I don’t know one person who enjoys the process of moving. All the packing and unpacking – then finding new places for things – it’s terrible. Well, add limited knowledge of the local language and a sick child and you’ve got my recent move.

We pretty much knew when my husband signed the lease on the first apartment that it was temporary. We planned to stay there six months and find a new place with more space and amenities. Well, six months came and went and we found out that there was some sort of housing crisis building (don’t ask me), so that meant paying upwards of $3,000 for a place of our liking. That was a no-go. Luckily, our landlord was very understanding and told us we could move whenever we found a place and didn’t have to sign a new lease.

After a couple false alarms, we finally found a place reasonably priced without getting outbid at the last minute. That really was the hardest part. The rest of it has been the normal nuances of moving. We managed to pack up everything in small boxes (we didn’t have any furniture) and since the new place is about five minutes from the first, all of our stuff was moved in about three hours.

One MAJOR lesson learned was getting internet service transferred. We had to wait almost two weeks and spoke to 8 different customer service representatives before our service was connected. Now, our modem is on the fritz and is causing our connection to be spotty. I guess you can’t win them all.

My one piece of advice to an expat looking for a place in Caracas is: be very patient. With limited housing, there are a lot of expats who pay through the nose simply because they feel there are no other options. But if you can hold out, you can negotiate “better” prices.

On good days, I can’t believe that two months have gone by so quickly. On bad days, I feel like I’ve been here for years.

I feel as though I’ve learned a lot in a short period – maybe that’s why I’m tired. Here’s a few of the highlights -

1) I am so glad that I decided to not even think about working for the first three months. I don’t know how I could have managed a job and getting the kids settled. It took me these past two months just to get all their school supplies. Hence my first lesson: there is no Wal-Mart or Super Target equivalent in Caracas. The closest thing I found to a Costco or BJ’s is a store called Makro and it is located on the outskirts.

2) Always allow for an extra 30-40 minutes when going somewhere by car. Traffic here is simply erratic. At first I was told it’s really bad on Fridays because that’s when people are getting ready to go away for the weekend. Then when it was equally horrendous the following Tuesday, I was told it was due to protests going on all over the city. Then when it was even worse on Thursday, I was told people were getting ready for the impending holiday the following week. Bottom line: traffic can be horrible at any time.

3) I need to relax. If I go to the store looking for something that I saw there the day before and it’s gone – too bad. No one there is going to go out of his/her way to find a hidden stash of my peanut butter or specific brand of paper towels and that’s OKAY. Life will go on. The more I get into this mindset, I find that other little things that used to bother me simply roll off my back. Therefore, I am a calmer version of myself (I’m sure my husband is enjoying that )

So, after two months, the patient seems to be very healthy.

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