Form B534

After exactly two months door-to-door, our container of belongings arrived in Perth from Doha. I want to give Australian Customs a special thank you for opening and inspecting its contents to ensure it complied with all sections of form B534. It made doing the following to comply with customs regulations worthwhile:

• Scrubbing the soles and surfaces of ~25 pairs of shoes and sneakers to get rid of all traces of dirt. Yes, the box labelled "Shoes" was opened. And no, no shoes were confiscated or subjected to a fine of >$100 for additional fumigation.
• Giving away all food items. The only items I miss are the bags of dried black beans because those are proving as elusive to find in Perth as they were in Doha which is making my attempt at home-cooked Mexican and Cuban style food more difficult.
• Giving away all of our alcohol, most of which was leftover from our pre-Ramadan (oh no the single liquor store in all of Qatar is closing for a month) shopping spree. In our defense, all hotels, the only other place in the country to get alcoholic beverages, were also not serving any for the month of Ramadan and there were rumors that the liquor store might not reopen after the holiday. Customs definitely would have found alcohol, had we kept it, and I definitely would not have wanted to pay the huge customs tax on it. Besides, our friends enjoyed the farewell gifts :)
• Giving away all of our wood items. This wasn't a big deal at all, but I am kind of missing the laundry basket for our laundry bag (currently lying on the bedroom floor) and all of the extra wood hangers with clips since I can't wear scrubs, coveralls, or jeans to work.

In all, moving between continents was a fairly painless experience. Let's hope the same holds true for future moves! Now if only collapsing and disposing of thirty empty moving boxes was proving to be as simple...