The lift has arrived

I'm climbing out of a mass of boxes and luggage to give an update about our lift arriving.

The lift came right on time on Monday and Rich and I were there to meet it at the new apt. Rich went down to greet the movers and was immediately accosted about the amount of stairs - they told him it would be an extra 150 shek. We were asked to give the moving company an exact count of the steps the day before, so these guys were obviously ripping us off. Rich told them absolutely no extra money and they went around the truck slamming things and cursing to one another.

After a few minutes of this, Rich attempted to start things over on a good note, introducing himself to one worker and asking his name. One of the other guys had walked away when he saw Rich approaching, but when he saw Rich and the first guy shake hands, he stormed over and said something along the lines of "You think there's something wrong with me? Why are you talking to him? Why don't you ask my name?"
Morale was not too high at this point.

They came up to the apt. with some stuff and were immediately unhappy with the hinge on top of the door (the door can't open all the way with it on), telling Rich to take it off. Another argument ensued because it wasn't our responsibility to do so (we knew they wouldn't want to put it back in the end). The original nasty guy was the star of the show, ending every string of arguments or insults with "Ken, Ba'al Ha'bus?!" ("Yes, 'Man of the house'?!"...doesn't translate well, but it's the closest I could come up with:)

Nasty Guy was completely agitated, slamming our boxes around.
Rich was awesome at that point. He stood in front of the guy and started bawling him out (in Hebrew!) about how it was "Lo Na'im" (not nice) to be acting the way he was and he needed to stop with his "Shtu'yot" (ridiculousness) and do his job. We are the consumers and he is the employee. He asked him if he'd like us to call his boss to confirm what his duty as a mover was and Nasty guy shouted "BevakaSHA, Ba'al Ha' bus!" ("Please, Man of the House")
So we did (call his boss) and told him how these workers were inexcusable and completely out of line and how we hope we don't have to call the shipping company in the U.S. to tell them that they might lose customers with workers like these here Israel. He was actually very apologetic and less than 2 minutes after we hung up, we hear Nasty Guy yelling into his cell phone outside "It's not my job to take that thing off the door!" Then it was really quiet for about 5 minutes and then in comes Nasty Guy who has metamorphosed into "Reformed Nasty Guy" and he was pleasant as pie the rest of the day!

Well, needless to say, Rich didn't get his medical licence stuff done that morning. He stayed with me as per my frantic request once I saw who I was dealing with. Had he gone, I'm sure he would have come back to find Nasty Guy feasting on my carcass :)

They were gone by 1:30...and (despite the attitudes in the beginning) we were pretty impressed with their speed and strength. They would strap a whole bunch of boxes or appliances to their backs and haul themselves up all those stairs and then run back down for more stuff without a rest. They took only one break for pizza which we supplied and the rest of the time, they were moving. A bit different than in the States where it was "siesta" time every half hour or so during our move.

So now we're trying to dig ourselves out of the mess so that we can actually move in. I spent the morning today getting the kids' rooms set up and getting out a bunch of their toys so that they can occupy themselves when we're unpacking this afternoon when they get home from gan. We were aiming to be fully moved in by today, but we were stalled by some things needing to be repaired in the new apt. Tomorrow will be the day, G-d willing.

The apt turned out to be pretty huge- I'm pretty excited about all the room we have to work with. We have one entire bedroom designated as our "box storing room", another room for the computer and for guests, another as a playroom, one room for Amitai and one for the girls and one for us!

So here's an open invitation to all: Come spend some time in our Bed and Breakfast! Once you get up all those steps, you won't be disappointed!