Shipper has picked up boxes

With only eleven days to go before launch, our trans-Atlantic shipment of boxes has left the building.
We started this process by going to the local well-known shipper (rhymes with "cups"). A 35 pound box, with dimensions of 18 x 18 x 17 inches, would cost $300 to ship. So much for my plan of sending things this way.
At Hubster's suggestion, we visited the shipping services run by Uncle Sam. The same box would cost $120 there.
The web provided a way to obtain quotes from international shippers. Of the five companies from whom I requested a quote, one replied. I think our shipment of 10-20 boxes was too small for most companies, who are used to moving whole houseloads of furniture.
The quote we wound up with was for $1,100 for 15-20 boxes. I booked them with a 1/3 deposit.
They are out of Pompano Beach, FL. Their proposal included picking up the boxes at our home, putting them on a pallet, shrink-wrapping the pallet, putting it on a boxcar, sending the boxcar to New York, putting the container on a ship, and shipping the cargo to the UK, where it will be delivered to A Flat on Abbey Road, brought up in the "lift", and placed in our rooms.

I worked hard last week to load Teen's room into boxes and seal them up. (She is at camp, it probably was easier to just do it myself...) Friends came over this morning to help clear out my basement. I hadn't thought of bringing my sewing machine, but BB said they can be converted to run on different power sources, so we packed it up and surrounded it with a clever packaging device called "skeins of yarn". A little like sending coals to Newcastle, but now I have most of my stash with me in London and I won't have to buy a thing for a while (hah hah). This became the 21st box. A few of the smaller boxes were books that Teen and I could not live without, or thought would come in handy, like the museum guides for places like the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, and the Louvre.

At the appointed hour and day, a cargo van with another company's name pulled up and a nice young man got out. He was very pleasant as he loaded our boxes in his van. "Wait a minute!" I thought. "How do we know this is the right guy?" He could have been anyone in a van, driving off with our lives in 21 boxes. He gave me his boss' business card, and a tracking number for our shipment.

'Bye things. See you on the flip side in four to six weeks.

We have each packed up several weeks' worth of clothes in our suitcases, and have carefully alotted space in our carry-ons for our absolute necessities.