The weekend after the first week of school I had to move.  I didn’t schedule it, a change in corporate housing mandated the move.  While I was trying to cement my classroom management and learn 200 students names, I was also making lists of what to pack each night.  The move was quite daunting as we could not get the key to the apartment before we moved, and we had never seen it in person. 

The apartment turned out to very nice.  Farther out than I would like, compared to my last easy to get around neighborhood, but has the benefits of the boondocks. The air is cleaner, we will not have issues with coal smoke here during the winter, there are no traffic problems, and we have a great view of undeveloped Anatolian hills. 

However, while the apartment is beautiful, it is a new building and there are some issues.  Last night, after the 7th visit from a plumber in two weeks, the toilet FIANALLY stopped leaking onto the floor  YAY!  They also turned the heat on last night, which is great because it was REALLY cold.  But now we have to turn it off because it is leaking. 

However, to put it in perspective, my friend just found out that internet is UN-INSTALLABLE in her apartment.  The pipes that lead into her apartment to allow the fiber optic to be snaked in was crushed and so there is no way to bring in the cable. 

Packing was horrendous.  I just hated it.  It feels like I just did it.  I did help my mother move our home last year.   It was a lot of work.  Even though out house is smaller, it still was a lot of work.  Unpacking is a little better.  Though at one point I got so visibly overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead, Bulent broke down all the boxes we had unpacked and removed them from the apartment. It helped significantly.  Actually he turned Defcon 1 to something more like mild craziness.   A miracle worker. 

As of now, we are mostly all set.  There are some paintings I have been unable to hang because the walls are made of concrete.  But that is just a challenge.  It is coming!

UPDATE: I just served coffee to a few men in my house.  They have been working for over an hour on the heating.  Things are looking up.  

UPDATE 2: The man, who says that my eyes are like those of the people he met in Kosovo when he was a soldier in NATO, fixed my heaters and bleed out the air from the system.