So Thursday was the last day of term, the last day of the academic year, the last day for us in our old apartment and the last day before we would fly to the UK for the summer. So even though we had been packing and sorting for weeks, we had quite a few things to get sorted!
We’d already done the bulk of our move, but knew in the back of our minds that the last few things to move are always the fiddly things and take a deceptively long time / amount of space to move. By this point though we were pretty knackered as we’d done so much moving (well, Scotty had done so much moving, as I wasn’t able to help all that much) and sorting to finish things off at school. Before going in to the manic moving that took place on Thursday I’ll give a run down of the rest of the week!
Sunday – this was our final radio show for the ‘season’ as we like to call it! On the show we spoke about the newly announced President in Egypt and the political situation with parliament being dissolved. As soon as we had finished the show we packed up our sound gear in to one of the suitcases as even though we planned to Skype home a few more times we would do this using the computer microphone rather than our large set-up.
Monday – this was graduation and so we finished school at lunch time. Our plan had been to do a few moves this afternoon when we went over to the new apartment with Fatma, but when we met Fatma after school she told us that she would be leaving Egypt and so could not clean for us any more. We blogged about her here , and to be honest her news threw us a bit and so we didn’t manage to move anything this afternoon. Having an afternoon off was probably a good thing for our sanity though.
Tuesday – this was the big move day for us as we’d arranged with the head of maintenance at school for some of his ‘boys’ to come round and move our larger items that we knew we’d never get in a cab!
At the apartment we grabbed an early dinner (which was well-timed to be our last frozen meal) and waited for a call from a colleague, Dean. Dean was taking a few of our pieces of furniture for his new apartment, but he was also with the team of removal men who were going to move our big items to the new place (bookshelf, chairs, mattress etc). Dean arrived around 6pm and we went down to meet him and the two trucks he had with him. We very nearly became the proud owners of a 6ft ‘coke fridge’ which the removal men tried to carry up the stairs in to our apartment before we managed to stop them and remind them that they were meant to be collecting things, not delivering at this point!
Between the four of them they quickly managed to move all of our bits downstairs to the driveway and then started on the puzzle of fitting them all on to the truck. The mattress proved a great way at holding everything in as it lay over our suitcases, microwave and the brew box! At the new apartment they unloaded everything and sent it upstairs in the lift (which they managed to unload at the fifth floor at first even though we did specifically say it was the second!) and soon enough the ‘big’ move for us was complete. The night wasn’t quite complete for Dean as he still had a truck-load of furniture to take to his new place and the ‘coke fridge’ to take to another colleague’s apartment. We gave Dean a 6-pack of beers to thank him for getting himself involved in our move (!) and gave the guys who had done our move in super-quick time 400LE for the trouble.
It was just past 7pm and we’d done so much already but there was one final job to do this evening before we could properly call it a day, so off to Dr Cherif’s it was for a final check-up appointment. Although we’d seen him the previous week and all was fine, this appointment was to take more detailed measurements so that we would have a full set of notes to take with us on the plane (not that there should be any problem with travelling at 24 weeks) and to take with us to see the docs we would inevitably see in the UK over the summer (we plan to have one check-up in the middle of the break and then we’ll need to see someone to get the ‘permission to fly’ note at the very end of the holiday too).
Everything was fine with Dr Cherif and the Baba Ganough which meant we left feeling very happy and pleased with how we had got through the day!
Wednesday – this was to be our final move day (we hoped!) when we would finish off a lot of the move, leaving only a few things in the old apartment.
Straight after school I went to collect the cot bed that we had bought from a girl in Rehab. We got Sayed to pick me up at 3pm and by 3.30 she was negotiating Rehab car parks and slip roads to find the closest point to the apartment. Sayed didn’t know before that we were expecting, but when I turned up at the car he realised why I had mentioned I’d need a hand putting stuff in the car. The cot bed was bigger than we remembered and so it had to run through the boot and on to the folded down back seat. I was back in Maadi by about 4.30pm and Sayed (along with Om Yasser, our new bowab) helped me take everything in to the apartment.
Meanwhile Scotty took the bus home with Sayno and together they carried around most of the larger frames we have with pictures or paintings in. They also arrived at the apartment at about 4.30pm and phase one of the Wednesday move was complete.
