It’s been a week since we moved into our new apartment and I think it’s safe to say neither my husband nor I want to set foot in IKEA ever again (though we’ll probably realize we forgot something and be back this weekend). It was a rough ride to say the least, but things are finally starting to fall into place and our once bare set of rooms is beginning to feel like a home.

Here’s a recap of our last week by the numbers:

1: The number of hours it took to complete our move-in inspection, which included several revelations for newbie expat renters, including that Swiss landlords do not provide a fresh coat of paint for the walls to cover up damage between tenants

3: The number of deliveries it took before IKEA finally got us all of the furniture we ordered (I should add that our mattress was among the items accidentally left behind)

4: The number of trips I made to IKEA over the same number of days to stock our new place with kitchen essentials, linens, cleaning supplies, etc. Also the number of locks on our new front door: Burglars be warned!

6: The number of boxes of our belongings that miraculously made it from North Carolina to Switzerland without anything breaking, even after we had to haul them several blocks from the post office back to our apartment (tariffs, shmariffs)

17: The number of pieces of IKEA furniture my husband and I constructed using the always-puzzling, pictographic instructions (one more to go; it’s the daybed and it looks like a monster)

18: The number of books we stubbornly brought over from the states, despite arguments from loved ones that e-books are much more practical 🙂

30: My estimate of the number of times my husband and I have hit our heads on the very cool but slightly hazardous slanted ceilings of our new apartment

100: The number of tissues originally in my Swiss tissue box before I came down with a cold over the weekend – Moving is stressful!