Leaving Modena

The movers were here!

The packing took longer than the movers themselves expected. Thankfully we decided to leave Modena later than we were supposed to, as such we didn't miss our overnight train to Stuttgart.

At one stage during the move I was actually very nervous as the truck was already full, very full - and we still had a whole floor of stuff to load. Some of the movers drove the full truck back to Rome - leaving another 3 movers behind to stay another night in order to load a smaller truck that wasn't supposed to be packed full.

Packing material : each of those white rolls is worth 100 euros

This second truck was packed so full the movers had to abandon their packing material (very costly stuff - they were quite upset actually). The final count was 364 boxes or more than 70 cubic metres. That took a good 3 months to arrive in Shanghai.

We were fortunate that the French Bs offered to look after our children during the move as well as accommodate us after our beds had been dismantled. CB even cooked dinner and threw us a farewell party with the German Bs - so that we could drink a few more good bottles of wine together before we left. We really miss those occasions...

In fact, I was telling myself that in the past 15 or more years I have left behind so many friends because of my nomadic lifestyle - first my kakis in Singapore and then friends I have made in France, USA, Spain, Germany and now Italy...Of course I wasn't always the one who left first, but the result is still the same - though with email and Skype nowadays the separation is not as painful/final as it would have been in the past.

A last lunch with friends at Da Pasticcino

On our last day, LS, KF, CS and Mu invited us to lunch at Il Ristorante Da Pasticcino - a fitting farewell to very good Modenese pasta and meat for us. It was very kind and lovely of this group of crazy, wonderful girls whom I've had the honour of spending time with and I would like to thank them once again for this lovely gesture.

My favourite fresh pasta with porcini

The Chateaubriand was excellent

That evening, we took a train from Bologna to Stuttgart via Munich. It was a 6-seater cabin and we were 5 fiesty passengers who dashed into it - where a poor lone German guy was sleeping. He had to endure our incessant chatting as we tried to settle down, not to forget smell our feet as we climbed into our beds (above his). But the rest of the night went quite well and we did manage to catch a few winks before pulling into Munich.

It was lovely being in Germany again after all this while and we had a quick breakfast at the train station before catching another train to Stuttgart - and to the start of a 2-week wait for the visas that would allow us to fly into China to begin our new lives in Shanghai.