The Time is Near

Very near. We and the tres gatos are scheduled to fly out of DC on November third. That is two weeks from today. Oh my god, why I am writing when I should be packing?! Okay, gathering composure and continuing... We are nearly packed. There are boxes stacked up in the living room and in the basement. The rest will be packed in the next four days. I have contracted with an NVO (short for Non Vessel Operating Common Carrier, like my new lingo?) to send our things by sea from the port of Baltimore to Montevideo. The vessel itself will get there after a trip to the Med. By the time our things arrive at the end of November (it's a 22 day journey) our household goods may be better traveled than we are. Nah, that's hard to do!

In an international move, a big moving company is kind of like a general contractor. Their guys show up at your house to pack and load your things, but after everything is packed and loaded into a shipping container, they work with partners to fulfill the rest of the move. In our case, we are the general contractor. We will work with at least three parties to get our things safely to our new home - the NVO who works with third parties (the trucker who hauls the container to and from our home, and the shipping line who owns the vessel), a customs broker in Uruguay who will get our things released from port, and a local mover to haul the container out of port and to the house for us.

The first part of the journey begins this weekend. On Friday, Bernard the trucker will drop off a 20 foot container at our house. Then on Saturday, a crew we hired will load the container. This is not an across town move, this container is going to be moved around by cranes and will be on a ship which will possibly encounter huge waves and maybe even storms, so how it is packed matters. Our crew will make sure it is packed tightly and balanced. After the container is all packed, we will put our own chain and locks on it. When the trucker comes on Monday to pick it up, he will apply a seal, which - touch wood - will be unbroken until the container is taken to our Uruguay home.

Well, back to packing. Stay tuned!