Now that we are here in Berlin, and are more or less established, I will make a flurry of posts to describe the moving experience, and to try to bring everybody up to date on what all has been going on for the past month. I may occasionally have to refer to my notes, as they have been action packed days.
Way back on July 9, the movers came. On July 10, they came again. Over those two days, everything that we were keeping, but that we thought we could live without for the next 4-6 weeks, was wrapped up and crammed into a shipping container. A word to the wise: unless you move internationally on a regular basis or are in the military, if you think you know what you can live without for 4-6 weeks, you are wrong.Granted, my wife, daughter, and I were each limited to one suitcase and one carry-on bag, so our choices of what to ship and what to carry would probably have been about the same. But we quickly realized what we find important in our day to day lives.
First: Bedding. We were selling our old master bedroom set and a futon with our old house, so we all could sleep at least moderately comfortably until the day we left our house. But pillows and blankets take up a lot of space, so they had to be shipped. Let me just say, no matter how warm it is or how much you think you can live without a pillow, if a pillow and blanket are what you are used to sleeping with, not having them is misery. 
Second: Pots and pans. Anybody who has ever met me can tell immediately that I like to eat out in restaurants. Anybody who has ever been to Berlin can tell you that the city is full of excellent and cheap(!!!!) restaurants. But eating at restaurants three meals a day for four weeks gets really old really fast. My wife and I became experts in finding foods that could be prepared at home with little more than a paper plate and a plastic spoon. Frozen pizzas are excellent. Cold cereal is another good option. After a week, my wife bought a slow cooker (all of our American appliances had to stay behind), so we had lots of soups with very roughly cut (broken, torn, pulled apart) vegetables and little seasoning beyond salt.
Third: Office machines. From the moment that we landed in Berlin, everybody has been requesting that we e-mail scans of documents; passports, registration permits, residency documents, insurance statements, bank account statements, etc. ad nauseum. The problem was, we had no Internet, no scanner, no printer, and the one laptop that we brought with us only had some files that we needed on the hard drive. Everybody who provided us with services needed payment via bank transfer (that is the primary way that everybody gets paid in Germany). But without Internet access we couldn't get onto our bank's website. If we took the laptop to an Internet cafe, we would also need to bring all of our written PIN numbers, passwords, and security question answers (to understand why, you need to experience German online banking first-hand) with us, which we decided was far too insecure on an open network. If we went into our bank in person, the account ATMs are only in German, and few of the tellers speak enough English to help us. The mobile application that we accessed using our iPhones is worse than useless. And God help you if you try to call your personal banker on the telephone (yeah, we've got one of those). I'm still on hold for a question I had three weeks ago!As it turns out, it only took about one month for all of our things to arrive at our new apartment in Berlin. Our first night with blankets and pillows was the best night's sleep I have had in years. Just the simple act of cooking pasta is a joy. As for the office machines. . . well, that took a little longer. But I'll talk about that later.
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