Thank goodness for linens

I leave two weeks tomorrow and packing has begun in earnest, thanks to linens. After my last blog, I got down to business by getting some good boxes, and figuring out where to start – linens. They’re easy to pack. So once I made the start, I’ve continued to pack most days since then. Except, er, I can’t pack at the moment; I’m typing this by candlelight as my power, rarely enough, has gone out.

My spare room that looks like a bomb's hit it -
full of packing boxes

It’s quite hard to know what to pack. I keep asking myself questions such as, am I going to need that ball dress I haven’t worn in four years? Is it worth me taking the rice cooker if it’s the wrong power plug type? (The answers are no and yes, respectively – the latter can use an European adapter thanks to Sharon and Brian!) The main question I ask though is will I have enough room for all of this? I have visions of a tiny apartment and boxes of linens, kitchenware, books and clothes and nowhere to put them. (Ooh! Power back on!) But I guess that's something that we'll have to work out when we get there.

Aside from linens, I’ve also packed books. Very important, those. I buy books like other women buy shoes, and I have two large IKEA Billy bookcases full of them. Unfortunately, I had to be rather selective as books can literally weigh a ton. I’m not able to lift up even just the small box I’ve packed. Oh, and of course, I’ve already realised that I needed to look something up in one of my cookbooks – which I packed first and is therefore at the very bottom of the box. It’s Murphy’s Law.

My books - a VIB; a Very Important Box

There’s something to be said about being in the opposite hemisphere to the rest of the world; while it’s summer here, it means that I can pack all of my winter clothes straight away, and barring any freakishly cold day (not likely at the moment – it'll be 33^oC tomorrow), I won’t need them.

Packing will continue right up until the moment I leave. My husband, who we’ll give the pseudonym of Emperor D, will join me a week later, and I’ll leave it up to him to pack those things that have to wait until the last minute, and properly seal, label and deliver all the boxes without any mishap. Only two weeks to go – I still can’t quite believe it!

Moving in three weeks and I haven't packed a thing

In three weeks I'll be boarding a plane and heading for Geneva, Switzerland, where I've just scored myself a new job. And I haven't packed a single thing. But, I need to back up here a little and explain how I got to this point.

I’ve wanted to live overseas for a long, long time. I actually did once, as a 17-year-old exchange student in Costa Rica. That was a great experience. But I’ve always wanted to live and work in a new place.

For a long time, I thought that place would be London. It’s kind of the done thing among young Australians, who go on a working holiday visa for a year or two and work in London to backpack their way around the UK and Europe. But I’m the type of person who takes the path least (or not as well) travelled, so continental Europe held much more appeal. But I never thought I’d actually get there.

After a few years of it ‘not being the right time’, my husband and I bit the bullet and decided to think about heading over early next year. As mentioned, London was the logical choice, but I thought I would look for jobs in Geneva and Brussels, the home to quite a few international organisations.

I came across one job for a large, internationally-respected non-profit organisation based in Geneva that matched my qualifications and decided to apply for it, never thinking I’d get an interview, let alone the job. Well, from the title of this week’s post, and indeed, this blog’s raison d’etre, it’s kind of obvious that I did get it.

So why write this blog? Having known I’d be moving for only the last three weeks, I’ve done a lot of research in that time. I can see already that this journey – not just literally, but figuratively as well – will be fraught with both excitement and frustrations. Having always been a writer, I think writing, and writing about my upcoming experiences, will be quite cathartic.

I guess it’s a purely selfish thing then. For me, I’m writing to download the stress and frustrations, but it’s also a diary of the great things I can expect to come across and encounter. So, warts and all, why not share that around and hope others can benefit from the experience?

But back to why I haven’t packed. It’s a good question. From a practical standpoint, I actually don’t have any boxes. Once I have boxes, I can start packing. Another reason is that I’ve been doing a lot research – what I can/should pack, how I can get it there, where I might live, how I’ll get around living there… there’s so many questions. Really though, I actually think it hasn’t really sunk in yet. That in just three weeks – that’s three Mondays – I’ll be on a plane, heading for a new country, a new job, a new life. That’s pretty daunting. But pretty damn exciting too.

So, instead of blogging about why I haven’t packed, I guess I better go and actually do it!