The bachelorette pad

Packing In A Tutu
Originally uploaded by ambrosialove.

I did it!

I have moved into my first one-bedroom apartment, all on my own - my very first bachelorette pad and it's all mine.

Naturally the move wasn't without its dramas but fortunately I had my friend P there to take much of the heat for me (her choice, as she figured I was stressed enough).

Not to bore you with the details, but one of my other neighbours was also moving out yesterday and both of our moving vans arrived at pretty much the same time. Well one of the other neighbours didn't like that much, and got annoyed that the vans were effectively occupying the resident parking spaces. MInd you, he was not going anywhere in his car, so he didn't need access to the driveway anyway, but it didn't stop him from getting irritated - and calling the cops!

So the policeman shows up, my movers stop working (but keep charging me), and P stepped in to assess the situation. The cop didn't even get out of his car, because he realised the neighbour was a complete ass, particularly given that he had, by now, moved his own car to diagonally park across the driveway and block the movers entirely!

My old landlord was absolutely no help whatsoever, and when I asked whether he could contact one of the other tenants and ask her to move her car forward a little (so my movers could get their truck in), he read me the Bill of Rights. "They are not required to move their cars, they pay for those parking spaces," says he. Well by this stage I was severly annoyed and I reminded my landlord that I was not looking to trample on anyone's constitutional rights to parking spaces; rather I was just looking for some courtesy for the one hour or so that my movers needed access to the spot. He responded with a grossly unhelpful reminder that the residents are under no obligation to be courteous and I agreed that it was a lesson I was learning very quickly and thanked him for being no help to me whatsoever.

It was a lesson in US politics, and I say that principally because I am confident that no such situation would ever occur in Australia. In fact, I feel fairly certain that if I was moving out of the place in Australia, my neighbours would help - if not moving boxes, then at least moving cars out the way for the very short duration that my movers required access to the site. No such favours here.

So I was feeling a little disappointed in humankind by this stage, but my faith was restored with every trip that me, P, and my 2 movers made, up and down my back stairs, lugging my belongings around the obstacle course of resident cars and out to the truck.

And in 3 hours, all the boxes were in my new place, and the task of unpacking began. Me and P were going to just leave stuff for me to unpack steadily over this long weekend (US Labor Day - seems an appopriate weekend for such a task, now that I think about it). But we got our 2nd winds and just battled through. The next thing I knew, all the boxes were unpacked (save for my shoes), my kitchen was all set up, my bookcase was full, and my bedroom was pristine - clean sheets, color-coded wardrobe, the whole lot.

And let me tell you, coming home after a few beers to celebrate the move, to a nice clean house and warm bed, was the best feeling in the world. No wait, waking up this morning and surveying MY new place, now THAT was the best feeling in the world.

It can only get better from here.