The World's Most Awkward Move-In

When you're me, life happens as awkwardly as possible.  Usually this involves unintentionally embarrassing myself in social situations or making friends with strange Ghanaian men in the Frankfurt train station who follow me for the rest of the night*.  But when you're me moving for the first time, you do it in awkward STYLE.

*this is a true story


I had two main problems when it came to moving.  First, I arrived in Germany with two suitcases, a ukulele, and a bookbag, all of which could happily be stashed in the cargo hold of an airplane, or under my seat.  However, while packing, I discovered that in the night, everything I owned had bred like bunnies, and I was leaving with two suitcases, two bookbags, a ukulele, a guitar, five big boxes, and numerous plastic bags.  The second problem was that one of my barn friends gave me a bunch of furniture.  Which in itself was not a problem, the problem mostly just had to do with transporting said furniture from Point A to B.

Now my host parents had graciously offered to take my stuff to my new apartment, but the furniture just didn't fit in the car.  I briefly considered renting a truck, but they're so ridiculously expensive in and of themselves, not including gas, which is currently priced at nine dollars a gallon.  Yes.  So I asked around my army friends, to see if there was anything with a car big enough for all my crap and my furniture, and the Zimbabwean volunteered.  Which was all well and good, except he has a super sexy car that is designed for a good many things (going fast, being shiny, picking up chicks), but not very well suited to other things (being loaded up with nine million boxes, containing furniture longer than the car itself, being a truck).  Which brings us to another problem: I had never actually seen the furniture in question, and when he asked me how big it was, I guessed.  Optimistically.

Lesson number one:  Positive Thinking Cannot Vanquish The Laws Of Physics.    

So, he and another Brit pulled up at the house yesterday morning, and we loaded the car up.  At which point we discovered that even without the furniture, the car was riding so low to the ground that the suspension was threatening to commit suicide and bury itself in the asphalt in subcompact protest.  We pulled (scraped) up to my barn friend's house, her dad starting bringing out pieces of the furniture, and it became quickly apparent that, short of breaking the windows, there was no way the furniture was going to fit.

Lesson number two:  Know How Big Your Furniture Is.

We needed a new plan like yesterday.  For about five minutes I just sat on the curb panicking, and then I remembered that the night before, one of my other barn friends had told me to call her if for whatever reason we couldn't make everything fit.  So that's what I did.  Her response:  "Don't worry, I'll drive you!  Come to the barn, I'll hitch up my car to the horse trailer, and while I'm finishing up, you guys can load all the stuff in the back."

Yes, that's right.  My stuff was getting moved in a horse trailer.  If you can think of anything more hilariously badass, and completely appropriate, let me know.  In the meantime, I'm just going to sit here and be retardedly grateful the universe blessed me with friends in possession of horse trailers.

So, I headed over to the barn, the trailer got hitched up, and then she handed me the keys, gave me directions, and said "Don't forget the trailer is wider than the car itself."

Lesson number three:  Be Thankful For Your Trailer Driving Experience.

But I've never driven a trailer before!

Lesson number four:  Now Would Be A Good Time To Have Trailer Driving Experience.

The Brits followed me in their car, and they said later they were laughing at me the whole time.  I drove in the middle of the street, never left first gear, and took my turns like a whale, but I DID IT.  We loaded up all my things in the back, and then the Brits headed out.  They wanted to stay the weekend in Göttingen, so they went on ahead to book a hotel and run around while I waited for my barn friends.  After a while, everyone arrived, and we hopped in the car and off we went.

The ride over was a crap ton of fun, because we discussed everything from Stephen Hawking to the Jurassic Park movies to the upcoming end of the world--which according to Germany is going to happen as a massive flood.  Which I had never heard of, but was very interested by.  I know in the US we always talk about 2012, but do we discuss the means by which the world will end?  In any case, it's quite possible Germany knows something we don't, so you guys might want to start looking into practical matters, like how much an arc costs, or what giraffes eat.

The best part, though, was pulling up onto my tiny street with a horse trailer.  People were actually coming outside to stare at us, and I couldn't stop giggling.  We carried everything up two flights of stairs, and even somehow managed to put all the furniture together.  Then there were lots of hugs involved, and they left.

I briefly tried to organize my life, but quickly realized two things: 1) That I had more things than space to put said things, and 2) that I desperately needed to buy shelves. So I resigned myself to the chaos, and went food shopping with my roommate. Afterwards, we met up with the Brits in town and went out to an Irish pub, which was a pretty amazing time.  In the course of the conversation, we learned that American accents are apparently attractive, Göttingen does not hate British soldiers, and the Zimbabwean speaks three Zimbabwean languages, one of which clicks, one of which whistles, and one of which clicks and whistles, which was so cool, I couldn't deal.

This morning, I organized some more, and then the Brits came over to hang out with me and my roommate.  We drank tea and ate banana bread, it was awesome.  They're planning on coming back in April, which I am hugely excited about.

Here, have some pictures of my room!  I'll put up other pictures once it stops looking like a bomb went off.

And...that's all I got!  Have a wonderful day all!