Spring Weather and Schloss Pillnitz
Spring weather has come to Dresden! Last weekend the temperatures were in the mid 50’s, and the sun was out. We decided a low key weekend would be a good idea, since we’re both recovering from runny noses and itchy throats. Following a recommendation from my office mate, we went to Schloss Pillnitz on saturday morning (translation: Pillnitz Palace/Castle). Schloss Pillnitz is about 10 miles away from Dresden, east along the Elbe river. By public transport, it takes about an hour to get there. Even the ride there on the tram and bus was actually quite pleasant though – we got to see some really pretty parts of Dresden that hadn’t visited yet. When we got there, we spent about 1 1/2 hours wandering around, enjoying the mild weather, the sun, the spring flowers, and the quiet. We crossed the Elbe on a ferry on the way home, before stopping for the first time to check out a little latin american market called El Mercadito. They only sell about 20 different products, but we were able to obtain masa, corn tortillas, hominy, and canned green chiles, which we used to make an epic mexican dinner on Sunday. Red sauce with enchiladas, posole, avocado salad, salsa, guac, bean dip, and margaritas (all accompanied by cuban music) made us feel almost like we were back in LA for the evening 🙂
Prague and Kitchen Progress
After a week of working on the kitchen it is very close to finished. In fact, the only thing left to do is a bit of minor trim work and some other finicky “extras”. The kitchen is functionally done! Yay! So, what did that mean? We needed to get back to the business of why we are here in Europe. Traveling and eating too much obviously.
So, we decided to head to Prague about three hours before the bus left on Friday. That’s right, bus. Why a bus? Well, about two years ago Germany finally allowed long distance bus travel. Previously, they had banned it as the national rail system was a state run monopoly on travel. Now with the market suddenly open bus travel in Germany has become quite convenient and inexpensive. Our tickets to Prague cost about half what a train would have and took exactly the same amount of time. So, off we went!
We got into Prague at about 6pm, checked into our hotel and then wandered off to find dinner and see the sights. The first thing that we noticed is the street trams in Prague look like they are from about 1930. They are very cool and retro looking.
Next we made it to the main area of old town Prague and found the main town square. There we found many interesting things to see including a few marionette stores and stands where they sell strange pastries made from a long noodle of dough wrapped around a sort of rolling pin and then placed over a charcoal grill and spun. After they are done cooking they are rolled in sugar. They are simple and delicious!
We wandered around town until we found a neat looking restaurant that was supposed to have good authentic Czech food. I ordered ribs and a half liter of beer and found it all delicious if a bit hilariously large as a single portion. We then made our way back to our hotel for a well deserved nap.
The next morning we set out to see the city by day heading first to the famous castle overlooking the city. On our way there we found another curious street stall selling a hot drink called something like Horka Medovino which is Czech for hot mead. Intrigued, and with a bad case of the sniffles I ordered one and was rewarded with an amazing drink made of a dark mead blended with apple juice and honey to make a syrupy sweet nectar that is exactly what you need to face a day of walking while sniffling constantly. It was so good we bought a couple of bottles of medovino before we left town so we could replicate the drink at home.
Eventually we made our way to the banks of the Vltava River that cuts through the city where we had to stop to watch the ducks and swans. We walked up to the castle and were more impressed by the press of tourists in this supposed quiet season than anything. Then onto the Charles Bridge with more tourists everywhere.
We took a break from the crush and found a chocolate cafe where we indulged in amazing hot chocolate, mine included rum soaked cherries which was an amazing addition. After wandering a bit more we decided to go to our hotel early and spend the evening snacking and drinking and watching movies as my cold was really starting to hinder my enjoyment of tourist activities.
Sunday our bus left at 1pm so we had just enough time to wander to a sort of suburb of Prague where we found a neat little cafe called the sleepy cat that served delicious crepes and then it was time for the bus trip home!
