The Big Move
This weekend I finally moved into my new – permanent – accommodations. Now you might wonder: Finally? Why finally, you’ve only been there for three weeks. And accommodations? Why not say apartment or house or whatever? Well, it’s “finally” because it is hard to really feel at home and start your 
new life if you know you’ll have to up and leave again in a few weeks. So yes, finally! And I’m not sure what to call my new living arrangements because I don’t rent something on my own. I moved into a beautiful house, which I am now sharing with two roommates. Each of us has our own rooms and bathrooms and we share the rest of the house. I guess especially the not having shared bathrooms will be a big factor in all of us getting along ;-).
Moving Day
I moved into the house on Saturday. A nice coworker offered to drive me and my – supposedly meager – belongings to the house, since he lives in the same apartment complex I had my temporary apartment in. The plan was for us to leave around 9am, so I would have ample time to assemble my new sofa and get set up. Unfortunately, Saturday greeted Virginia with freezing rain and icy roads. Since snow tires are not a thing around here, driving in this weather wouldn’t have been a very good idea so we postponed until 1pm because it was supposed to warm up by then. Guess what: It didn’t. We still decided to get going and in the end made it fine. I’m still glad he was so kind to offer, because my first plan of just calling an Uber turned out to not be an option after I finally finished packing on Friday night. For some unknown reason, I experienced a weird change of the time and space continuum. Well, mostly the space part… I arrived here with two moderately filled suitcases and one carry-on… When I left my temporary apartment I somehow had two bursting suitcases, one carry-on that was packed to the point that it would tip over if I didn’t hold onto it, 3 medium-sized boxes and 15 hangers with clothes on them waiting to be taken with me. I’m still not sure how this happened, but apparently it did. Regardless of the sudden increase in worldly possessions, we managed to get everything to the house in one trip.
Upon our arrival everyone chipped in and helped me get my stuff upstairs into my loft. Little did they know, but there was a sofa, coffee table, TV and other random stuff already sitting in the garage, waiting to be taken upstairs as well… This was thanks to another friendly coworker who kindly let me borrow his car so I could go to IKEA and get my stuff before actually moving in.
Interlude: IKEA is IKEA is IKEA
Right from the start I can tell you one thing: IKEA in the US is exactly the same as it is in Germany. I went with my shopping list all printed out and ready to go and ended up spending over an hour there. Everything went well, I even managed to bypass the decorations and candles section without buying anything. Until I realized that the sofa I wanted is one of the few articles you can’t just grab from the shelves, but that needs to be picked by an IKEA employee. So I put in my order with a sales clerk, paid, and went to the pick-up counter. And waited. And waited. And waited. When my sofa was finally brought out, it came on its own cart. Which would’ve been nice if it wasn’t for the fact that I already had a cart that held my coffee table and other random stuff. So now I had two carts, one of them heavy as hell and one extremely uncooperative in that it went in exactly the opposite direction from where I wanted it to go. Halfway to the parking garage I already had aching shins because I kept bumping them on one cart or another when a friendly IKEA employee saw my peril and offered help. We got both carts down to the loading zone in the garage and he even offered to wait until I got the car and help me load everything. For some reason I told him that I could take it from here. Which I sorely regretted that moment as I tried lifting the sofa frame into the car. It weighed 80lbs. I knew that. I somehow completely misjudged the effect that weight has when it comes in a shape you can’t really grab… In the end I got everything loaded up and dropped off at the house. Let’s keep it at that.
I returned the car in the same condition it was in when I got it and even drew a nice map so my coworker had any hope of ever finding it again in our office’s garage. The next morning he asked me if I didn’t like the radio station he had playing when he gave me the car. So I had to admit that I accidently changed it when I wanted to turn down the volume and was unable to get it back. He also asked whether I used the cruise control because I didn’t turn it off again. This lead to me admitting that this was by accident as well, because while still looking for the volume controls I randomly pushed buttons on the steering wheel and somehow managed to turn on the steering wheel heater. After almost burning my hands because I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off again I didn’t touch another button. For some reason he thought that this was hilarious and told me that I was welcome to borrow his car again anytime as long as I promised to keep providing funny stories upon returning it…
Getting settled
After my roommates graciously lugged all of my stuff upstairs I started unpacking and assembling everything. After rearranging my dressers thrice and carrying some things up and down the stairs of my loft multiple times because I couldn’t decide where they would take up residence, I was done (and done for) by 6pm. The day ended in my roommate and I grabbing dinner at a Mexican place around the corner and me then proceeding to fall asleep on the sofa around 9pm. At least I can now attest to the fact that it is indeed a comfortable option for guests to spend the night on.