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We helped a friend move this weekend. And that was a big thing. Not only because it was right across the country to Köln but also because it meant moving the contents of a three room appartement three stories down, into a huge truck and then into the new appartement. Luckily the new appartement was on the first flaw only so even moving things like the washing machine or the home trainer (don’t ask) was just bad and not downright horrific.
The worst part, however, was the driving. As a normal Mercedes Sprinter or such car wouldn’t have been large enough, they got a proper 7,5 ton truck instead. Those of us who are old enough are technically allowed to drive these ‘cars’ with the normal driving license. But it’s a truck sized thing nonetheless which means it’s friggin’ huge. I chickened out of driving it right away, but just sitting in the thing was quite unpleasant. While there was enough space, the seats were painfully uncomfortable and ride took an eternity because you are allowed to go at most 80km/h with such vehicles (not that the one we had could have gone much faster with the one we had).
Another uncomfortable thing was that we were reminded of a very civilised bit of German traffic: Trucks are not allowed to drive on Sundays and public holidays and thus the roads are quite comfortable to drive. We started wondering whether that applies to small trucks as ours and private rides as well. Obviously I would have expected the companies letting you hire such trucks to tell us beforehand – but you never know with such people. Luckily our driving went without problems on that part and we made it back without unexpected delays – even just encountering one small traffic jam. (Update: It turns out that the Sonntagsfahrverbot only applies to trucks over 7,5 tons.)
All in all not the most pleasant experience and I’ll definitely vouch for people whose stuff won’t fit into a small truck to just cough up the money and get a company to do this rather than myself. On the up-side, I was able to visit my friend Pierre in Köln which I didn’t manage to do in the past two years.