All in all I’d say Prague was a very interesting place, lots of delicious food and a lot of variety that you don’t see in Germany (or at least Dresden). It has beautiful architecture at every turn and it is very inexpensive. It really has a lot going for it but in a way very reminiscent of Paris, it is dirty and filled with graffiti. It is confusing why a city so beautiful and whose tourist industry hinges on that beauty could allow the graffiti to stay but it does. Even on the doors of one of the main branches of the state bank. Why isn’t this cleaned up? I couldn’t even begin to guess. Anyway, we can’t wait to go back and explore more but we are a bit scared to see what tourist season in the city looks like if it is as packed as it was with tourists on a cold wintery weekend.
On The Joys and Sorrows of Ikea
So, this got brushed over at the end of our last post, but I thought some more words needed to be said about this. Ikea in Germany is, at least from a surficial view, nearly identical to U.S. Ikea. There are giant stores, blue and yellow everywhere, tags hanging from everything with absolutely meaningless or sometimes so punningly cheesy “Swedglish” that you feel an insatiable urge to find the nearest blue and yellow striped clerk to take your anger out on (I’m looking at you disco light named “Dansa”), giant warehouse areas, Swedish Meatballs, and a near-unending variety of forms into which particleboard has been forced.
There though, the similarities pretty much end. First, here in Germany it isn’t a question of whether some of the things in a person’s apartment are from Ikea, it is how much of their stuff is from Ikea. Everyone has stuff from Ikea. It is the default place to acquire furniture, bedding, glassware, flatware, even kitchens.
Further, you have to remember that a lot of people here don’t have cars. How exactly are you supposed to get home all this Ikea stuff? Well, you can get it delivered, which is actually pretty convenient, simple and fast. But, there is a big breakdown in this brilliant system. You still have to go and pick all the stuff from the warehouse, bring it to the cashier to pay, and then bring that stuff to the delivery desk. Which doesn’t sound too hard until you want say, a couch, a couple foot stools, a bed, a mattress, a tv stand, a couple bedside tables, a wardrobe, a stove, an oven (more on those later), a bunch of lights, and a few other random things. Oh, and your wife is working, so you have to get all this by yourself. Suddenly you may find yourself attempting to push three overladen carts by yourself while your floppy mattress does its best impression of a petulant child in a shopping cart by trying to pull everything off the shelves and displays you pass. Funnily enough I wasn’t the only one there with this problem. The people in the checkout next to me had five carts loaded with enormous bookcases and other things. I am in the process of patenting a cart-train system which I shall license to Ikea.
But there is something to keep you sane through all this. Something gloriously Sensible, something typically German. Along with delicious meatballs (just don’t ask which “meat” said balls are made from), the Ikea cafeteria sells half liter bottles of beer which they encourage you to take with you on your shopping adventures. This of course would never fly in the U.S. for reasons that escape my understanding. Oh, and did I mention these beers are €2? Yeah, inexpensive and plentiful delicious beer really has a way of making almost any situation seem much more manageable.
Ok, so it took three trips to Ikea to get this much stuff. Admittedly mostly my fault because I can’t make decisions. But this was only the beginning of the Ikea. Remember, our apartment came without a kitchen. So, I needed to design, order, and build one. Fast.
There are a surprisingly large number of kitchen design and appliance stores in Germany. This is because it isn’t uncommon for an apartment to come without a kitchen. Also, German’s think that 10 to 15 years is quite old for a kitchen. So, when everyone is putting in kitchens every few years it is no surprise there are quite a few options for where to get them. What is surprising is how many Germans opt for the low, low, low low, lowww end option. But after you think about it for a bit, it actually makes sense. In Germany most people live in much smaller spaces than even city dwelling Americans and those spaces are divided very differently from the U.S.
Remember from our “apartment hunting” post that most peoples’ kitchens are in a separate room from the main living area, and down a hallway? The Germans seem to really like this idea of rooms separated by a hallway. When you only have 700 or so square feet of living space, these hallways can really eat into your living space and at least in the U.S. would be considered a bit silly. For example in our new apartment the hallway is over 100 square feet, compared to our 50 square foot kitchen…
So, what does all this have to do with cheap kitchens? Well, Germans don’t show off their kitchens to guests. If you are at a German person’s house for dinner you probably won’t even see it. It isn’t necessarily a public space per se as it is in the U.S. This is of course changing and younger people are pushing for open kitchens that are permanent and part of the apartment.
