Music in the air...

Baby # 2 has arrived!

Relax! It's not what you are thinking....

It was picked up in May from our house in  South Pasadena, taken to a warehouse for custom crating and then shipped via air cargo directly to Tegel airport in Berlin. Yes, you got it right. The baby # 2 flew though the USA, through the Atlantic Ocean, through half Europe and it landed directly in Germany.

It was a hell of organization! Of course, who was responsible for it? Me, because Giuseppe plays the piano but, God forbids he takes care of moving it!

First I had to find the company to move it out from our house: if you look at it, you understand that it not a regular common upright piano…it’s huge, long, heavy, bulky and super delicate! So, that wasn’t easy.

Several moving company offered their service to move it but several issues came up.

Issue #1: insurance.  Most of the moving companies are not exclusively specialized in moving pianos, instead they move everything plus pianos as well, but their insurance wouldn’t cover it or it would cover only up to a certain value and we would have been responsible for a separate insurance to cover for the additional value.  Guess what? We have a piano insurance, and I immediately contacted our agent. Surprise! 

 

They only cover the instrument as long as it is standing somewhere in the world, not on a truck, nor on a ship, even less on a plane. Why didn’t I think about that? Of course, it’s an insurance company! 

There’s always a hidden clause in the contract that messes up your plans. We needed to find a moving company who would move and insure our piano completely. That restricted a lot our options.

Issue #2: moving company. We didn’t trust our piano to be moved by hands that are not “trained” to handle such a piece of “furniture”. There are movers and there are PIANO MOVERS, and you can tell the difference when you see how fast, easily and professionally they manipulate a piano.   

With this in mind, I contacted WDCH, Steinway & Sons, and Boesendorfer directly in Austria…they all told me that there is a company in L.A. that only moves pianos and that I should contact them. They were perfect! They got in touch with Jerry, our agent from the moving company who was organizing the other part of the transportation, and sorted all things out.

Issue # 3: the crate. You’d think that there is one only kind of crate for the piano, made out of wood. You are sooooo wrong! The crate has to be custom made, the material can go from regular cardboard (very thick) to natural wood, it can be temperature controlled and it can also be built in such a way that you can place it in the basement (as if I have a basement that can host such a big box) and use it again for the next trip! 

 

Of course, it’s better with natural wood but, again, the natural wood need to be treated and USC CBP (Custom and Border Protection) only allows some specific wood that need to have an international stamp on the crate to prove such treatment! What a mess! So no cardboard, of course wood, of course special treated wood.  Turns out that the Encore Piano is the best in town for piano crating: a lady there knows everything about piano crating and works for international artists who want to perform on stage only with their own piano (just as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli did…). At this point, we felt pretty safe and comfortable with the selection of the moving company in L.A.

Issue # 4: shipping. All the people I contacted (WDCH, Steinway & Sons, and Bösendorfer in Austria) unanimously informed me that it would be insane to ship this piano by sea. “Can you imagine the amount and range of humidity and heat in a metallic container for six weeks on a ship? And then, the rats! Do you know how many rats are there on a ship? Do you know they are able to penetrate in every single corner and then devour whatever they come across?” Actually, no, I haven’t had a clue that the rats represent such an astronomical problem…temperature maybe, humidity perhaps, but rats? Clueless. 

“You won’t find a piano at the end, you’ll find sawdust if you are lucky! You are better off selling it and buying it again in Germany. You can take this chance with a regular piano, but not with that one!!!!” So be it.  Let’s put in on a plane and pray…that there’s no rat on a plane!

Issue #5: you don’t buy a regular airplane ticket for a grand piano. You buy “room” on a cargo plane, and not just a regular cargo plane, it would have been too easy! A double decker cargo plane it’s what we need because, again, that stuff is massive. 

Hence, after the pick up and the crating, we just needed to keep it in storage until a double decker cargo plane was available at LAX. How long did we have to wait? Two weeks. Ok, fine, I can deal with two weeks. It’s not that I feel the urge of having it right away, with all the other thinks that are going on (kid, school, renovation, USMLE Step 3 exam…).

Once the home-to LAX airport part was taken care of, we needed to organize the Tegel airport-to new home part of the transportation. Of course, thanks to Google translate and the priceless help of Jerry Austin, from our moving company, we provided all the information necessary for the local piano movers to finally deliver the piano in our new home.