Now we were together again we needed to do another two taxi trips to bring the final few paintings and guitars over. What made these moves difficult was not the weight we were trying to move but their delicate nature and the odd shapes we were moving (bedside lamps!). Before the last move of the night we also packed up the desktop computer and packed this in to a small suitcase to move leaving us with just the essentials to live with and things to do some final cleaning with. By this point though we were both feeling very tired – tired with moving and tired with everything to be honest!
THURSDAY!
The last day of school was not as manic as it was last year (when Scotty was so ill that he threw up on the way to work and I had so much to do to finish off that I missed the bus home!), but it still had a few surprises! We checked in online to our flight while at work and sad some sad goodbyes to colleagues and friends that would be leaving (we’ll miss you Frenchie and Judlove!)
We were back in Maadi by 3pm and started to get on to the final few moves. Our aim was to get everything out of the old apartment apart from what we would need to sleep the night there. We also needed to pack our bags for the UK and wanted to get down to the Club for a goodbye/end-of-term drink with people.
We cleared out the fridge and the last two plates, two mugs and two glasses from the kitchen. Along with this we load we took some computer items and the mop and bucket (we paid good money for them!) to the new place in a taxi. Just as we were getting home from this move we have a call from Kurt and Kristi who we have bought a computer chair from and so I dash back to the new apartment to meet them. They also really kindly give us their stroller which they aren’t taking when they move back to California and although we won’t be able to use it for the first few months with the baby, it’s great to have as a light extra pram option. Whilst I’m meeting them, Scotty packs another large case and brings it over.
We’ve still got some things to move, but we haven’t packed our bags for the UK yet, so we go back to the apartment, order dinner and start packing. We’ve been putting things aside ready to pack for a few weeks, but we need to see what space we actually have. One case has already been packed with picture frames and a few clothes, so we’ve got two left to pack. We try to make the largest case the ‘wedding’ case and put the large wall hanging that we’ve had made for Fabs and Sam in there along with Scotty’s suits and all the bunting that has been made to decorate the hall for the reception. We cut back on a few clothes (mainly clothes that I had been thinking to take, but actually I’ll probably only get to wear once before they are too tight for me) but otherwise manage to get everything in.
It’s 7.30pm and we decide that we deserve a break from packing and sorting and so head down to the Club for a farewell drink. We only stay for one, but it’s really great to see people for a final goodbye before the summer (or in the case of the wonderful Lucy and Roly, before they move away!). After this though we are back to the final dregs of the move and jobs that need to be done.
Our final move of the night is a case of computer bits and bobs and the clothes we didn’t fit in to the case for the UK. We arrange to meet Prebble at the flat and he drops off some keys that we are getting cut for him (another, even longer, story!). After a brief sit down and chat together we head to Road 9 and divide forces with Scotty going to close our internet account and me getting the keys cut. It’s all done very efficiently as three guys work on cutting the four keys at the same time, and we’re soon in a cab back to Degla.
When we’re checking that the newly cut keys work in Flossie’s apartment Scotty gets a call from the internet people saying that they forgot to give him the correct change. We really can’t be fussed to go all the way back to Road 9 for a fiver at this stage (it’s nearly 11pm) but they insist that it cannot go to charity and so back Scotty goes.
By midnight we are washing out the fridge and cleaning the bathroom so that we leave the apartment in a good way and can be sure to get our deposit back from the landlord and it’s nearly 1am by the time we have had a shower and get in to bed. Our flight is tomorrow morning at 9.30am and we are utterly exhausted.
Epilogue: Friday
We woke up at 6am and stripped the bed – packing the pillows and dirty laundry in to the hold hall. We drank the last of the milk and juice and then took our bags downstairs for 6.45am to meet Abdul. It was a bit odd to see the apartment so empty – it was essentially back to the way it was when we first moved in – but we didn’t have much time (or energy) to dwell on this. On the way to the airport we got Abdul to take us to the new apartment so that we could drop off the dirty laundry etc that we didn’t want to take to the UK(!) and then headed to the airport (so we did our final move in to the new apartment about 3 hours before our flight to the UK). Although the roads were clear all the way there the EgyptAir terminal slip-road was jammed and these last 50m took us 15 minutes in the car. We got in to the airport 2 hours before our flight but by the time we had queued for the plastic bag wrap (our large hard case is really on its last legs), check-in and passport control it was reading ‘go to gate’, so we grabbed a coffee and did just that.