The upshot of this all is that there is a lot of competition at the low end and I can go to Ikea and for about €3500 I can buy a kitchen that most Germans would consider, if not upscale, at least nice (and our landlord will buy it from us for at least 50% of the value when we leave). So that is what I did, after about five more trips.
The kitchen design was pretty well constrained by the geometry of the room. The biggest issue was along one wall where I was pretty sure everything would work out but it looked like I might have less than 1/2 inch of spare space which was a bit nerve-wracking. The other big issue was with Ikea itself. It is surprisingly unclear how exactly you can go about ordering a kitchen from them. It very much seems like you should be able to order it online. In fact, on a visit to Ikea to finally nail down and agree on the finish of everything from the counters to handles, an associate told us that we could order our kitchen online.
Naturally that turned out to be lies. Now, granted, there may have been some language issues. Alexandra is pretty great at understanding what people are saying and they sure seem to understand her, but we still have issues occasionally. But you definitely cannot order kitchens on Ikea’s website. You can order a lot of the parts of a kitchen, but you cannot order cabinet fronts and things like that.
So, after approximately eight visits to Ikea in about two weeks, I finally found an incredibly helpful Ikea clerk who spoke english and was happy to help me through the process. She was very sympathetic and even got everything organized so that all the cabinetry boxes, the fridge, and basically everything they didn’t have to order from a central warehouse was delivered the next day!
So, last Friday a whole lot of flatpack boxes arrived and I got to work on building a kitchen as my full-time job for a week. In the mean time, we had the important business of continuing to be tourists to get on with.
We decided to rent a car for the weekend, and we used it to go to our friends’ place to pick up free furniture (thanks guys!) and then went to Meißen for the afternoon on Saturday. Meißen is the historic home of European porcelain. If you’ve ever seen porcelain with two crossed sabers as the mark on the bottom, this is where it is from. It is a beautiful old town along the Elbe with a wonderful church up high on a hill overlooking the river and town. It is filled with old winding alleys and wonderful architecture. We even found an old barrel vaulted restaurant to have a nice Valentine’s day dinner at.
On Sunday we met up with our friend Aron, who lives in nearby Leipzig, and who came down for the day to go hiking with us. We drove east toward the Czech border to a region called Sachsich Sweiz, or Sachsen Switzerland in english. The area lies along the Elbe where it passes through a large sandstone deposit that it has eroded into impressive canyons and rock structures. The whole area is a wilderness park of sorts. Amusingly though, there are so many walking paths through the area it can be a bit difficult to find your way as it is confusing when you intersect a new path every few hundred feet.
Eventually we did find our way to a beautiful overlook where we enjoyed a nice lunch including the requisite beer. On the way down however things got a bit fun as the steps leaned a bit downhill and were packed with snow which had been trampled into ice which of course banked up further to make the steps even steeper and slipperier. It was exciting as some stretches had perhaps a hundred stairs going straight down a hill without interruption and no handrail. Thankfully none of us found out just how far you would indeed fall before being able to stop yourself.
On Tuesday the problem of our apartment not having a washing machine finally came to a head when Alexandra ran out of shirts and I ran out of underwear. She did not think my proposal that she simply wear my shirts and I wear her underwear was a particularly good solution and suggested we buy a washing machine.
Ever on the lookout for a deal, and since we didn’t really want to spend the kinds of money that a new washing machine would cost, we went on markt.de which is Germany’s version of craigslist and found a good washing machine for a great price. There were only two problems. One, it was about an hour’s drive away, and two, we needed to get a car that would fit a washing machine.
After calling the car rental companies and looking online it seemed by far the cheapest option was something simply titled “van” on kayak.com. I thought to myself that maybe at worst it would be a transit van or something and booked it figuring we could get them to just give us a wagon when we got to the rental car place.