Finally, baby # 2 was lifted on the plane and on June 16 it arrived in Germany. Safe and sound? Who knows it…”Ai posteri l’ardua sentenza” said the Poet Dante.

This is the part where the impeccable and exemplary German organization showed some flaws. Big time flaws…In fact, despite the aerial views, the pictures, the measurements, the address and the contact number of Giuseppe, who was already in Berlin since April, these guys decided to take their chance without a local inspection of the site. They placed the crate on a truck and arrived at our home just to realize that it couldn’t possibly fit through the stairs. Bummer! That’s not good.   

We had to arrange another delivery day and hire an additional moving company who would provide a crane to lift the piano. Of course, to make things easy, our terrace faces a garden so the crane couldn’t be placed there. They had to install the crane below the neighbor’s terrace and then move it to our side of the house. I actually didn’t plan to introduce myself to our new neighbor by telling him that I would invade his terrace with a crew of movers! But that’s exactly how it went. Lucky for us, the neighbor is moving out and she was not at all bothered by our plans. 

The day finally arrived. As expected (really?), it was raining in the morning. Heavy Berliner rain…then mercifully the sky cleared out just in time for the crew to arrive, strap the piano with ropes and then slowly lifting it up to the first floor terrace…. and that’s when the crane’s fuel ended. I am not kidding. 

It could have ended right before or right after the lifting…nope! The fuel ended at the precise moment when our piano was suspended 4 meters above our heads....924 lb. of Bösendorfer Grand Piano swinging in mid air! 

I remember incredulous silence at first, then hysterical voices for a couple of minute and the unforgettable expression of dismay on my husband’s face!

Providentially, the movers had an extra tank of fuel in the truck so, after another 10-20  minutes, the baby #2 finally made it in our new living room. 

 As soon as the movers installed the last caster in place, it started to rain again.

Overall, it could have been worse. Our piano is nicely sitting in our living room, Giuseppe is ready to play and scare the hell out of every moving being in the area and I am finally relaxed.

Am I ready to repeat this experience in two years when we are supposedly going to move to another place? No way! If we ever move again, I’ll do as many others told me: sell it and buy yourself a diamond ring. 

It’s elegant, light and easy to carry on! 

Ich bin Berliner !!!!

Our first week in our new town has been a bit surreal. Given that our new home is still completely empty (our furniture is expected to arrive sometime in mid July), we are staying at the one bedroom furnished apartment that Giuseppe is renting since his arrival here in April. It’s in Charlottensburg, very close to the City center (and to the inexorable Scientology Center…feels so L.A.) such that moving around is painless. 

Obviously, we had to take care of some bureaucracy: open my bank account, get a Credit Card (so incredibly easier compared to what we went through in Los Angeles), and register as new residents.  We went to the Bürgeramt (the resident’s Bureau). It’s mandatory for all new residents and must be done within 7 days of your arrival. Of course the first attempt was unsuccessful since the office closed down as soon as we arrived. At 10:00 am sharp an unsimpathetic lady placed a yellow hand written sign on her door and refused to accept our papers, despite our (futile) efforts to complain. The next morning I was literally the first one to show up at the office and this time things went smoother, despite the language.

Someone told me that everyone here speaks English. True, but only once they are done deriding your attempts to communicate with them in their own language, only after you made every effort to pronounce the few words you know. At that point, still with a hint of mockery on their face and in their voice, they address you with a perfect English and answer your questions. In our case, as soon as we entered the office, we asked: “Sprechen Sie English?”. Very politely the bureaucrat answered that, yes, he does speak English, outside the office !!! Nevertheless, we were able to obtain our Anmeldebestätigung (new certification of residency). Now we officially belong to this city!!!

We took Josh to see the new house and he loved it! Should I be concerned that our neighbor is the Ambassador of Iraq? Not that having security guards and cameras pointed at the street 24/7 is bad, it just doesn’t make you feel comfortable, given the current situation!

We had our very first German dinner at Alter Krug, a Biergarten close by. The beer is served as soon as you sit at the table and there are only two sizes: medium and large! Josh enjoyed his Wiener Schnitzel and, for the first time in months, I saw him devour the entire meal without complaining!

The surprises weren’t finished yet. In fact, after dinner we walked to the nearby Metro station to go back home: from the outside, the U-Bahn station in Dahlem-Dorf, with its thatched roof, shoud be a referral to a traditional northern-German farmhouse (eventhough to me is a clear evidence that the architects, F. and W. Hennings, were avid readers of Goscinny and Uderzo….

