We have a home!

This Monday we moved into our new apartment on Pennsylvania Avenue in Philadelphia.  We are really happy with the location and the apartment - we have a lovely view of the city and are right across the street from a large park.

Last week I flew home to Canada to get all of our stuff.  Vincent was to join me on Friday evening (he was in France for a meeting) so that we could load up the truck and drive back to Philly together.  However, due to a strike in France, his flight was cancelled and he ended up getting home on Saturday night.  I picked him up at the airport at 10PM - we headed back to Belleville, slept and then hit the road right away on Sunday.  Who needs rest?

Fortunately, Dad was there to help me load the truck, arrange everything and tie it all down.  What would I do without our moving expert?  And, the drive to Philly went really well - good weather, no line-ups at the border and the truck ran well.

Monday morning was our big move-in date, and we woke up to pouring rain!  But, we got everything into the apartment quickly and nothing got too wet.  Then, we went on a big adventure to return the U-Haul.  I had googled the closest location, so off we went, me in the truck and Vincent following in the car.  Little did I know that the location I had found was in a really rough neighbourhood.  After many u-turns through garbage strewn streets we finally found the location, only to be told that they no longer accept U-Haul returns.  The second try was a place where we saw two U-Hauls on the street and figured that was a good sign.  However, there was no storefront.  Some very helpful young men who just happened to be sitting at the side of the road (in a very nice vehicle) told us to bang on some random door.  Fortunately no one answered, as there was no way I wanted to go into this building, which looked like it was about to fall down.  Finally, we found another abandoned place, but they had a drop box, so we left the U-Haul there. 

This is the neighbour hood we drove around in for an hour, trying to locate a place to leave the truck!

By this time I was starving and grumpy, so we got some Mexican take-out and some beer and celebrated our first meal in our new place!

 

Will post more pictures later this week - am currently waiting for the Internet guy to call me!