Well, turns out “van” meant “moving van”. As in, a 20 foot wheelbase, cab-over, moving truck. So, Alexandra got to experience driving a manual truck through the tiny streets of east Germany. She of course did this perfectly even if at one point after we picked up the washing machine we had to turn around in a narrow car park and almost ended up in an Austin Powers-esque situation between two giant boulders.
After an exciting week of cabinetry building and doing laundry, this weekend we went to Leipzig to visit Aron. We did a bunch of fun sightseeing including the church where Bach was the organist and where his tomb is. Alexandra found some of the first flowers of spring (how’s that snowpocalypse treating you guys in Michigan?). Then we found a nostalgia store that only sold goods from old East Germany and was made to look just like it did back then. We went to a museum which was dedicated to the history of East Germany from the end of WWII up to today which was also very interesting. Especially seeing the difference between goods, ads, and news in East and West Germany. We also had dinner at the Auerbach’s Keller, a restaurant that was supposedly one of Johann Goethe’s favorites when he lived there in the late 1700’s and is famously discussed in his play Faust. Interestingly, this restaurant, which dates back to the early-1500’s is only the second oldest restaurant in Leipzig.
All around a very fun and busy couple weeks. Hopefully this next week we will get the remainder of the kitchen finished and maybe even get internet access! Right now we’re relying on the data connections from our cell phones.
Renting an Apartment in Germany
We’ve officially signed the lease on our new apartment and been handed over the keys. Tomorrow, we will move into the new place. Getting this far has been quite a process – and we have a long way to go still before we have a functional home-away-from-home.
We ended up falling head-over-heels in love with a bright little apartment in the center of the Dresden Technical University campus. The flat is a 5 minute walk from my work, a 2 minute walk from the nearest tram station and grocery store, and less than 1 minute to the nearest bakery/cafe and turkish döner restaurant. It’s a south-facing apartment on the 4th story with an excellent layout, an open kitchen, lots of light, high ceilings, and a large deck that we can use for grilling and entertaining.
But, there is a downside to this apartment (you knew it was coming). In classic German-style, the apartment is completely and totally empty and unfurnished. There are no light fixtures on the ceilings, no curtains or curtain rods, and most importantly, no kitchen. No kitchen means no fridge, no stove, no sink, no counters, no cabinets. All we get is three white walls and hookups for cold and hot water. Also some electrical outlets and a vent in the wall. That means we have to buy and install an entire kitchen. Naturally, since we don’t want to spend a fortune, we’ll be relying on Ikea. Lucky for us, our landlord is willing to buy the kitchen from us when when we move out for 50-75% of the value.
When we move in tomorrow, there will not be a kitchen. In fact, it might be weeks… We did manage to take care of some of the basics though. We acquired (all from Ikea) a bed, a mattress, sheets, comforter, duvet cover, pillows, a wardrobe, clothes drying rack, a pull-out sofa, some side tables, ceiling lights, curtains and curtain rods, an electric kettle, dishes, silverware, and also (from other random stores) an iron and ironing board, bath towels, and cleaning supplies like a mop, broom, dustbin, bucket. To reach “fully functioning” status, we still need to buy (in addition to an entire kitchen) at least a washing machine, trash bins, more lights, and a table and chairs. Alex might also add “charcoal grill” to that list.
If you’re wondering how we got all that stuff to our new apartment without a car, the answer is Ikea delivery service plus lots of individual trips carrying stuff by hand. It also involved three separate trips to Ikea for Alex, which is about 45 minutes away by tram. Fortunately for him, they sell bottles of beer for €2 and you’re allowed to walk around the store with it.
Pictures: Living / Being Tourists in Dresden
Here’s a collection of photos from the past couple weeks. They are all iphone photos sadly – we haven’t broken out the “real” camera yet. We also haven’t gone on any trips outside of Dresden yet. We’ve been too busy getting our lives in order here and trying to find an apartment (promising developments in that area – will report next week). But, we have managed to do quite a few “tourist activities” in Dresden and we’ve certainly managed to do a lot of eating.
