Ok, bye for now.

This is it. 4 hours until we leave for the flight. We might be a little cut off from the rest of the world during the traveling and the first while until we get an internet connection and phone. So, wish us luck!

Jeff

No More Teachers...

Well, today is my last day in my office at the university. I finished getting all the thesis documents to the faculty office this morning, which was quite the chore. Eight copies of the thesis at 200 pages per copy, what a waste of trees. Needless to say, my office is a complete sty, so the rest of my last day will be spent sorting through stuff, copying stuff off my computer, and running some errands in town. Nothing like a relaxing last day. Only two and a half days left in Canada. I really wish we would have had some down time before the flight on Saturday. Everything has been such a rush in the past six weeks I've barely had time to eat and sleep. Seriously. I'm starting to get scared and think maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I mean, who in their right mind says 'Hey, lets go to Germany for a couple of years, and ditch any chance at normalcy?' Still so much left to be done...

Jeff

That Was a Close One...

After we thought we had paid the damage deposit on the place in Freiburg, we received a large foreign exchange wire transfer yesterday for almost the same amount. So, we figured it could be one of four options:

1. The place is rented to someone else, and they returned our damage deposit to us,
2. The money got transferred to a bad account (wrong account number),
3. Someone in Germany wanted to give us money for the deposit (like my work, highly unlikely, I know), or
4. A random bank error.

We went to our bank, and they told us that the account we wanted to transfer to was closed, so it turns out it was no. 2. Banks really make me mad. We paid around $150 in exchange when our bank bought euros to transfer, plus a $25 administration fee. Then, when the money came back, the bank exchanged the euros to Cdn dollars at a lower rate, and made another $100 or so. So, our money went no where and we lost $300 to foreign exchange transfers because our bank wanted to make money off of us for nothing. I realize this is how they make their money and euros are kind of scarce in Canada, but the least they could do was make the exchange at the current rates so that we wouldn't lose so much for a service that didn't work. Apparently, they are supposed to confirm too if the transfer was successful, which might have prevented this mess, and of course they did not. I think I am going to file a complaint, even though I know it won't do anything.

At any rate, after explaining the situation to our new landlords (through German translators at my work, which can be crazy in itself), they have agreed to let us pay the deposit when we get to Freiburg, which is a really nice thing to do. I think we will have to go through all this foreign exchange stuff again to get our money into a German bank account though, so we will have to find someone with the lowest rate, and I sure don't want to give more money to our garbage bank. Any ideas?

Jeff

What's Left?

The defence is done. After five years, I can't believe it is over. Thanks to mom and dad for the great celebration/get-together on the weekend. We have kind of found an apartment too, and we actually put a damage deposit down on it. That's the first time we did the damage deposit thing, so I am thinking this is the real deal, but of course, we are still keeping in mind it could fall through. We also got our visas/passports back this week. Things are looking up. There is a huge amount of things to be done before we go though, like finishing up work stuff (thesis corrections, packing up my office, training the new guy), repacking our containers we are taking on the plane, booking the rental car and hotel, selling our car, and a whole pile of little things like getting more passport photos (who knew?), buying voltage transformers/plug adapters, etc. We have ten days left in Canada and we could probably use an entire month and still not have enough time.

So, the new plan is:

1. Reese's party on the 16th, in Red Deer
2. Pack on the 17th, leave on the 23:59 flight
3. Clear customs/immigration in Frankfurt (May 18, 17:30 local time), get our car rentals (we are getting 2 cars, one for the stuff, and one for the people - cheaper than getting a van)
4. Get to Freiburg around 23:00 (it's a 2.5 hour drive, so we are giving ourselves some extra time here)
5. Enjoy hotel in Freiburg
6. Get keys for our apartment around 11:00 (May 19)
7. Go get some mattresses and essentials from Ikea
8. Return car rentals.

The apartment has no furnishings, like we thought. No kitchen (not even a sink), no light fixtures, maybe not toilet seats. All we will have is some clothes, blankets, and a computer, so it is going to be pretty crazy with a completely empty apartment. But, it is going to be great to have our own place for the first time in almost four months.

Jeff