My First Day living in Saint Louis. June 27, 2013
I have moved before, there's another post about that. But this was my first move to a new state. It has been a hectic and chaotic mess trying to coordinate all the moving companies and flights and schedules to align. Planning didn't go smoothly and neither was the actual move.
June 26, 2013- Fly into airport. I found out the night before my moving truck, which was supposed to be there Thursday, is now on Friday. I had to pack suitcase number three to be checked to include a pillow and an air mattress. All together I had 6 bags to manage after I landed. My loving family helped me cart everything into the airport when I was leaving. I thought my ride was going to be late because of work once I got to the STL so I wasn't worried about nosing around trying to get all my bags together. Instead (luckily/unluckily) she was there before I even landed.
The plane had been delayed you see because we waited for SEVEN people to board after they had all already boarded everyone. Then we get to the runway and the pilot lets us know a cargo door was left open. HOW DID WE GET TO THE RUNWAY BEFORE REALIZING THIS?! We had to go back to the gate and get it secured, then back on the way.
After arriving in STL all my bags luckily arrived. See I packed to much because I was being cautious incase I needed clothes for the first week or so to work, since I started days after arriving). I get all the bags off the conveyor belt fine. But I was in the farthest corner of the baggage claim and needed to get outside. So I soccer balled one of the bags. It was actually kind of fun/comical. Luckily a REALLY nice lady stopped looking for her bag and rolled my suitcase out for me. Rest of the night goes fine.
June 27, 2013- Arrive at apartment/Check-in.
Everything seems like it's going well. Got to the place as soon as the leasing office opened. I was able to quickly see my apartment and then the paperwork started. My ride ended up being late to work a bit but she says she wasn't in trouble- hope not! This is where things start to get a little crazy. I had ZERO cell reception inside my apartment. No internet, no cell data, no nothing. Nor on my iPad. I tell myself no big deal, and just started cleaning the apartment instead. Well I guess the leasing office didn't tell the maintenance people that I was MOVING in and STAYING all day because they came in and out of the apartment several times without knocking. I mean I wasn't doing anything personal, just cleaning up (bleach, floorboards, lysol, etc). On the third time, once I had my blow up mattress up, they finally made the connection. They thought I was the cleaning lady. Touche.
The gas needed to be connected. NBD. I had made those arrangements last week when I was in Gatlinburg (post to come) on vacation. Well gas guy can't connect pipe he says after he gets there because the pipe is busted. That means no hot shower. Leasing office gets it taken care of.
Then I find out there was a huge mix up with the moving company. They hired third party movers to help me unload, well they scheduled them 5 days after my truck was to be delivered. We were told we couldn't get new movers out for Friday so now it has to wait a week until I am home again. Neither company does weekend hours. GOOD THING I PACKED CLOTHES.
I tried ordering a pizze for FOUR HOURS. Four. I got hung up on three times by various places because of my bothed service. Rachel was in a meeting and couldn't call. I then resorted to texting all my friends back in VA and seeing if they could get the order in for me. Except not all those messages were going through. My dad was busy helping me with the moving company. So I pout outside, helplessly waiving my phone in the air...when walks up a Papa Johns delivery person. WHAT?! They were going to my building but a different apartment. I gave her my sob story and she called in from her phone my order and came back in 25 minutes with my food. It was the best 20 dollars and best 40% tip I have ever spent.
What did I do to pass my time (see my car hasn't arrived yet, there was a HUGE mixup on my pickup date for the vehicle, so it didn't even leave VA before Thursday morning...). I PLAYED CANDY CRUSH! I refused to play before, but on my first flight out Wednesday an old couple were playing on their iPad and they let me play with them. I was hooked. It also drained my battery. So I would play on my iPad, let that lose power, then play on iPhone, let that lose power and just kept alternating the charger. **This is another issue to get sorted out. Outlets "work" but my iPad takes forever to charge and all the ports get hot, hot hot).
June 28, 2013/June 29, 2013.
Most things go okay (there's not much to not go okay at this point). Except when the gas guy came to reconnect the line, he forgot to fix the temperature gauge. I had been dreaming about when my next hot shower would be and the maintenance guy had to come correct it around 6pm. Luckily they hadn't left yet. My car got there in record time and in one piece! Woot! I finally had a car to not feel so stranded. I attempted a quick Starbucks run to check for Internet providers since my neighbors weren't overly friendly about the notes I put in their boxes. Oh well. That proved hard to do. See the reason I need Interent and quickly (beyond the obvious, FACEBOOK!) is because Verizon thinks I need a network extender in order to get reception inside my place. The maintenance guy who came to fix the water was the first one to tell me that my ceiling is cement, blocking signal (yet sprint and at&t phones seem to work inside...whatever). Said extender hooks up to your wireless Internet, which I haven't been able to schedule because no service and no car mean no luck. I gave up trying to be cheap and just went to Verizon myself finally. But (surprise?) I can't get Verizon Fios in St Louis because it's not a service area for it. They sent me to AT&T. Got set up with Internet easily with them, they were really great people to work with regarding the issue. Except I might not be hooked up with the Internet until the 12th.... Regardless, I have 30 days to cancel my AT&T if their service actually doesn't work in the apartment, and 14 days to return the pretty little expensive extender ($250). If all else fails I move and have to break my contract. WAH.
OH! And also, my work was paying for my move (score!). But a few things I had to pay for, to get reimbursed for. One of those items was NOT the unloaders, so when I had a surprise charge on my account Saturday leaving me with less than $70 to my name, I was a little stir crazy. Hopefully I get reimbursed ASAP this week and can sleep a little better and actually get groceries and stop living off pistachios and left over pizza.
