortnight is a good one. Whereas we acknowledge it means 14 days, in the US its a phrase used mainly in fairly tales and has no sense of actual duration. If you say that you'll send something in a fortnight then they wouldn't be sure when they'd get it, but it wouldn't surprise them if it arrived in a coach and horses!!
Half past when telling the time also is the source of great confusion! I made the mistake of saying something was scheduled for half past four when I first started in the office. There was a look of utter confusion on the face of the person I spoke to and he asked "Does that mean three thirty?".
Of course there is the reverse aspects to this cross-cultural contamination...I now litter American phrases throughout...in fact I sometimes have problems remembering what the British words are for things. There may have to be some re-education when I get home. And if I use "like" in conversation (as in: "it was like totally awesome") please feel free to kick my ass!!
"Can I book a table for tonight please?" I said in my best AmeriScots accent
"Okay. How many?"
"Seven"
"Six"
"NO! Seven"
"Okay. Seven. What time?"
"Seven pm"
"Six pm"
"NO! Seven pm"
"What' your name?"
Oh God. You can imagine the fun we had with that? Kerry is not a common name over here, nor in Mexico it would seem....
We got there eventually - although I worry that we're going to arrive there and find I've booked a table for 13 at 9pm a week on Tuesday....
I am going to miss confusing the heck out of folks with my accent. Only one week to go...better ramp up the use of arcane Scottish/British words and phrases which have no meaning here. Fortnight is a good one. Whereas we acknowledge it means 14 days, in the US its a phrase used mainly in fairly tales and has no sense of actual duration. If you say that you'll send something in a fortnight then they wouldn't be sure when they'd get it, but it wouldn't surprise them if it arrived in a coach and horses!!
Half past when telling the time also is the source of great confusion! I made the mistake of saying something was scheduled for half past four when I first started in the office. There was a look of utter confusion on the face of the person I spoke to and he asked "Does that mean three thirty?".
Of course there is the reverse aspects to this cross-cultural contamination...I now litter American phrases throughout...in fact I sometimes have problems remembering what the British words are for things. There may have to be some re-education when I get home. And if I use "like" in conversation (as in: "it was like totally awesome") please feel free to kick my ass!!
Don't worry 'bout a thing...coz every little thing's gonna be alright
We managed to get quite a lot done this weekend... We went out for dinner on Friday night. We stopped at the weekend office for a while. I went shopping. Stephen went to watch his final Rangers game with the supporters club. We went for a walk. We had ice cream in Pop's. We went out for dinner with Morag, Simon and the girls. We went for breakfast. We went shopping again.
Okay, so perhaps we weren't entirely focused on the move, but we had a nice time! I did actually manage to get a fair amount of sorting out done in between the fun stuff... I've sorted out what we need to get rid of and have been busy distributing bedding, lamps, patio furniture and the contents of the food cupboards to people today. There are a few bags of toiletries to go into work too. When I said I had a few bottles I imagine they thought I meant hooch, and not body lotion. They are going to be disappointed!!
I still need to sort out what we need to take with us and what is going air freight. Time to drag the cases out of the cupboard... Everything else can be packed and if needs be I'll sort it out when we get it in the UK. Why worry?
Okay, so perhaps we weren't entirely focused on the move, but we had a nice time! I did actually manage to get a fair amount of sorting out done in between the fun stuff... I've sorted out what we need to get rid of and have been busy distributing bedding, lamps, patio furniture and the contents of the food cupboards to people today. There are a few bags of toiletries to go into work too. When I said I had a few bottles I imagine they thought I meant hooch, and not body lotion. They are going to be disappointed!!
I still need to sort out what we need to take with us and what is going air freight. Time to drag the cases out of the cupboard... Everything else can be packed and if needs be I'll sort it out when we get it in the UK. Why worry?
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