The Move

We’re moved! We actually did it. In three days last weekend, we managed to get all our stuff from one apartment to the other (five carloads); to clean and turn in the keys to our old apartment; and to go to Ikea to buy few essentials, such as an armoir and a bed frame. Actually moving was tricky. At the old apartment, we sent elevator-loads of boxes and bags downstairs, then carried them out to the car; at our new place, there’s no street-side parking, so Andrew parked on the sidewalk, flashers flashing, while we ran everything inside, loaded yet another elevator, and finally pushed everything into the new apartment before running back downstairs and doing the whole thing over again.

It was an exhausting few days, but things are finding their way to their rightful places, and we have a real bed now rather than a mattress on wooden pallets on the floor. Sunlight is streaming onto the terrace. The place is feeling like home, even though there are a few small problems. We won’t have internet access or a landline phone for several weeks; we don’t know where to take our garbage and recycling; there is a dearth of electrical outlets where we need them to be; and our small shower stall makes showering undeniably difficult, with an unsteady shower head that won’t stay up, no place to put shampoo and soap, and the tendency for water to get absolutely everywhere. But it is a charming, cozy space, and we’ll work out these small problems one by one.

For now, I’ll enjoy my lunch on the terrace, sitting at the heavy stone table, surrounded by plants. A black cat peers at me through the wrought-iron railing that separates our terrace from the next; perhaps I’ll find her in the apartment one day. This is the kind of apartment one imagines when thinking about living in Spain.

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