Interna

My move is slowly making progress. Meanwhile I'm getting increasingly edgy because I haven't had time to do as much as read a single paper for almost a week. I think I have withdrawal symptoms.

I managed to sell almost all of my furniture, except for a lonely armchair that hasn't found a new friend yet. The woman who bought the bed luckily doesn't need it before next month. She agreed to pick it up the day I'm leaving so I won't have to sleep on the floor. I washed and vacuum cleaned the car and put "For Sale" signs in the windows. Today somebody took a testdrive and said he's very interested and will get back to me.

The moving company is scheduled to pick up my stuff in 10 days. From here it goes to the East Coast, on a ship and over to Europe. I'm told the port of first entry will be in the UK. Luckily, unlike in Canada, I don't have to appear in person at customs. (Though customs Canada was more or less a joke. After my household items arrived, I had to appear at customs at the closest airport. A women asked if I had imported any weapons. When I correctly replied "No," she stamped my documents, said "Welcome to Canada," and that was that.)

In the UK the stuff will go back on the road and then I don't know. Moving companies, I had to learn, work in mysterious ways. In particular, they like to collect sufficient stuff to get a truck full. My things don't fill an 18 wheeler, thus they are likely to sit around in various European cities for an undetermined amount of time.

Sorting through my stuff, I found a lot of notes for topics I meant to blog about but then didn't. I also found a napkin ring that I absendmindely played with and then took with me first time we went to dinner at Hannah's. Hannah's used to be the best restaurant around, but it closed recently.

If you have ever been in Waterloo, you will have seen its landmark, a pyramid of barrels in front of the old Seagrams Distillery (which now hosts the Center for International Governance Innovation). It's just opposite Perimeter Institute. The pyramid has been removed in the last days to make place for something called the "Balsillie Centre of Excellence," about to be build there. Residents could come and pick up a barrell, I hear the barrels were gone pretty fast; more than 500 were distributed to members of the community.

Perimeter Institute itself is also in the middle of changes. The constructions for the building extension have begun. Most of the parking lot is closed, fenced and filled with fancy working equipment. It is also the time of the year when new people come in and the expired folks, like me, go out.

I'm sitting in my apartment, surrounded by moving boxes, trash, and piles of unsorted papers. I've cancelled my electricity, water, and internet services. I've handed in my notice to move out. I dealt with the insurances, the automobile club. It feels like I just yesterday opened the bank account, now I'm trying to find a smart way to close it. Inbetween, I'm trying to learn a few words of Swedish. En, tva, tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, atta, nio, tio. Jag talar bara lite svenska. I haven't figured out yet how to get the little circles over the vowels.

Things are changing. It's kind of comforting this blog stays the same.