Goodbye Egypt (for the summer) and Hello UK!
We’d already done the bulk of our move, but knew in the back of our minds that the last few things to move are always the fiddly things and take a deceptively long time / amount of space to move. By this point though we were pretty knackered as we’d done so much moving (well, Scotty had done so much moving, as I wasn’t able to help all that much) and sorting to finish things off at school. Before going in to the manic moving that took place on Thursday I’ll give a run down of the rest of the week!
Sunday – this was our final radio show for the ‘season’ as we like to call it! On the show we spoke about the newly announced President in Egypt and the political situation with parliament being dissolved. As soon as we had finished the show we packed up our sound gear in to one of the suitcases as even though we planned to Skype home a few more times we would do this using the computer microphone rather than our large set-up.
Monday – this was graduation and so we finished school at lunch time. Our plan had been to do a few moves this afternoon when we went over to the new apartment with Fatma, but when we met Fatma after school she told us that she would be leaving Egypt and so could not clean for us any more. We blogged about her here , and to be honest her news threw us a bit and so we didn’t manage to move anything this afternoon. Having an afternoon off was probably a good thing for our sanity though.
Tuesday – this was the big move day for us as we’d arranged with the head of maintenance at school for some of his ‘boys’ to come round and move our larger items that we knew we’d never get in a cab!
At the apartment we grabbed an early dinner (which was well-timed to be our last frozen meal) and waited for a call from a colleague, Dean. Dean was taking a few of our pieces of furniture for his new apartment, but he was also with the team of removal men who were going to move our big items to the new place (bookshelf, chairs, mattress etc). Dean arrived around 6pm and we went down to meet him and the two trucks he had with him. We very nearly became the proud owners of a 6ft ‘coke fridge’ which the removal men tried to carry up the stairs in to our apartment before we managed to stop them and remind them that they were meant to be collecting things, not delivering at this point!
Between the four of them they quickly managed to move all of our bits downstairs to the driveway and then started on the puzzle of fitting them all on to the truck. The mattress proved a great way at holding everything in as it lay over our suitcases, microwave and the brew box! At the new apartment they unloaded everything and sent it upstairs in the lift (which they managed to unload at the fifth floor at first even though we did specifically say it was the second!) and soon enough the ‘big’ move for us was complete. The night wasn’t quite complete for Dean as he still had a truck-load of furniture to take to his new place and the ‘coke fridge’ to take to another colleague’s apartment. We gave Dean a 6-pack of beers to thank him for getting himself involved in our move (!) and gave the guys who had done our move in super-quick time 400LE for the trouble.
It was just past 7pm and we’d done so much already but there was one final job to do this evening before we could properly call it a day, so off to Dr Cherif’s it was for a final check-up appointment. Although we’d seen him the previous week and all was fine, this appointment was to take more detailed measurements so that we would have a full set of notes to take with us on the plane (not that there should be any problem with travelling at 24 weeks) and to take with us to see the docs we would inevitably see in the UK over the summer (we plan to have one check-up in the middle of the break and then we’ll need to see someone to get the ‘permission to fly’ note at the very end of the holiday too).
Everything was fine with Dr Cherif and the Baba Ganough which meant we left feeling very happy and pleased with how we had got through the day!
Wednesday – this was to be our final move day (we hoped!) when we would finish off a lot of the move, leaving only a few things in the old apartment.
Straight after school I went to collect the cot bed that we had bought from a girl in Rehab. We got Sayed to pick me up at 3pm and by 3.30 she was negotiating Rehab car parks and slip roads to find the closest point to the apartment. Sayed didn’t know before that we were expecting, but when I turned up at the car he realised why I had mentioned I’d need a hand putting stuff in the car. The cot bed was bigger than we remembered and so it had to run through the boot and on to the folded down back seat. I was back in Maadi by about 4.30pm and Sayed (along with Om Yasser, our new bowab) helped me take everything in to the apartment.
Meanwhile Scotty took the bus home with Sayno and together they carried around most of the larger frames we have with pictures or paintings in. They also arrived at the apartment at about 4.30pm and phase one of the Wednesday move was complete.