Finding an apartment in Germany
For the time being, Alexander and I are living in relative comfort in a one room (read: studio) apartment in an 18 story residential building called the “Internationale Gästhaus,” which is a part of the Technical University of Dresden. Our room was booked for us in advance by a very helpful secretary at the Max Planck institute. It is furnished, it is on the 15th floor (giving us a pretty nice view), it costs only €450 a month (including everything), and we can stay for up to three months.
Despite all these nice features, there are several things motivating us to move to a “real” apartment sooner rather than later. The most important, biggest, main reason #1: The tiny kitchen has no freezer, no stove, and no good place for me to hang out and chat with or annoy Alexander while he cooks me dinner! Do you know how frustrating it is to have no freezer??? Okay, fine – it’s not that big of a deal – but we couldn’t think of anything else to complain about. Reason #2 is that we want to start collecting things like furniture, kitchen equipment, and so on. But, the more stuff we buy here, the more stuff we have to move to a new apartment, and we can foresee that moving lots of belongings might be difficult without a car….
So, that begs the question: “How does one find an apartment in Germany?”
As it turns out, Germans rely almost entirely on the internet, just like the rest of the modern world. At my work, there is an admin assistent whose job it is to help with this sort of thing. But, her main resource is the same as everyone else’s in Germany: www.immobilienscout24.de
This website is the main listing place for almost all rental homes. There are a few important things to understand about searching for apartment here:
1. Cold rent vs total rent. All of the rental apartments are listed with both the “Kaltmiete” (cold rent) and also the “Nebenkosten” (other costs), both of which are monthly costs. A typical breakdown in Dresden is about €400 of cold rent, and then €180 of Nebenkosten. The “Nebenkosten” can include whatever the landlord wants: heating, electricity, water trash, taxes, fees, sewage, maintenance, cleaning of shared areas, snow plowing, gardening. You always have to ask what is included in the Nebenkosten, because the electrical and gas bills might not be included and usually aren’t if they can be metered seperately. Finally, the quoted Nebenkosten is only an estimate, and can fluctuate depending on your actual measured utilities usage. Usually you pay (or get reimbursed) the difference at the end of each year.
2. Typical Floor plan.
Most apartments here are relatively sectioned-off, compared to a modern American apartment. The concept of open kitchens hasn’t really caught on. In most apartments, when you enter, you are immediately in a long hallway with doors. One door leads to the bathroom, another to the bedroom, a third door leads to the living room, and a fourth door to a small kitchen. In the example floorplan shown below, the Flur = hallway, Küche = kitchen, Wohnen = living room, and Zimmer = room. In our apartment search, good “sight lines” between the living room and the kitchen was one of our main requirements. But that eliminated about 90% of our options… so now we’re considering places with separate kitchens that are at least large enough to fit a cafe table and two chairs (wohnküche). That way we can still hang out while one of us cooks (and we all know who that will be).
3. Empty kitchen. The hardest part of our search is the fact that most apartments are rented without a built-in kitchen (Einbauküche). The kitchen is usually just an empty room with water and electrical hookups. Example kitchen shown below. Yes, when you move apartments you take your entire kitchen with you, cabinets and all. Why? I’m not really sure. It seems very odd and explains why when you visit many people’s apartments here their kitchens seem poorly laid out.
So, against that backdrop we are trying to find an apartment that has:
Convenient transportation or location. Obviously we can’t be convenient to everywhere at once. But it has to at least be convenient to some things, most importantly to my work.
An open kitchen, or wohnküche.
A built in kitchen (rare but findable).
2 rooms minimum, (note that here a “2 room apartment” has two rooms, a bedroom and a combined living room/kitchen, not two bedrooms).
