Our Stuff Arrived!!

While we were in Thailand last weekend, we received an email saying that our shipment from Egypt had arrived into the port in Hong Kong. On Monday morning, I called the shipping company and arranged for them to drop it off that afternoon at 5. At 4:30pm, Emily went to the corner grocery store to buy ice cream. We didn't really believe that they would deliver it. We expected that we would get a phone call at 5:30 saying that something had once again delayed its arrival.

So, it came as a great surprise to me when Emily called me from her cell phone at 4:45. She sounded out of breath. She said she was walking up the stairs (we live on the 7th floor). I asked why. She said that she had run into our movers down on the street and let them use the elevator (and was therefore using the stairs herself). It's hard for me to explain the excitement that I saw on Emily's face when she walked onto our floor and saw the workers unloading boxes.
It took them about an hour and a half to unpack all 11 boxes. We didn't help much, but just stood by - mostly in shock - watching our possessions emerge one-by-one, unbroken, from the boxes (some of which were a bit crushed as you can see in the picture).
Piece after piece of pottery, porcelain, and glassware emerged from the boxes. Each item was perfectly intact. Then it came time for the movers to assemble our antique Egyptian table. I noticed that it was much more wobbly than it had been in Egypt. I had a closer look and discovered that one of the legs had been snapped almost completely off. I was pretty disappointed, but one of the movers spoke English and assured me that he could have it fixed by a handyman. So, I let him take it away again. I still haven't heard back from him, but I am hoping he is able to fix it.

So, although one very valuable item was damaged, we feel very fortunate that after so much time has gone by, and after so much incompetence was displayed on the part of the moving company, so many of our things were in such good condition.

It's taken us 4 days to write this blog post. Since our things arrived on Monday, we've been working steadily to organize our things. It's a difficult task to fit 3 bedrooms' worth of stuff into a 1 bedroom apartment without creating what I call the "Sanford-and-Son Effect." (Anyone get that reference?) I think we've been fairly successful. But I invite you to judge for yourself. Below I have included pictures of our apartment before and after we moved our things in.

Before...
And after...

Before...
And after...
In the first few weeks that we were in Hong Kong, we did a bit of soul-searching about the cause of our frustration over our missing shipment. For awhile, we felt a bit guilty for our materialistic attachment to all of our stuff. But we've decided that our excitement over the arrival of this shipment wasn't (entirely) rooted in materialism. For us, most of our things have memories attached to them. Our quilt (pictured above) was made by Mom Christensen as a wedding gift. Our living room rug was a wedding gift from Mom & Dad Condie. Even our kitchen utensils have special memories attached to them. (Emily still teases me about the food mill that I bought while on a school trip to Milan. I firmly believe that we will one day be able to use it) We've decided that, in addition to cooking familiar foods, one of the ways that we add familiarity and stability to our life overseas is by keeping a few key items with us wherever we go.

So, for today's question: If you were to move to the other side of the world, what single item would you bring with you to make you feel like your new house was "home?"