A hectic preparation

It's been a hectic few weeks. It all started two weeks ago. I had to bid the apartment that I had lived in for over a year farewell. One of the hardest things to say goodbye to was the view, which on this day was particularly dreary.

The move took longer than expected and involved a stop at my brother Lucas' apartment to drop off a couch. I have sold most of my furniture to my direct family in exchange for a plane ticket. The rest is temporarily stored in my parent's living room in place of their old furniture. I don't think I will use it again. I  consider myself a bit of a minimalist now. Most of possessions fit in the bag I will take with me to Ann Arbor.

After a long day of packing and moving, my parent's living room was transformed into a storage unit. This would be an annoyance any day of the year. The fact that I moved only a few days before Christmas did not help things. This meant that the next few days involved a lot of rearranging, cleaning and unpacking.

Following the wonderful Christmas celebrations the fun was not over. The new year celebrations were coming up, with guests coming over from the UK. They would be staying here. This meant that the stuff that was all moved upstairs to get it out of the living room had to be sorted. It was probably around this time in which my unworn TU Delft sweater got misplaced into a pile of things headed to the thrift store.

The new year celebrations were great. With my departure date just three days away it all feels a bit surrealistic. After some research I bought a carry on bag (why aren't the dimensions standardized?) and have been slowly packing my bags with things I want to take with me. Difficult choices have to be made. I can't take my entire library along with me. I also want space in my bags for any souvenirs I want to take with me when I head back in August.

Today I went to visit my grandmother to say goodbye. On the way we stopped at the thrift store to give away some old clothing. I had been unable to find my brand new sweater since the move so I decided to check the thrift store to see if it somehow ended up there. After a minute of searching I found it on the rack for €4.50. After explaining how I already bought it and did not mean to give it away I got a €2.50 discount. Still odd to pay for something I've already bought.

After a visit at my grandmother, who was surprised to find out that the US hadn't yet switched to the euro (I'm not sure if she was joking) I picked up some Indonesian takeaway for a nice goodbye meal this evening. This is probably the only and last post I will do from the Netherlands. I have two more days to buy a lot of liquorice to stuff the extra suitcase space with and say goodbye to my surroundings for the next 7.5 months.

I apologize if this post seems a bit hectic, it reflects the atmosphere.