Extras: a balcony or outdoor space
2nd bedroom, bath and shower, parking,
Fortunately, prices are reasonable. We can easily find something with total costs in the 600€ range. For comparison, we paid $600 in houghton for a very outdated 2 bed apartment where you walked through one bedroom to go the bathroom and that room also had a door with a window in it leading to the kitchen for unknown reasons.
We were worried that our lack of german skills would be a big issue. But, so far most people seem willing to work with us. Alexander went to tour six or so apartments this week with people who spoke no english, and they managed somehow. He probably only asked if the bathroom had a horse in it once or twice.
Hopefully our search will end in success soon, Alexander has managed to make delicious food with nothing more than two pots and two pans and a tiny cutting board so far, but I think he is getting frustrated.
New Address: Dresden, Germany
Hey folks, friends, and family! It’s been a while since we posted, mainly because the last couple of months, and particularly the last two weeks, have been a whirlwind. We finally have the free time (and mental clarity maybe?) to sit down and write something reflective.
As most of you already know (I’m pretty sure we both talked about it endlessly for the past 6 months…) Alex and I just moved from Pasadena, CA, to Dresden, Germany, a medium sized city in the eastern German state of Saxony. Selling our lovely bungalow in Pasadena was emotionally a bit tough, but the process went as well as anyone could ever possibly ask. After leaving Pasadena, we drove with our dog and our truck to Michigan, where we spent some much-needed time with our families during the holidays. For an entire month, we got to while away our time with long walks in the snow, stacking lumber, baking cookies, assembling gigantic train sets, ripping out flooring, drinking, installing insulation, wrapping Christmas presents, running errands, opening Christmas presents, and eating meals cooked for us by our parents. It was truly wonderful.
On Jan 4th, we said goodbye to our family and our dog, and flew from Grand Rapids, MI to Dresden, Germany via Chicago, IL and Frankfurt, Germany. Everything we decided to take with us fit in three checked bags (50 lb each) and two carry-on bags. No, our flights did not go smoothly. But, despite much hassle, switching of planes, and hours of standing around, we arrived in Dresden on the intended day, and only 8 hours later than planned. Somehow our bags made it too and we never even had to go through customs. When we arrived at the international guesthouse via taxi, the weather was just perfect: howling wind and hard sleet. But, fortunately, retrieving our key from the lockbox and finding our apartment was pretty straightforward. We went to sleep (or tried to…), knowing that in the morning we would have to get up bright and early to figure out how to take public transportation to the Goethe institute for our German placement tests, after which I would have to go to work.
Since no one really wants or needs to read about each and every detail of every day between then and now, we decided instead to compile a list of interesting things we’ve experienced during our first two weeks in Germany: Things that exceeded expectations, things that were worse than we thought they would be, things that were just as frustrating as expected, and things that are just … different.
- Speaking german with strangers: Not as terrifying as expected. Most of the our pidgin-German has well-received, and we can usually understand what people are saying to us too. The best thing, is that most people stick to German, even when it’s clear that we don’t speak it that well (good practice for us!). Most people in Dresden are really friendly. It reminds us of the midwest, in fact.
- Grocery prices: Way lower than expected. We have been told by German friends that groceries in Germany are cheaper than in the U.S. We didn’t believe them. We thought, surely, they were just shopping at the wrong places in the U.S. Like Von’s or Ralph’s (*ick*). I can now confirm that groceries in Germany are really and truly much cheaper than back home. As a quick example, we stopped at a normal (not a discount) grocery store on our way home today to buy a loaf of french bread, a liter of canola oil, 2lbs of sugar, and a decent bottle of red wine. Our total at the check-out counter was €4.22, which translates to about $5.
- Grocery selection: Awesome for us, but not good for everyone. The selection at any given store seems to consist of about one third cured meats (I mean, does one small grocery store really need need two different 30ft long butcher counters dedicated to salami and speck?), a quarter dairy products (mostly deliciously smelly cheeses at ridiculously low prices), and a quarter wine and alchohol. Most of the wine costs less than 2 buck chuck. I’ve now taken to watering down my sprite with red spanish wine, just to make the sprite less expensive.
