Celebrating one year living in our new home, Cape Town

South Africa mountains

Hello! I'm already back on this blog to tell you that we already celebrated a year living in Cape Town. It has been a beautiful year, although we have stopped seeing many new places in this country, due to the Corona Virus epidemic.

But today I'm going to tell you how we got to this house that is located in the Bakoven area. Between the mountain and the beach.

Bye, bye Dubai

As I have told you in my previous post, we live in several addresses before reaching our definitive home in this city. The reason for the delay was due to the fact that the container with all our belongings could not enter the port of Cape Town due to bad weather. For this reason, the ship with our container had to first travel to the South African port of Durban and leave other goods.

Our weeks of waiting were many. We left Basel, Switzerland, in July 2019. From July to September we live with the uncertainty of the arrival of the container. 5 weeks were expected. Of course, there were more. With this uncertainty, we went on vacation to Dubai, as my husband had a meeting in Europe. At the end of a week in the United Arab Emirates, he would continue his trip to Switzerland, and we would return to the new house in Bakoven, Cape Town, to receive the furniture, because just before traveling, they had confirmed the date on which our container would arrive. This was on October 8.

The day has come, the African-style move, but first, to prepare our beds

Our container finilly arrives

We arrived from Dubai on October 7th. The plan was to sleep in a hotel, because although we had the keys to the house, we didn't even have a glass to drink water. But before we go on vacation, we buy some folding mattresses. It was an investment, but we no longer wanted to sleep in hotels or vacation homes as we had been doing since July.

That was how we found the Snooza store, on the internet. We bought two mattresses for weights of less than 80 kilos and one of more than 80. These mattresses would serve us for when we had visitors. And yes we have used them because our daughters have had many guests to sleep during the weekends.

They opened the seal 
from Switzerland

The task of planning all this just before we went on vacation was not easy. We had to buy pillows, sheets, plates and glasses to eat and of course, napkins and even towels. We even buy rugs to get out of the shower. Warm bedspreads were not necessary, as we already had three. The nights in South Africa are cold and those we find in hotels and vacation homes were not hot enough. But these have been a very good investment.

Finding a new place for 
this garden chairs

First meal at new home

We arrived from the airport. It was almost night, but we had rented a shuttle to get home safely, to the new home. Everything went great. We went into our new house and well, we had a refrigerator that we had bought in September. The typical American refrigerator. And we had filled it with three packets of frozen pizza, Tetrapak milk, and some wine. That was our first dinner in our new home.

The night was short, I slept after taking a bath to relax from the trip. The next morning I would have to take my daughters to their new school, the International German School. So I set the security alarm and we went to sleep.

The packers arrived, but not the container

And on October 8 I returned very excited from the German School. The container with our furniture from Europe, would arrive at 9 in the morning. And yes, a group of 5 people, 4 men and a woman rang. They were ready to unpack. The only problem was that the container had not arrived.

Packers option to empty 
one box

These 5 people were waiting for the driver who was transporting the container. Apparently, this one had no GPS and could not find the address. It took him an hour and a half to get to our house. Meanwhile, the packers rested. Good, because afterwards they had to take down a lot of boxes.

The truck arrived. Three packers lowered the boxes and two controlled the number of each box on the list that had been sent to them from Switzerland. I have many comments about it. In Basel many packers arrived. They were very well organized. The boss was a grumpy man, but he knew what he was doing. In contrast, the packers here were not organized. Three people were not enough. Too much physical work, especially since our house is level. And the worst thing is that the next day only two were unpacked the boxes.

I tried to organize them, explaining where the boxes and furniture would go. But they were just too tired to go up to the right place and they were leaving everything in the most accessible place. I was nice to them, but suffered to see them all disorganized. At 3 in the afternoon, I saw the whole garden full of boxes. Rain was threatening and I went and said very kindly to the woman who was checking the boxes, that I did not want those boxes that crossed an ocean to get wet. She assured me that this would not happen. And so it was, they managed to put everything on safety in the garage. At five in the afternoon, they returned home to come back the next day.

New place for our lounge

My job was to accommodate and find everything related to the kitchen. That day I had planned to have dinner at home, we no longer wanted to go to restaurants. Spaghetti with tomato sauce was our menu. I just needed a pot and the strainer. The woman at the moving house had unpacked most of the blocks pertaining to the food. I just needed exactly those two things to start cooking. Finally, after half an hour I found them. That was our first dinner in our new home. And that day we finally slept in our beds, not on the folding mattresses.

Second day of move in, 4 packer instead of 5

The next day the move continued. Now they had to continue assembling the furniture and finish putting all the boxes in their place, the ones they had placed in the parking lot.

With only two packers, the move took a long time. The men kindly tried to put everything in its place, but fatigue got the better of them, of course, because more packers were needed. Time went by very fast and I didn't see them ending. Almost at 5 in the afternoon, they couldn't take it anymore. I started asking them to finish picking up the plastic from the furniture because they were almost out of the house and they hadn't finished.

Finding inspiration at the stores

I also reported some leaks, like cups and plates. But definitely what was his problem was putting the Ikea closets back together. I told them they could search the online page for how to put them together, but they weren't interested. They said someone else would come in the next few days to do it. A handy man.

And finally they left. They almost finished with everything. I signed the papers and goodbye. But now all our clothes and belongings were with us. There was still a long way to go until we could sit quietly knowing that everything was ready.

Buying some Africa feelings

The week passed very quickly. Our daughters were adjusting to the new school and my husband would arrive on Saturday afternoon from his meeting in Switzerland. Work awaited us, but every day the sunset inspired us, a wonderful view of the sea.

Ready, with all our belongings in the new home

Finally my husband finished putting together the closets. A handy man came and yes, he was able to put together some, but he didn't finish because another job was waiting for him. That is how my husband decided to do it alone, because the boxes were in the way. If one day he loses his current job, he can dedicate himself to this profession, as a handy man, because he does it very well.

Another Africa solution

This is how the wait for our move ended. Everything arrived and now a task awaited us to organize and decorate our new home. My husband always reminds me of what I said to him in Basel, especially when we are queuing at a decoration store, or buying something new online: we don't need to buy anything, we already have everything.

One of our first sunsets in this country

In this change of country, we learned to adapt. To be very patient and to calm down when we despaired of the different way of working. South Africa is a very beautiful country, perhaps a little more disorganized, chaotic, if we want to call it that, but warm and full of friendly people. 

We were very lucky at this days, because when the packers left, our neighbor arrived with typical South African flowers and a card. A great welcome detail.

Welcome gift from our 
neighbors

Thanks for reading and until you next time. I will tell you more about our adventure in South Africa.