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!