Moving Day in Istanbul

On September 17, 2011, we began the end of our more to Istanbul.  I was so ready to be out of the hotel!  I was ready to have my stuff again!  I have learned that there are so many things you can live without, but it still nice to be surrounded by your family pictures and being able to make food when ever you want.  I missed my shoes!  LOL.

We were meeting the moving truck at 10:30am, which in Turkey is sometime before noon.  We arrived a little early so we could open the house up and get the kids settled in.  Surprisingly, the movers showed on time.  Only the lead guy spoke English.  We discussed the game plan and then got rolling.  Joel would stand at the door and direct. First floor was his job and he would send everything else down to me, where I would tell them which room.  We had decided, with the girls, that they would share the biggest secondary bedroom.  But they wanted twin beds and some way to create their own space.  And yes, that was Jocy’s wording.  We figured a wardrobe would work great to make it two small rooms.  So the spare bedroom would be the “We really brought that?” room.

The movers began bring stuff off the truck and had to unwrap it  outside the building.  These guys were unbelievable!  They were fast and efficient!  They got thru the first truck in about an hour.  The next truck arrived and I’m thinking that we packed WAY too much for this place.  It’s bigger than our house minus the basement and garage.  And we only have a small storage room.  This is never going to fit!  I was  having a bit of a panic attack, but then it was back to work!  I got to watch one guy carry down Joel’s dresser that took three guys in the States to carry!!  they could toss around our stuff like it was full of paper!!  Once everything was sorted to rooms, they started to put together furniture.  They were done by 3pm and we had them call it a day.  We were exhausted.  The kids were getting into trouble and I just needed a nap!  LOL.  Plus we had the movers one more day to help.  We had already planned on spending Saturday night in the Hilton.  But I was surprised that with the little bit done, the apartment was already feeling like home. 

Sunday, they came to the hotel to pick up everything and move it to the house.  With the air shipment and 8 bags of luggage (and all the stuff we had bought), it would have been 20 trips in the Focus Wagon.  The day was spent unpacking as many boxes as possible to get the garbage out.  But we couldn't”t unpack quite a bit because we didn’t have any wardrobes!  The lovely people of Otosan hadn’t handed over our moving in allowance yet.  And we were annoyed already that we were paying everything out of our own pockets and they would reimbursed us.  Yea, that doesn’t happened in the US.  Thankfully!!!  Or we’d been poor!  So after a few hours, we told them we were done.  They would come back and pick up the rest of the boxes when we were ready.  The head guy and his crew were really great!  They played with the kids but still kicked butt!  I thought the crew in MO was great, but these guys put them to shame!  He told us that they were the best company in Turkey and that’s why Ford contracted them.  You could definitely see the pride they took in their work.  One thing I have noticed in our short time here and wish you saw at home!

You have no idea how much I enjoyed sleeping in my own bed that night.  I kind of think we all did.  And the kids were happy to have their toys back.  I even enjoyed make dinner that night and cleaning up!  Now the big job was reorganizing and finding homes for everything.  Can’t say I will be bored for a while!  And surprisingly, it all fit with plenty of room to s pare!

Moving Day in Istinye VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL