Thursday July 26th - Moving Day

Alright, I am a day late in getting this page up here, but that's because the day was REALLY BUSY.  At about 6:00 AM, we woke up with the sun again...still can't sleep in.  Ug.  So we started putzing around making sure our stuff was all together and ready to go.  We had the keys to our new condo, and were itching to get started with the move.  So finally, around 7:00 AM we all grabbed a backpack and a bag or two and walked from where we were staying to our new condo.  It is maybe half a mile, at the most.  Probably less.  Thankfully, the morning was still cool.  (That means it was only about 80 degrees, with 70+% humidity, by the way.  Yes, I was sweating already!)  We made it to our new condo and immediately, Devin starts plotting where to put the furniture.  As some of you may know, Devin is really talented at organizing things.  As as some of you may know, Lowell is not.  (Don't worry...I'm the one writing this...so don't blame Devin for saying bad things about me...hehehe.)  We start moving furniture around, and unfortunately, the AC took a while to get going...but heck, I was already sweating anyway.  We tried a few combinations of furniture, and think we've settled on an arrangement.  Note to self:  When Devin suggests changing out a piece of furniture for a different one, listen.  Case in point:  We have a small foyer, and in Thai custom, shoes are removed as you enter a house.  So we wanted to put a small table there for our sunglasses, etc. so we could put our shoes under the table.  We had one in the living room that Devin thought would work perfect.  "No way, it's too big honey!"  "Lowell, humor me...just try it."  So...guess what happened?  Yep.  We moved the table over there and it fit great.  Another Thai custom that I really like:  The smile apology.  If a person bumps into you in the store, instead of saying excuse me as in American culture, the person smiles.  That's the apology.  It's one of the reasons Thailand is called the "Land of Smiles."  So Devin got a big smile from me at that point. 

Once we got the furniture settled, I made another trip over to the old place to get another round of bags.  Walking back carrying a backpack and four suitcases...no more morning cool...so I arrived at the new condo feeling like I'd just run a marathon.  With the sweat to prove it!  Marathoners, correct me if I'm wrong, but a marathon is 26.2 miles.  So I was only 25.8 miles short of the finish line!

A bit more unpacking, and we decided to hire a driver to help us move our 13 suitcases and go to the store to buy some furniture and other necessities.  (Remember, 13 suitcases isn't that much.  Really.)  I walked down the road to a local hotel where the Baht bus drivers hang out with the intention of hiring one for the day.  I found a group of them by their trucks and started negotiating.  Well...I started trying to explain what I wanted...  "All day."  I saw looks on their faces similar to when I explained quantum chemistry to my students in the past.  The lightbulb wasn't just not lit up yet...the wiring hadn't been put in either.  (More on wiring for another day...remind me if you don't see anything about it.)  So...being a teacher, I should be able to communicate...  So I start using my hands...think about a fisherman describing the catch of the day...  "All day."  Hands out wide.  Ah...lightbulb!  So one of the drivers grabs a map and shows me a local Gem "superstore."  I guess the wires were crossed, as the lightbulb just burned out.  I remembered something Devin had told me...pantomime.  So I drew upon my vast acting abilities (keep the laughter to a minimum please..) and tried again to explain what I wanted.  So use your imagination here:  "Siam Penthouse."  Lowell acting like he's carrying bags.  "Wongamat."  Point down to Pattaya...  "Tesco Lotus."  Lowell acting like he's carrying bags.  "Wongamat."  Aaaah!  Lightbulb.  And this time, the wires weren't crossed!  I felt like the red carpet should be rolled out for me to accept an Oscar at this point.  Now the actual negotiating begins...  I pointed to my watch...  "Six."  It was noon...  "Five or Six" was the response...  OK.  One of them tried explaining the price...to no avail...so he improvised, and typed 1000 into his cell phone, and said "Five."  So he wanted 1000 THB to take us from Noon to 5:00 PM.  So I said 500.  Immense laughter from all of the guys there.  He pondered...  900.  600.  800.  700.  750.  Alright!  750 THB.  And we were on our way.