- The tram and bus system: Super easy and convenient. Everything about the tram system in Dresden is awesome, as long as you don’t want to go too far away. Both the trams and the busses stop at the same stations, which are at street level, in the middle of the street. You don’t have to swipe your ticket, rather, the whole system relies mostly on the honor system. All this is to say that there is a very low activation barrier for using public transportation. If you are walking past a station when a bus or tram is going by, just hop on. If not, keep on walking.
- The little things: Mostly easier than expected. Things like setting up our cell service, applying for a bank account, and figuring out the recycling/trash rules were all pretty easy. We got used to separating our trash into 4 different bins (paper, compost, plastic + metal, and all the rest) within the first few days. Our cell service is through Aldi, which is cheap (€12.99 for my plan, with only 300 MB of data).
- Rock climbing gym: Best things yet! Apparently rock climbing is actually a normal / popular sport here in Germany. People don’t look at you funny when you say that your favorite sport is rock climbing. Better yet is the huge rock climbing gym here in Dresden, which has long hours (8am – midnight), high walls (up to 60 feet) and no rules! No, really. They don’t even check to make sure you know how to belay or lead climb on your first visit. You just pay and then walk in and climb.
- Big asian grocery store at the Hauptbahnhof: It turns out we can get almost everything we need for Chinese, Thai, and Indian dishes at one very convenient store at the main train station. Sure, they only sell one variety of bok choy, instead of the 20 varieties in L.A. area stores. But, we’ll survive somehow.
- Lack of Mexican food and ingredients: Just as bad as expected. We’ve been to about 6 different groceries stores now and we still haven’t found tortilla chips. We can get tomatoes, avocados, cilantro, and black beans, but we can’t find frozen corn, and there is no chance that we will ever find fresh jalepenos.
- Bureaucracy: Also as bad as expected. Just like anywhere else in the world, the results you get depend entirely on the mood of the person on the other side of the counter.
- Shopping without a car: The stores are pretty good, and the prices are better than we hoped, but, biggggg but, you have to get everything home somehow. Right now we don’t have a car and even if we did, we live on the 15th floor of a tower and the parking isn’t steps away from the elevator anyway. Every time you shop, you have to stop and think “can I carry this with me until I finish shopping at this store and any other stores I want to go to?” Then, “can I continue to carry it to whatever the nearest tram station is?” And finally, “can I carry it the half mile home from the tram station?” It is surprising how little you REALLY want to carry that far. Suddenly smaller packages of everything seem like a really great idea. Thankfully, it seems most Germans agree with me on this, as many things are sold in smaller quantities. Which leads to another interesting thing here. Prices scale pretty fairly here. That means, you can sometimes walk into a cafe and get a small, 6oz coffee for €0.80 or a large, or a 12oz coffee for €1.60. It is wonderful! There is no up-sell, no “Are you sure you don’t want to get the half-gallon-mega-jug-o-coffee for just 10¢ more?” You don’t sit at the store and honestly consider purchasing a kiddie pool’s worth of sour cream just because your two choices are the kiddie pool’s worth, or 6 ounces for nearly the same cost. Nope, a half pound of beautiful delicious Irish butter costs about €1.25 and full pound costs about €2.50. There is one place this breaks down though. That is specialty goods. Want a half pound of ridiculously fresh and delicious goat’s cheese? That will cost about €3. Want tiny dollops of goat cheese topped with tiny amounts of finely diced peppers or basil or other interesting things that are all arranged beautifully in a package and can’t amount to more than a few ounces at most? That’ll cost you €12.
- Health Insurance Cost: Europe is the land of socialized medicine, free health care for all! Not so much. You can get state health care, but many (most professionals) choose to have private health care. How much does this cost? Less than in the U.S. but you would be surprised by how much it actually ends up costing.