The platforms of the station are, ehm, “extravagant”: the artist, Wolf van Roy, from Berlin, clearly had a gaudy sense of humor or perhaps wanted to give his own rendition of the word “metrosexual”. 

Needless to say, I haven’t find anything similar in N.Y. !!!

During the following days, while Giuseppe was back at work, Josh and I did what regular tourists do. We visited some local attractions. We started at the Brandenburger Tor, which was almost entirely concealed by massive music speakers and an immense stage for the celebrations of the 2014 FIFA World Cup. 

Along the interminable Straße des 17 Juni there were hundreds of  stands, selling all types of Pretzels, Knusperstangen, Käse Brezel, and of course beer, beer and more beer. The street is so wide it could easily fit an airplane. In fact, I read that it was used as a landing strip during WWII! It was still empty but a few night after, we saw it on TV completely congested by the immense crowd celebrating the victory of the Germany national football team.

The afternoon was torrid and humid, in contrast with the typical California weather. We found some relief from the heat by walking in the shade of the contiguous  Tiergarten, the urban public park that is located in the middle of Berlin. It is unquestionably a stunning site: we found canals, small lakes, playgrounds all over the area. It’s easy to understand why it’s called the green oasis or the green lung of the German capital, with its 210 ha filled with linden, maples, oaks, plane trees, and chestnuts.  

Our touristic expedition ended, dramatically, at the Siegessäule, aka the Victory Column. 

 
Josh wanted to reach the top to take some pictures. Regrettably, I agreed to climb with him the steep spiral staircase of 285 steps. About halfway to the top, I started panicking and at that point I realized that I had no escape. Doomed at 50 meters high! I had a full blown out panic attack (sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, numbness, hyperventilation, muscular cramps and trisma…). Poor Josh was so startled! He didn’t know what to do! Lucky for me (and for him), someone passed me a plastic bag to breath in and I started to calm down. Josh finally went to the top in order to take some picture. Initially he wasn’t sure he could leave me alone, then he realized that I wasn’t going anywhere, with my hands clenched around the handrail and my eyes shut closed. 

While I was sitting on the stairs, meticulously counting my 7-11 breathing, I had a flashback. It was 1998: Giuseppe and I were in Zion Canyon when we decided to complete the 2.4 miles trail that leads to the top of Angels Landing.  we were hiking on Angels Landing. We passed Walter’s Wiggles and its switchbacks. We were committed to reach the top and get a glimpse of the breathtaking panorama from the Scout Outlook at 5,700 feet. Needless to say, I never reached the top. All I remember are my hands holding painfully tightly the chains that should be used to help you in the last half-mile to the top. 

My dear ex-boyfriend (aka husband) was initially terrified by my reaction. Then, after a while, he regain his calmness and decided that, since I was practically bonded to the chain and I wasn’t going to run away, it was his chance to see the eagle’s nest that is apparently located on the top. Like father, like son!

Going back to the present, about an hour later, with some help from a tourist and my son, I was finally able to return to the base, just to find out that someone had called the ambulance!!!! 

Josh was so embarrassed he hardly spoke to me for the next 30 minutes.

We concluded our adventurous day by having dinner at the Dicke Wirtin, a small restaurant best known for its local cuisine: schnitzel, pork chops, fried potatoes and….Gulaschsuppe for Josh!!!!

We had one more place to visit before heading to Italy: Josh’s new school. It is located just 5 km down the main road and we were able to reach it by bus (20 min drive only!). From the main road we couldn’t see it, so I decided to ask directions to a woman who was walking near us. She told us that we were going in the right direction but that, giving the summer vacation, the school was closed. We told her that our son was going to start in August his 7^th grade and that we just wanted to take a look at the campus from the outside. She turned to Josh and asked him: ”What is your name?” Josh, a little startled by her perfect English accent, timidly replied: “My name is Giovanni Sebastiano”. “Ah, Caire!!!” said her.

My first thought, while staring at my son with a reprimanding look, was: “How on Earth can a perfect stranger know my son’s name? What did he do to be recognized even here? Is this a bad omen?”. It turned out that she was the Secretary of the High School who had handled Josh’s admission package. Such a coincidence…

...such a relief!!