Movin' on up

(12:20pm) Two hours of non-stop lifting and unpacking frenzy, and they're gone. The furniture is set up, including the beds, and some things (mostly kitchen) are unpacked. Much of the rest - clothes, toys, books, CDs - is still packed and will be until we figure out where to put it all. Those big closets (placards) will come in VERY handy now!

(11:40am) Wow, everything's in the apartment and they're well into unwrapping and reassembling. I've already unloaded 4 cartons in the kitchen. Early find: the roasting pan is too big for the oven. A drop in the bucket of "where will all this go" I'm sure. More later.

(10:10am) The container is gone! Not stolen gone, emptied out onto the square and departed. Wow. Now all our shipped goods are stacked on the square, and some are starting to come up the elevator. Big question - where in this 1000sf apartment are all those boxes going to go??? Will keep you posted ...

(10am) Turns out the mont-meuble won't work. Now the poor guy (Sebastian, who speaks some English) has to disassemble it. The replacement is pre-built and mounted on a trailer, so he says once it arrives (15min) it should be quick to set up and start bringing things in.

(from 9:45am) The mont-meuble is still under final assembly, but the shipping container is here and they've already started moving boxes from the container to the base of the elevator. (Aside: We learned that the word is elevator because when first in use, they only took you up! They did not have call buttons on each floor, only at the bottom.) If you didn't know, most Parisian apartment buildings have very small elevators (if any) and circular staircases, so not ideal conditions to move in big stuff. So they developed what's basically a ladder with a platform that rides up and down on it. They come on-site, build the ladder, attach the platform, secure it to the balcony railing, and load your stuff on at the bottom and off in through the window at the top. Check the pics.

(Can you tell I don't have a whole lot to do right now?)