Moving Rant

Whenever I tell people I'm moving to New York, they have one of three reactions:

1. "Oh my god, that's so cool! Congratulations!"
2. "Didn't you grow up in Florida? You're going to freeze!"
3. "Isn't New York sooo expensive?"

I've kind of got my standard answers for each of these reactions since I'm so used to getting them all the time ("Yes, it is very cool," "Yes, I'm going to freeze... but I'll buy cute boots and scarves so I think I'll be okay," and "Yes, it is expensive but that's why I worked all through college").  The third one is the one I get the most though, and I can't argue with it, New York is probably the most expensive city in the world.  But one thing I didn't realize until very recently was that moving anywhere is expensive! Sure, moving to New York is expensive because the cost of living is extremely high there, but the actual physical moving part is way more expensive than I could have ever imagined.

Let me preface this rant with saying that I have lived in the same townhouse all through college for this reason.  I hate moving.  I nest, I hang ridiculous amounts of shelves and picture frames, I paint my walls, and I have absurd amounts of clutter.  I haven't had to move in three years, and even then I didn't have much more than my clothes.  

On Wednesday, I'm moving to New York.  Not for a summer like I did last year... I'm really moving.  Over the last few weeks I've been packing up my entire life to move it up there with me and didn't really spend much time thinking about how it would all actually get there.  I had planned to drive up with a friend, but our schedules didn't work out, so now (two days before I'm supposed to leave Athens to go home for a few days) I'm stuck.  My options were to drive (mom vetoed that immediately, for safety reasons and the fact that then my car would be in the city), hire movers (wayyyy too last minute for that apparently) or ship everything.  So tomorrow I get to go to UPS with my 14 boxes/suitcases/bags I have packed and pay ungodly amounts of money to have it shipped directly to my apartment.  I just booked my flight, which was even more money, and had to get a health certificate for my cat to fly with me, so there's another $100.  Not to mention the money spent at Kinkos last week faxing and overnighting my lease, and so many more expenses coming my way.  In the end I know it will be all worth it when I'm settled into my apartment and I have it set up exactly how I want it, but right now this is the most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with.  Aaaaand *end rant*