Now we were together again we needed to do another two taxi trips to bring the final few paintings and guitars over. What made these moves difficult was not the weight we were trying to move but their delicate nature and the odd shapes we were moving (bedside lamps!). Before the last move of the night we also packed up the desktop computer and packed this in to a small suitcase to move leaving us with just the essentials to live with and things to do some final cleaning with. By this point though we were both feeling very tired – tired with moving and tired with everything to be honest!
THURSDAY!
The last day of school was not as manic as it was last year (when Scotty was so ill that he threw up on the way to work and I had so much to do to finish off that I missed the bus home!), but it still had a few surprises! We checked in online to our flight while at work and sad some sad goodbyes to colleagues and friends that would be leaving (we’ll miss you Frenchie and Judlove!)
We were back in Maadi by 3pm and started to get on to the final few moves. Our aim was to get everything out of the old apartment apart from what we would need to sleep the night there. We also needed to pack our bags for the UK and wanted to get down to the Club for a goodbye/end-of-term drink with people.
We cleared out the fridge and the last two plates, two mugs and two glasses from the kitchen. Along with this we load we took some computer items and the mop and bucket (we paid good money for them!) to the new place in a taxi. Just as we were getting home from this move we have a call from Kurt and Kristi who we have bought a computer chair from and so I dash back to the new apartment to meet them. They also really kindly give us their stroller which they aren’t taking when they move back to California and although we won’t be able to use it for the first few months with the baby, it’s great to have as a light extra pram option. Whilst I’m meeting them, Scotty packs another large case and brings it over.
We’ve still got some things to move, but we haven’t packed our bags for the UK yet, so we go back to the apartment, order dinner and start packing. We’ve been putting things aside ready to pack for a few weeks, but we need to see what space we actually have. One case has already been packed with picture frames and a few clothes, so we’ve got two left to pack. We try to make the largest case the ‘wedding’ case and put the large wall hanging that we’ve had made for Fabs and Sam in there along with Scotty’s suits and all the bunting that has been made to decorate the hall for the reception. We cut back on a few clothes (mainly clothes that I had been thinking to take, but actually I’ll probably only get to wear once before they are too tight for me) but otherwise manage to get everything in.
It’s 7.30pm and we decide that we deserve a break from packing and sorting and so head down to the Club for a farewell drink. We only stay for one, but it’s really great to see people for a final goodbye before the summer (or in the case of the wonderful Lucy and Roly, before they move away!). After this though we are back to the final dregs of the move and jobs that need to be done.
Our final move of the night is a case of computer bits and bobs and the clothes we didn’t fit in to the case for the UK. We arrange to meet Prebble at the flat and he drops off some keys that we are getting cut for him (another, even longer, story!). After a brief sit down and chat together we head to Road 9 and divide forces with Scotty going to close our internet account and me getting the keys cut. It’s all done very efficiently as three guys work on cutting the four keys at the same time, and we’re soon in a cab back to Degla.
When we’re checking that the newly cut keys work in Flossie’s apartment Scotty gets a call from the internet people saying that they forgot to give him the correct change. We really can’t be fussed to go all the way back to Road 9 for a fiver at this stage (it’s nearly 11pm) but they insist that it cannot go to charity and so back Scotty goes.
By midnight we are washing out the fridge and cleaning the bathroom so that we leave the apartment in a good way and can be sure to get our deposit back from the landlord and it’s nearly 1am by the time we have had a shower and get in to bed. Our flight is tomorrow morning at 9.30am and we are utterly exhausted.
Epilogue: Friday
We woke up at 6am and stripped the bed – packing the pillows and dirty laundry in to the hold hall. We drank the last of the milk and juice and then took our bags downstairs for 6.45am to meet Abdul. It was a bit odd to see the apartment so empty – it was essentially back to the way it was when we first moved in – but we didn’t have much time (or energy) to dwell on this. On the way to the airport we got Abdul to take us to the new apartment so that we could drop off the dirty laundry etc that we didn’t want to take to the UK(!) and then headed to the airport (so we did our final move in to the new apartment about 3 hours before our flight to the UK). Although the roads were clear all the way there the EgyptAir terminal slip-road was jammed and these last 50m took us 15 minutes in the car. We got in to the airport 2 hours before our flight but by the time we had queued for the plastic bag wrap (our large hard case is really on its last legs), check-in and passport control it was reading ‘go to gate’, so we grabbed a coffee and did just that.
Goodbye Egypt (for the summer) and Hello UK!
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