Moving

It all started when we knew we were staying in India longer and asked the management company and the owners if we could open and use the 3rd bedroom as the owners have the room locked with their personal belongings stored in it. We also asked for a 2nd bedroom air conditoner for our friend Katherine who is coming to visit in June. It's been way to hot for her to sleep with no aicon. Just last week it was 112 F. They both said "NO". Anyway, I went online and researched rentals in Kochi and found out we were paying way too much. We then knew that we needed to move May 9th when the lease is up so that we would have enough time to sign another long term lease with another place. We had our trip in Dubai planned and only 1 month to find a place. We found that there are really no "real estate" agents here. You can just go up to a place or complex of your choosing and the caretaker will help you in. We looked at several and found a owner who was willing to move us in without having a 11 month lease which is standard. We also knew we needed help finding a moving company due to our heavy granite elephants, (see below) so we asked our new landlord for some help. He referred a moving company which came to the apartment and said they could move us for a reasonable price. We thought this was great!!! The day of the move, in came 6 scrawny barefooted men with dhoti (sarongs) on and 1/2 of a burlap sack. We were skeptable but felt we would leave it up to them. To make a long story short, they broke tiles and several marble steps. The security guards banned the moving company to come back in. After several phone calls and stressful confrontations, they let them in to complete the job. However. they left 3 of our elephants at th bottom of our stairs which was moved a week later and was relatively ok.

We moved in to a brand new 3 bedroom apartment with 2 aircons and are paying much less. Steven and I have stop coughing as
the old apartment had so much mold in the place. Here's a little video I made of our new apartment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhhTzhdFzm0,

It's been challenging trying to find and request new service such as bottled water, taxi's, cleanng help, ironers, etc...
I do miss our German friends we met in our complex but hopefully we will have them over sometime soon.