However, there were a couple of items that were not in any bin we opened. I think we got rid of a few things by accident. I can't find my cookbooks (well, just the one) anywhere. And my special Pampered Chef mini spatula is nowhere to be found. Although I might have left that in Egypt, which means it's probably gallivanting around Garbage City by now.
The one thing in our shipment I was really worried about, however, was our piano, aka our one concession to impractical materialism. We took a risk in sending it here, not just because it could have been damaged beyond repair on the journey over, but because it operates only on 120V power.
(Here is a brief travel education moment for you: You see, not only does every country or region have its own plug shape, but some have their own electrical currency as well. The US is 110-120V. Most of the rest of the world is 220-240V. If you look at the power cords on your appliances, some of them will tell you they can operate on both levels. That means you just need a plug adapter to match the shape of the outlet. But if the power cord mentions only 120V, you have to plug it into a converter, too. Otherwise you will burn it out.)
Anyway, our piano made it over just fine. We put it back together, set it up, and then...nothing. I couldn't bring myself to turn it on. I knew that on paper it should work fine but sometimes things go wrong. And I didn't want to bring our piano all the way over here just to destroy it when we plugged it in. I checked and double-checked the power arrangement (piano, powered off, plugged into converter; converter, powered on, plugged into adapter; adapter plugged into outlet, outlet switched on) but I still couldn't press the piano's ON button.
So Jeremy pressed it as I cringed and closed my eyes.
And it worked! Oh happy day.
