Parcels and Transatlantic Moves

Today after work, I finally decided to get a start on moving my crap back to Chicago. I checked with the receptionist at my department at the University of Chicago to make sure she was OK with the barrage of boxes, and then swung by the post today to ask about pricing. Strangely enough, it turns out that buying one of those pre-paid mailing boxes is cheaper for me than preparing my own boxes. La Poste's extra-large "Colissimo" packaging costs 38€ for a box that will take about 7kg of weight, while the same amount of weight by standard international postage is 73€ (or 53€ by economy, which involves surface transport). Anyway, I bought three of the XL pre-paid boxes and hopped the bus home.

While I'm looking forward to seeing Chicago again and the comforts of a larger apartment with all of the good stuff I had (i.e., kitchen gadgets, PS2, a decently-sized TV, etc.), I'm once again reminded of how much of a hassle moving is. There is something profoundly distressing about the process, especially as all the details of storage, transport, etc. start to pile up in the remaining days before your departure. Also, as I learned last August before coming to Paris, moving from one town to another on the same continent is one thing, but moving to a place where you can only take two suitcases with you is a far more complicated thing. Ack! I think next time, I'll just sublet my current apartment before leaving for Paris or elsewhere, and just leave my furniture and such in place.

Anyway, once I got home, I quickly realized that I had more than 3 x 7kg of books, so I filled each box a bit more than halfway with books, and then stuffed sweaters in the remaining space. Now, I have to think of a way to get this all to the post office...