First 2 weeks

Welcome to our first 2 weeks.  I will try to be more frequent in posting, but a lot has happened since we got here, so this will be the first posting in a series of posts for the first 2 weeks. 

The first challenge we had was the move.  Packing the house into 2 parts - 1 part going to NYC and 1 part storage - was crazy to say the least, but with a lot of help from family and friends - mom, dad, Rahim, Alim, Aly, Naz, Nicolas, Aleem and Ali, over a period of a couple of days we got everything out of our house and into 3 truck loads - 2 to mom and dad's basement and garage and 1 truck that was going to make the 10 hour trek to NYC.  We got almost everything we wanted to take (and probably some extra) crammed into 17 ft and headed out to NYC on a Friday night.  Note to anyone who plans a move like this - I can't tell you when is the best time to cross the border, but if you don't care about sitting around for hours, then the night is the best time!  It was crazy, first a 45 minute line up just to get to the border and then have to wait 2.5 hours just to see someone.  Atleast all our paper work was in order, so 30 minutes later we were outside and ready to go. 

From here (3am in the morning by now, we left the house at 10pm) we split up - Hamidah and my mom were flying from Buffalo and my dad and I were driving, with the plan of meeting up in NYC at 2pm.  Following a short 2 hour stop over in Syracuse (crashed at the hotel room my-in-laws were staying in), we made to NYC on time (an hour early in fact), but unfortunately the ladies didn't.  Following a flight delay they landed late, so then decided to wait for Hamidah's parents to land and they would come to the apartment together.

I didn't even get to share the story about the apartment hunt, but I will spare the details, except to say that we hadn't even seen the apartment that we were getting, but trusted the building and our agent's word that they apartment was in good condition.  Turned out to be alright - needed a massive cleaning - which I have to thank the family for, if it wasn't for all their hardwork the move would have been ridiculously difficult (more on their efforts later).  Anyway, the movers showed up at around 2 and although it took longer than anticipated, we got the truck emptied by 5 and from there off to the races. 

Except for coming into the apartment for about 2 minutes, the first time I saw the place was when I got the keys at about 1:45pm and it was empty (this is important for later).  As soon as the truck was empty, I took off so I could return the truck before it got too late.  now, if you have been to New York you know what it is like to drive there.  Now imagine that when you don't know exactly where you are going.  Now imagine that driving a 17ft truck.  YEAH!!! that was fun!!! Not really. :)  Anyway after going south 45 blocks only to be told there was no room at that location and that I have to go to another lot which is 120 blocks north and stop over to pick up a GPS (because no way I was doing another long trek without it) and my father-in-law, I finally made it back to the apartment around 8pm.  As I said earlier at 2pm the place was empty...6 hours later, more than half the furniture was done!  It was amazing.  By 11pm that evening over 90% of the apartment was setup - the only major thing left was our desk! 

The main purpose of this post was really to give out a huge thanks to both Hamidah's and my parents because without all of their hardwork leading upto and including the move I don't know how we could have done it.  Thanks to both moms and dads, we look forward to doing this again next July!!!