Your Entire Life In Here (With Room To Spare)

The tedious and stressful process of moving out of Germany officially began earlier this week with the arrival of the shipping agent. I'll give B's employer credit-- just as they did on our way over, they will cover the moving costs back to the USA, down to even packing our stuff for us. Not that it's that much stuff apparently: We're leaving behind and selling the car (EU-spec cars are different than US and can not be brought back), the standard IKEA particle board furniture endemic to expats, and all of our electronics (European plugs and electronics are not compatible with US electricity) will be sold as well. But I was mildly surprised to find out that all of the stuff we brought over and all of the stuff we purchased and are keeping-- including the good furniture-- still fits in a standard, lowly 20-foot shipping container as pictured here. Sure, there are some items waiting for us in storage back in the USA, but before moving we sold or gave away damn near all of our furniture (we lived like a couple of students, right down to the futons), so there isn't a whole lot there. The kicker is that after surveying the place, the estimator immediately said "20 foot container" without hesitation. When I asked him if he was sure, he confidently told me that there will be some extra room in there as well.

I'm still not sure whether that's pretty neat (we've never been fans of having a lot of "stuff"), or sort of downbeat... I mean, we're responsible adults with responsible jobs-- aren't we supposed to have an embarrassing amount of crap, bric-a-brac, gewgaws and trinkets by now? But at least it will make for a quick move-- our apartment will take less than 1 day to pack, and less than 1 day to put it in the container, where we won't see the contents until 2-3 months later.