The boring part was moving suitcases from where we were staying to our new place.  Well, my sweat glands didn't think it was boring.  Then it was on to Tesco Lotus.  This is quite the place.  Another "superstore" with shopping, groceries, food court, etc.  Our plan here was to scoop and grab as much as we could get.  The driver asked if he could take lunch and meet us at a certain time.  Yep...give us an hour.  I knew he'd come back, because I hadn't paid him yet.  And if he didn't, there were other drivers around.  We grabbed a TON of stuff.  Small microwave, plastic cups, hangars, towels, shower curtains, food, etc.  Simply tons of the mundane things that make having a home a bit easier to manage.  The total was something like 12,000 THB.  (Somewhere over $300.  Not bad for all that we got.)  Back to the apartment to take the groceries and other stuff up to the condo.  A few trips up the elevator, and it was off to Furniture Mart.  We needed a bed for David, a dining room table (the one supplied in the apartment is now my desk...), and a filing cabinet.  So we got a nice wood table with six chairs, a simple bed frame and mattress for David, and the filing cabinet.  Grand total:  22,000 THB.  Looking at my credit card, the pending charge is about $630.  And this included delivery and set-up.  (Read tomorrow about that...)  The people at this store were so accommodating, bringing water to the sweating farang (foreigner).  In the office with air conditioning, the folks there made a point of talking to David.  It was quite nice.  Back to the truck where our driver was waiting for us.  He was napping in the back.  Luckily David was nice enough to wake him up.  Off to Carrefour.  We'd been there before, and knew it was big and had lots of stuff.  They have a "Home Pro" store.  It's the Thai version of Home Depot, including the cool orange aprons and everything.  We didn't find much of what we were looking for...so we got a few small things, and headed out to find our driver waiting for us to take us back.  We got back to our condo at 5:01 PM.  Not bad!  I got the guy's phone number so we could call him again if we needed.  It worked out great.  (Now do the math...750 baht is about $22.  So we got a personal driver for five hours who went wherever we pointed, and he helped with the luggage, all for $22.  Heck, $22 wouldn't get me from Sea-Tac back to our old apartment in Kent.

The evening was rather boring, emptying sacks of groceries, etc, with two exceptions.  First, We decided to buy a bookcase for our bedroom near my desk for our books, etc.  Not to self:  If you're going to buy a bookcase that has screws, make sure you have a screwdriver.  After walking to the local family mart and not finding any screwdrivers, I gave up and went home.  I remembered I had a cheap one-off Leatherman Tool, so I figured it's got to have a screwdriver.  Woohoo!  So I started putting it together, but the tool was so cheap the screwdriver didn't stay parallel to the handle, making the job of screwing in the screws with the screwdriver nearly impossible.  I give up until tomorrow!  Note to self:  You're not as good of a handyman as you thought.

The other excitement of the evening involved some sort of festival just across the street from our condo.  Not sure what it was...wedding?  Party?  Concert?  But there was a huge stage, lights, music, singing, etc.  And it was LOUD.  We were all ready for a quiet night sleep in OUR OWN PLACE (after being vagabonds for a while).  Yeah, right.  I don't think so.  Wish I'd taken pictures, but we were so darn tired, I didn't even think about it. 

At some point, Devin and I looked at each other and said, "Can you believe this?"  We were actually shopping at Tesco Lotus, Furniture Mart, and Carrefour.  These were all places we'd either read about or found online in our research before moving here.  (Shameless plug:  Devin did far more research than Lowell...but we both did quite a bit, being information hounds...)  It was kind of cool to think that all of our preparation was paying huge dividends!

All in all, it was a good day.  We have our own place.  We're all healthy so far.  No peanut allergy reactions by David yet.  Life is good.