Saturday, August 30, 2008
14 Days
I have fourteen days from today to pack up my home, have a garage sale, and hand it over. I'm told that Europeans don't hold garage sales. How come? What do you do then when your children get older and grow out of their baby clothes and equipment? How would you sell your furniture and the small stuff you no longer need?
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6 comments:
At least in my family, baby clothes and equipment which are no longer needed were simply given to relatives (or friends as long as there are no eligible relatives) with a small baby. If there was no such baby, the things weresimply stored.
We seem to be much more sentimental about old garbage than you (garbage, for my purposes, means all kinds of half-functional gadgets you miiiiiiiiiight need in 20 years so it would be a shame to dispose of them). :) Space permitting, it is very common to have a garbage room full of things that - I imagine - an average American would dump unceremoniously.
Nevertheless, there is something similar to garage sales. It is not organized by individuals but by communities. Perhaps it suits our temperament better because it is basically anonymous. You see an item with a number and a price tag and only the organizers can assign numbers to their original owners and to distribute the proceeds. But it must be very rare. I think I remember just one such event from my childhood.
Recently, people have started buying and selling second-hand things over the Internet. I don't know much about it because I do not live in the country right now but it seems that for example young mothers, who are on a tight budget, are very appreciative because e.g. clothes from Mimibazar are way cheaper than what you can get in department stores.
Oh we save that half-functional stuff too Jana, trust me! But now when I'm moving out of the country without knowing exactly when I'm coming back, I can't justify saving the half-functional stuff in storage. And it helps that I'm in a transition from parenting to 'vagabonding'.
What country do you live in now? And if I may ask, what took you there?
t visito todos los dias esta muy bien tu blog visita mi blog y si t gusta deja un comentario y nos linkeamos los blogs
hi!
I'm an ex-pat living in Germany. As for old stuff, there are neighborhood flea markets where you sell stuff like that or you post stuff in local supermarkets, eBay is a biggie and where I live there are also newspapers that list all second hand stuff or you can also find it listed in the regular newspapers...classified section. I miss garage sales, but nobody does that here either.
Good luck with your move!
Kathryn
Hi Karen,
I now live in Brazil. And what took me here? Well, love. :)
Welcome Kathryn to my blog. I know Berlin is said to have amazing energy right now, I look forward to reading your blog.
Jana, congratulations on love! Brazil is awesome - we love to listen to bossa nova and samba in my house. You have to love a culture that names their airport after a musician(just like New Orleans).
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