- IBAN: International Bank Account Number, the thing that literally the rest of the entire world uses to keep track of and transfer money. The United States doesn’t use IBAN’s. Why? I have no clue. We are the only country that doesn’t use them. This is a mystery. An incredibly annoying mystery. Everything here is done with IBANs. Want to sign up for a recurring gym membership? No problem, what’s your IBAN? Want to refill your pre-paid cell plan? Just enter your IBAN. Pay rent? IBAN. As soon as our bank account is activated, this will cease being a problem, and will instead be very convenient. In the meantime though, it’s annoying.
Okay, that’s enough for now. Enjoy a few photos, and then wait with baited breath for next week’s (or next month’s) post!
Our studio apartment. Functional, but small. And very green.
After our trip to Ikea (pronounced “Eeekayah” here, by the way) our place felt a bit more homey, and also more green.
These are just pictures from our first time wandering around the “old city” Altstadt neighborhood. There were lots of surprises hidden around every corner.
Dirt cheap wine = normal wine = delicious.
Rock climbing!
Whoops! You caught me!
A Finished Home
The heading under our blog title has been “making our new house a home” since day one.
Well, it’s been nearly 5 years since we bought our house in October of 2009. It has been a long and rocky road, with plenty of literal bumps and bruises. We’ve made a ton of mistakes, but to make up for it, we’ve learned more lessons than we can count. We’ve had help from so many amazing friends and family members along the way, and we never could have done this without you guys. Now we can finally say we’re finished; as finished as one can ever be with a house that’s nearly a century old.
We’ve finally made our house into a home, just in time for us to move on to the next adventure. Our house is going on sale this week! Below are the house photos that will be posted with sale listing online (taken by a professional, not by us!). Then check out the second photo gallery to remind yourself of what the house used to look like! It’s almost impossible to believe that it’s the same place.
And now for the photos from 5 years ago:
The long awaited bathroom renovation
We dawdled for 3 1/2 years on this one. But we finally did it! A couple weeks ago, we demolished the main bathroom from the chair rail down. Out with the bathtub, the vanity, the toilet, all the tile, and the floor. We decided to save ourselves some time and money by leaving all the wood trim in place(window and door trim, chair rail, baseboard). The demo went pretty smoothly. We had to call in help from a friend to help us get the old cast iron bathtub out to the curb. The floor was the most difficult part; it consisted of two layers of linoleum glued down to rotting oak nailed to rotting subfloor.
We hired a contractor to do most of the work quickly: He plastered a top coat over the old plaster above the chair rail, then he repaired the subfloor, installed a new pony-wall for the bathtub, installed a new tub with new plumbing. Then he put up cement board and tiled the area around the tub and the floor.
Our work began again this past weekend. We installed beadboard everywhere below the chair rail. This week we’ll be painting every night, and finally, we can install the new toilet and vanity.
We have about 4 weeks to go before this house is going to be up for sale, so now we’re really down to the wire!
Tying up loose ends
We’re planning to put our house on the market in just a couple of months. We had (and still have) a shit-list of things that we really want to finish before we list it:
Fence panels to hide the chain link fence in the back yard, new front door, grass/irrigation in the front yard, renovate main bathroom…. etc
We managed to check a few of these things off of our list earlier in the summer when our parents visited for a week. They helped with a lot of landscaping, wood work on the addition, and installing those fence panels.
We bought an ikea patio set 🙂 Now the backyard looks like a grown-up space.
This is the chain-link fence that needs to be covered. 60 feet of it!
And here it is again. all covered up.
We also had to insulate the attic above the new bathroom. This involved renting an insulation blower from home depot and buying 10 bags of insulations (so the rental fee was waived) and then returning 7 bags of insulation. Good deal!
Alex’s dad built, and Alex himself installed, the new (and beautiful) cover for the attic vent.
We finally cleared out the area along the side of the garage. Previously this was filled with trash, a tandoor oven disguised as trash, and a big green egg.
With the help of Alex’s mom, we dug out areas that were filled with dead grass and dirt, and we put mulch in instead. Next step: plants.
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Also, my garden has been doing quite well lately!
And here’s our new front door.
The Alexs' Blog 