One week from … well, right now, our plane leaves Juan Santamaria Airport, bound for Houston. If all our cards fall into place (which, so far, they are — I just hope they keep falling!), we’ll leave in good order. We’re not perfect yet, but we’re getting there.
The biggest point, really, is still the car. Sigh. Our list now looks like this:
- Cancel our CableTica service
- Sell our car (currently trying, and having no luck at all)
- “Cancel” our phone (aka give it back to the company)
- Pack up the stuff we’re taking with us on the plane
- Have the rest of our stuff packed and shipped by slow banana boat (and I’m not really kidding about that — it probably is a banana boat) (Technically not done yet, but this starts in about 40 minutes.)
- Arrange for our utilities in Calgary (gas, electricity, water)
- Organise the times/dates for moving our stuff out of storage and back into our house
- Arrange for plane tickets
- Arrange for hotels for moving (we have to stay at least one night in CR and one night in Calgary), and it they have to take cats
- Get a rental car
- Then buy a car in Calgary (technically not done yet, but we’ve found a car and made arrangements with the dealer, and could buy it as soon as we arrive)
- Figure out how to get what money we’ve managed to save up north so we don’t try carrying it across the border (read: bad idea)
- Arrange for documentation to prove that we can take our daughter out of Costa Rica (no, I’m not kidding — Temporary Residents need this for some bizarre reason, even if both parents are present)
- Make sure we can get our cat back into Canada (read: find all the documentation we had from 18 months ago)
- Clean our apartment top-to-bottom
- Give away what we’re not taking back to friends (and other organisations)
- Say “goodbye” to the people we’ve come to know very well over the last year and a half (this is going to truly suck)
- Make sure we have clothes that are cold-weather appropriate (at least until all of our other clothing is out of storage)
This list is looking much better than it did a week ago. That’s not to say it came easily. There’s way too much stress involved with organising a relocation company that doesn’t seem to talk to itself or offer appropriate customer service (in my opinion, anyway). All part of the “fun”, though, right?
Oh, and we’ve also had to get more documentation for the cat,which we hadn’t been aware of. Thankfully, living here has made us realise that if you’re doing something without official government approval, chances are you’re doing it wrong.
