looking back at 2007

Had a very busy 2007.

I had decided to sell my flat in Bucharest, so in April I went to Romania for a week and started organizing everything that goes with a sale. In June I went again. For days I was going through all the stuff that I had there, trying to decide what I wanted to keep and what could go into the bin. I had so much stuff to throw out, that I hired a 7 cubic meter garbage container. It wouldn't had been enough if it wasn't for people in the area who just carried away stuff that they wanted. Mostly old furniture that was not worth transporting to my father's new house in Transylvania. We didn't think anyone would want it or need it, so my father brought a chain saw because it was easier to carry it down from the 7th floor to the garbage in small pieces. After a few hours people discovered the furniture pieces and started carrying them away – I assume they wanted to use them as firewood for the winter. It was a blessing that they took so much stuff away. We had very tough three days at the end of which the flat was standing empty. When I had tried to imagine this moment before, I thought I would get emotional. After all, I had lived there for nearly 25 years. I grew up, went to kindergarten, school, high school, university from here. I had happy moments, sad moments. And yet, as I walked around the empty flat I felt nothing...

Then, back in Finland, at the very end of August I fell in love with a flat that I found on the internet. It was love at first sight, even before we got to see it off line.

The practice in Finland is as follows: there is a specialized web site where real estates are presented with pictures and all kinds of details (address, size, price etc.) Here there's also a date and a time when people can actually go to see it without having to contact anyone, or having to explain anything to anyone. The door is open, so you walk like into a museum, just say hi to the real estate agent and that's it. If you want you can walk out right away, or ask questions. So once you decide you want to move, you can just start by familiarizing yourself with the market by visiting real estates. That's what we did until we found this one. Now, the downside of going to such a public viewing is that even if you decide you want the flat, someone else might get it instead of you if it's a good place. So when I fell in love on the internet with this flat on a Thursday evening, I wanted it so badly, I called the real estate agent the next morning and asked for a private viewing before Sunday, the first public viewing. To make a long story short: five weeks later we moved in. What happened in these five weeks? Well, we prepared our own small flat for sale – worked hard a full week to make it really nice and cosy. Thanks to Irene, my Norwegian colleague who is into interior design, the flat was so different, our friends didn't even recognize it when they saw it on the net. But hard work paid off. The flat made it to the net on Friday morning, the same day someone booked a private viewing for the next day, and it was sold! Yes, in a day! Before the first public viewing. The same way we bought our new flat. Of course, part of the attraction was the lake and forest view on one side of the building, and yet, close to shops, banks, medical centre etc.

We also had a few exciting days waiting for the bank to make a decision about giving us the credit, but it's a happy ending and we've been living in the new flat since October and we absolutely love it! :)