Friday, December 17, 2010

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Or, How to Move to Switzerland in 3 Simple Steps

Yesterday our container was pulled off of the COSCO PANAMA in Rotterdam, Netherlands, so I thought now would be a good time to review just how our stuff is getting to Switzerland. This is really complicated, but also super cool. At least, if you're a geek like me....

Sea Shipment:


A few weeks ago, movers came to our house and loaded nearly everything we have into a standard 40' shipping container. Have you ever wondered what's on those containers you see traveling down the road?  They actually carry just about everything, from batteries to shelf-stable foods to paper to washing machines to computers -- pretty much anything that will fit in a 20' or 40' container and isn't time sensitive (air shipment) goes by container. The days of freighters being packed up with all sorts of different cargo by hand and forklift are essentially over. Containers ("boxes" in the industry parlance) modularize everything so that container ships can be unloaded and loaded in less than a day. Container ships spend pretty much all their time on the high seas moving from port to port; any wasted time is tying up a lot of capital. Anyway, a miniscule number of containers are carrying household goods like ours, and the next paragraphs outline the movement of our container.


  • Monday, 11/15: Movers pack up nearly everything in boxes. Stuff that doesn't fit in boxes is wrapped in lots of paper and stretch wrap plastic. They are extremely careful with packing and padding everything that's going on an intercontinental move.
  • Tuesday, 11/16: Everything is loaded into the container. It's like putting together a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with everything nestled together so that it won't move on the crane lifts or on the sea-crossing of the North Atlantic during winter. We don't fill the container, so they build a bulkhead across the back of our stuff to hold it in place.
  • Wednesday, 11/17: A crane lifts our container off the truck dolly and places it on a train in St. Paul, MN. Destination: Port of Virginia, Norfolk, VA
  • ???: Train arrives at Port of Virginia. Crane lifts container and places it in a stack of containers to wait for the arrival of COSCO PANAMA
  • 12/1: Crane lifts container and places on COSCO PANAMA, a medium-size container ship that plies the North Atlantic on a continuous circuit between Europe and North America. COSCO PANAMA departs Norfolk.
  • 12/2-12/3: COSCO PANAMA visits Charleston, SC.
  • 12/3 - 12/12: COSCO PANAMA crosses North Atlantic at an average speed of a little over 20 mph.
  • 12/12 - 12/13: COSCO PANAMA visits Antwerp, Belgium, less than 25 miles from Rotterdam. Why isn't our stuff offloaded here?

  • 12/14 - 12/15: COSCO PANAMA visits Bremerhaven, Germany, the port city for Bremen, Germany. In another life I visited this port with the US Navy on board USS STARK (FFG-31). Hard to believe that was 12 years ago!
  • 12/16: COSCO PANAMA arrives in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and our container is unloaded by crane. Within the next 1-2 days, our container should be processed through Swiss customs. It's unlikely to be opened if the paperwork is in order.
  • ??? Sometime in the next few days a crane will lift our container onto a truck dolly, and the container will be trucked to the vicinity of Lausanne, Switzerland.*
  • Week of 12/27: We will arrive in Switzerland, and the container will be driven to our apartment in Pully to unload. This is probably the first time the doors have been opened since the container left our house on 11/16 (see Swiss customs bullet above).
* Wait, why is our container trucked in Europe? I thought they used trains for everything over there? Au contraire, mon ami! Europe is huge for passenger trains. Counter-intuitively, only about 10% of European freight moves by rail (it's higher in Switzerland, but that's a subject for a different post). US freight rail shipment is much, much higher than Europe. (Actually, over 50%, but that's counting by weight and the numbers get skewed higher because of how much coal is shipped by rail to be used in our power plants.)

Air shipment:


Okay, if I haven't lost you by now, here's a super brief overview of the other 5% of our stuff. Last Friday, most of the rest of our stuff got put into boxes and put in a large crate that will fly to Switzerland (probably Zurich?). It departs the US on 12/20 and arrives in Switzerland on 12/22. Why do this? Sea shipment takes 4-6 weeks door-to-door. We kept some of the things we'd need longer at home for the air shipment, which takes about 2 weeks, including customs. Everything else that we're using after last Friday is going with us in 6 suitcases which we'll check onto our plane on 12/26. (We hope it fits!)

Hey, what about automobiles?


Yes, trains were covered on the sea shipment, planes on the air shipment, but we haven't gotten to automobiles yet. We neglected to cover one of the most important pieces of our cargo: our cat! Ezra will be boarded at our vet starting 12/22 when we close on our house. Then, on 1/4/2011, a man will come in a car to pick up his crate at the vet and drive him to the MSP airport. From there, Ezra will be put on the first of three planes to fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Houston, from Houston to Newark, and from Newark to Zurich. (If that sounds a little circuitous, it is, but over the past few months I've learned to stop asking why.) At the Zurich airport, Ezra will be cleaned, fed, and hopefully de-stressed. Then someone will put his crate in a car and drive him the three hours from Zurich right to our apartment in Pully. I feel for the driver, because Ezra does not like driving. Sound complicated? It is, and expensive! All told, moving Ezra will cost about $3500, which will make him a very expensive cat. Luckily, Laura's work will cover much of the cost. Having the cat move with us will be a good thing for the boys and family to ease the transition into Switzerland.

Whew! That was complicated. Thanks for staying with me if you made it this far! I haven't even begun to mention the paperwork. Switzerland requires a lot of it, and multiple copies and approvals. Have I mentioned that all paperwork must be filled out in blue ink? Learned that the hard way....

Friday, September 24, 2010

It's all down to a refrigerator

UPDATE 12/1/10: We have a buyer!!! Closing scheduled for 12/22, only four days before we depart the US.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The refrigerator?!
The house has been on the market 3 days. We had three viewings in the first two days, which was really exciting and (as our real estate agent puts it) outstanding. Now, we get to review what people think of our house. We're hearing really great things, and we're priced right.

But...

Two of three are not interested because the placement of the refrigerator is weird. That's okay, really, if they don't like the refrigerator placement, then maybe they shouldn't buy our house when there are lots of other choices out there. But the galling thing was that the comment from the last group was that it would require another renovation of the kitchen to correct the poor placement of the refrigerator.

Okay, we spent seven years contemplating where that refrigerator should go before we finally decided on an acceptable plan of the kitchen renovation. If you're not blowing out the back of the house (and they loved the porch) or getting rid of an eat-in-kitchen, there's no better place  to put that refrigerator!

Urg. We thought the renovated kitchen would be one of the things that would help our house sell fast. But, people don't like things that are odd. Let's hope there are a few buyers out there (or at least one) who can appreciate the way we used the space that we had. And, much like us, I'm sure they'll come to actually like having the refrigerator there (bonus feature #1, no bending over to get to your crisper!).