(More than) Three Steps To Heaven

A lot of flats in East Berlin are in recently refurbished and converted buildings. These typical old Berlin apartment houses are usually enormous (by London standards anyway) and four or five floors high. Some have nice little lifts newly installed, some don't. Ours doesn't.
Stairs and heavy boxes can be such a fun combination: Oh! How we laughed and sang!

Here is photographic evidence of our long and winding staircase. Feel the pain.

Homeland Extraction - Phase One - COMPLETE!

Well, would you believe it? Absolutely everything went according to plan - and according to MY plan at that! What relief. I'll write more later (I've been lying on the floor for two and-a-half days) but for now here's a photograph of the view from our balcony:
In just a couple of months this panorama will be a lot greener. It's rare to get a wide-open view like this in Berlin, usually one sees the other side of the street. Here though, right in front of our house, is the old no-mans-land between East and West.
Before reunification, our strasse had buildings on one side and THE WALL on the other.
Exclamation marks are appropriate.

Now I've gone and done it.

It's done!
I finished packing (amazing what you can achieve if you forgo sleep) just as the big white van arrived. 45 minutes later I watched all my worldly goods trundling off down the street, wondering if I'd ever see them again. And now I'm off to Gatwick.

I'm actually leaving!
Hang on, does it still feel like I'm doing the right thing here?
Hmmm...
Yes, yes it does. Good to keep checking though.
Now where on Earth did I put my passport?
Huh?

Boxing Records

I have quite a lot of VINYL.
Somehow the amount of records I have in my possession seems to double every couple of years. I have no idea how that happens.
A single LP is light and easy to deal with, you could easily slide it between your teeth and walk up and down the stairs for hours, if you wanted to.
A couple of thousand of LPs are a different matter.

For a while I used those gingham zip-up laundry bags made from shiny nylon that seem to exist absolutely everywhere in the world - that was a mistake. They get too heavy and slice through your palms (even more so if you're a gentle artist only used to carrying fine pencils and the occasional teacup).

It's hard to find the right boxes... wrong shape and the corners of your precious rekkids get all mangled, too big and you can't lift them. Luckily this time around I managed to find some grrrreat boxes - bought them from Access storage. Taped up and glued, they're strong and do the job rather well. Look how neat they are... and what's that? It's a copy of rare Texan acid guitar LP "Where Are We Going?" by ID from 1976. I bought it three years ago and may even get around to actually listening to it once I live in beautiful Berlin.
You never know.

Old House

This is where I live in London.
No, I'm not a millionaire, I share it with four other (nice) people.
Goodbye house!

Removal Illogistics!

So, some months ago I decided on a rough date to move to Berlin.
Time passed, and continued to pass and it was easy to put off having to plan such a big move. And then "suddenly" it was just one month away and I had NO idea how I would do it - hire a magician perhaps?
Panic!

I'm a non-driver, so already that ruled me out for driving duties. My initial plan was to hire a van and then nicely ask (beg) or BRIBE ("I'll buy you dinner!") a couple of friends to drive it all the way there from London. I figured that all the big international hire firms would let me hire a van and let me drop it off at one of their depots in Berlin. I figured wrongly. Hertz were the only one who offered this service, and at £1000 I had no problem turning them down.
Panic!

So, then I managed to convince said driving pals to drive the van all the way there and all the way back again. One agreed to drive it out and the other agreed to drive it back, but neither felt they could do both, so I suggested that I'd buy them both cheap one-way flights (they were both based in London).
All seemed like it might work out ok, until I started to add up the numbers: van-hire (around £400-£500 for a good one including various taxes, insurance and papers), Eurotunnel tickets both ways, petrol, maybe somewhere to sleep halfway through the long journey, "cheap" flights (fingers crossed) and maybe throw in another £100 for surprise expenses along the way. Hmmm, not so cheap.
Panic!

I decided to check out proper removals companies. I requested quotes from a good handful of different companies. Most of them quoted me an average of £1200 (before other weird charges) for a PART LOAD of a large van. In return my own quote was "you must be joking". You can quote me on that.
Panic!

But then, desperately asking around (friends, relatives work colleagues, taxi drivers, checkout girls, etc) two friends of my boss, known here as "Trudie and Del", mentioned that they'd used a small company to ferry large items of furniture, anvils and stuffed rhinos between London and their holiday home in France. They put in a good word for me, I called up the guy and he agreed to do it. Nice large van driven all the way there in around 24 hours plus a bit of enjoyable lifting at both ends, £900. Not bad at all. If it all works I'll probably post the company's details here. Thanks Trudie! Thanks Del!
Relief.

So, now it's all set up, the van arrives on Easter sunday and with a sprinkle of luck, it won't collapse under the weight of the garbage that I'm dragging over to Germany with me. However, I promise to take a photograph if it does.

The Adventure Begins?

My name is Dan.
I am about to move my life, pencils and HEAVY record collection all the way from south London to east Berlin.
WHY?
I'm moving there to be with my wonderful, highly talented, glamorous and German girlfriend. My secondary motive is that Berlin may be just the place for my "career" (cough splutter choke) as a freelance illustrator-stroke-designer to blossom beyond all control.

Am I a complete idiot?
Is this the start of a wondrous new and exciting chapter in my life?

Hopefully this blog will go some way to answering those questions...
... and along the way act as a source of useful how-to/ how-NOT-to tips for me and others also embarking on the same heroic odyssey.