Travelling to Germany

My total commute from Australia to Germany was total chaos. Don't judge me on this!

Keep in mind that my plane to Germany would leave at 9:40pm on Friday.

Thursday

I had organised, at the last minute, for a charity organisation to pick up a bunch of my furniture, as I couldn't sell them (I didn't try that hard), and it would be good for people who need that stuff to use it. They were due to arrive at 1:30. Before that I figured I should pick up a van to move the last of my stuff to my storage box. So I picked it up at 11:30am. I drove home, and tried to pack kitchen stuff into boxes for the charity people to also take.

I moved lots of my furniture downstairs to make it easier for them. That is, my bedroom cupboards, bed frames, etc. They arrived and took all that, plus my fridge, washing machine, couch, mattress, bed, etc.

Then I loaded up some boxes and other furniture into the van and moved it to my storage box.

Jasmine came that night to help me pack other things, and it was very sad to say goodbye, and this is a big understatement.

That night I slept on the floor after staying awake very late trying to pack the last of my things.

Friday

I woke up a bit exhausted because I hadn't eaten that much the day before. I finished packing the boxes and moved them to the van and took it to the storage box, by about 9 or 10. I had to return the van by 11:30. I then had to load other stuff into the van to take to my grandparents' house, including my luggage and some other stuff to give to people. I was running very late. It was taking longer than I'd hoped. The problem is that it took a long time to carry stuff from my apartment, via the lift, outside and into the van. Some other construction people were also using the lift, slowing it down slightly. (or maybe I should have done this a few days earlier)

I left my house at 10:40. I'd be late returning the van, since it probably takes 30 minutes each way. I called them up saying I'd probably be 20 minutes late, and thankfully there would be no issue with other bookings coming afterwards. I left a bunch of stuff at my grandparents house.

I returned the van to Mile End and then walked back to the city. I stopped by Subway because I hadn't eaten anything yet. I was hoping I wouldn't come down with a cold or something due to the stressful few days. So I thought I should eat something.

Then I got home at about 12:30 and tried to tidy up my apartment. Then I realised I had quite a bit more to do. Somehow I'd forgotten that I had two bikes there. I was a little desperate and called my grandparents who very kindly came to take them back. One of the bikes has some nostalgia since it was my first road bike.

I tried to tidy the rest of my apartment but it was too much for the time. I needed an extra day. It was about 2:30pm and I decided it'd be better to catch my plane to Germany than to clean the place properly. So I cut it short. I returned the key to the real estate, then stopped off for another errand, and then rode towards my grandparents' house.

While riding I felt a little giddy craziness at how chaotic the events had been so far, and that despite everything, I was reasonably on my way.

I got to my grandparents' house at 4pm, and due to the past couple days of non-stop action I was keen to continue this pace, while everyone around me is moving at a snail pace, and I want to start to pack my bike into the box. So I started on that. Then I found that I couldn't remove my front wheel. The bolt was jammed tight. Grandad repeated calmly "it's not going to come off" and was happily content with that fact while I was determined that it would come off, because a large part of my plan had been to take my bike with me. With time running out we tried to get the bolt off, to the extend that the allen key was twisting under the force of trying to turn it. It actually wasn't going to come off. So then I decided that rather than remove the wheel from the fork, I would remove the fork from the frame. So that's what I did.

It then seemed like my baggage would be overweight. Oh well. We got it into the car and drove to the airport. I was a bit sad on the way to the airport to be leaving behind several people (and that's a big understatement), so tried to not think about that too much.

I've thought recently that we view reality through an abstraction of a human lens and reality is a different thing, which creates a conflict. It's difficult.

At the airport, my baggage was indeed overweight and I paid a fair bit for that that I will forget about.

Andrew and Andrew came to see me go.

I got on the plane. I sat next to a lady who was telling me with confusion that she was given two headphones for the tv. A while later she was asking a stewardess for headphones who said she will need to wait as we're just about to take off. I said "don't you have two?" she said "oh... right, yes... silly me!" I might have misunderstood what she meant though. Ear plugs?

The flight was just normal. I enjoyed it. I was a bit overwhelmed with thinking about everything.

Saturday

Stopover at Doha. I had a strawberry/banana/pineapple fruit juice thing. On the flight, I couldn't find the cable for my fancy headphones. So I bought some random ones.

Possibly not the sort of thing to be doing the morning you plan to move to another country 🤣. But let's live an exciting life.