Good news: we just found an apartment. It's cute, clean, bright, partially furnished, and one of few apartments in Germany with kitchen appliances and light fixtures already installed. It's in the same town as our other dream apartment [still crying over that one] and I think we'll be very happy there. Alfredo especially likes that it has a fireplace. He was drooling over visions of steak sizzling on an open fire, the way they do it back home in Uruguay. That's a feasible idea since the fire place is in the kitchen, which is also the dining room and living room. Yes, it's a small apartment, but we're going to make it in to a nice home. I can't wait to move in!
Bad news: We can't move in until April 1. The guy we're subleasing from right now comes back this week at some mysteriously ambiguous point in time which Alfredo defines (without concern) as "a few days before the end of the month...I think..." Which means some time between now and Friday, but we're not really sure. So after a semi-frantic scouring of the housing market (now my specialty) I found a great short-term vacation rental that happens to be available from now until the end of March. It's a beautiful place, and wonderfully large - a separate kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a bedroom. We're already planning a party for this weekend to put all that space to good use, and to celebrate the fact that we no longer live in Wixhausen. The downside is that it's in a suburb very poorly connected by public transit (>1hr for Alfredo to get to the lab) and we'll have to go yet another month without internet (ahhhhhh!!!!!). But we'll survive. At least we know where we're sleeping every night this week, which is a luxurious assurance I am thankful to have.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Verdict
Our dream apartment went to somebody else. At least we were prepared for that after hearing stories from Alfredo's office mates about how hard it is for foreigners to get apartments here. Even the German girl in the office complained that her Russian husband's last name made their search difficult. It's annoying, but let's not pretend there aren't cookies that crumble like this in the US too (usually under more politically-correct pretenses, of course). So now it's back to the drawing board. Our search has become somewhat frantic because we the guy we're subleasing from returns from his vacation in one week. And in a twist of irony, we just turned down an offer to rent an apartment that is newly-remodeled, completely furnished, a good price, and 1/4 mile from the lab. It sounds like a dream, right? Actually, Alfredo and I decided that living in Wixhausen is more like a nightmare. Our friends from Poland (Alfredo's office mate and his wife) think we're crazy for having turned it down. It would have been a safe and comfortable option, but Alfredo likes flying by the seat of his pants, living freely and dangerously. And somehow he's convinced me to want to do the same. So we don't know where we'll be living in a week. No big deal :)
In other news:
- On Saturday we went to Bamberg (a city in Bavaria, 2 hours East of here) to meet up with our friends Christine and Sebastian, a German couple who recently returned to the Land of Beer and Sauerkraut after finishing their PhDs at MSU and Yale, respectively. They've been long-time members of our 'Opera Gang' (bi-annual opera outings organized by Alfredo's former roommate Giuseppe) and the running club (foot-racing excursions across Michigan and Europe, organized by Christine herself - including Alfredo's trip to the Berlin Marathon). Bamberg has a unique and fascinating history [wikipedia synopsis] and fabulous architecture that was not destroyed during the war because of the town's juxtaposition to an artillery factory. We had a good time catching up with Christine and Sebastian, and they even brought a friend with them who was born and raised in Bamberg - she showed us some really sweet stuff around town [photos] like a palace, a cathedral (containing the tomb of the only pope not buried in Rome), and a great restaurant serving regional specialties like smoked beer.
- On Sunday, I gave Alfredo a wedding ring for Valentine's Day. It was a great surprise because we don't even get each other Christmas and birthday presents, let alone gifts on other obscure holidays. Why a wedding ring? Well, several weeks after we were married, Alfredo's ring "mysteriously disappeared right off his hand" while he was pacing the halls of the Cyclotron, deep in thought at 4 in the morning. It was never found. So we ordered another one, which arrived the day before Thanksgiving. Lucky for him, the story of the lost ring didn't even have to come out to the whole extended family. Fast forward six weeks to the day of his dissertation defense, also known as the day before we handed in the keys to our apartment and flew to Germany. Alfredo got out of the shower and realized he had no ring on. We looked in the garbage, the sink, the toilet, the cabinets, the floor...nothing. It was never found. He was really sad, and on top of that he was insulted that I didn't even seem upset over either of the lost rings. My advice in general is not to marry someone unless you are prepared to deal rationally and constructively with situations you know are highly probable given the other's track record. I explained that I'm not mad, but I'm also not financially irresponsible. No more wedding rings for you. That was not said without empathy though, since I lost a beautiful birthstone ring my mom gave me for my 16th birthday and I still feel bad about it 10 years later. So in Darmstadt the other day I found the perfect compromise - something that looks very much like his original ring(s) but with a price tag an order of magnitude lower. Even though it's a different metal and not engraved on the inside, it's a win-win situation: Alfredo is happy to have a ring again, and next month when it mysteriously vanishes nobody will have to feel bad...
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Our episode of House Hunters
There are a number of reasons why we're anxious to find an apartment, not least of which is to have [an internet connection!!! and] someplace to call our own. Finally. It's more or less the first big joint decision of our married life, and it's going to be somewhat difficult, I perceive, given that we both have an extraordinary inclination for indecisiveness. Here's our dilemma (quadri-lemma?)
Apartment #1 is a large 2-bedroom apt in the attic level of a large house in a nice neighborhood of Greisheim, Southwest of Darmstadt. Positives: Guest bedroom, large living/dining room, really cool angles because of the sloping attic wall/ceiling. Beautiful large garden and yard for hosting barbecues. Negatives: Distance from GSI. We would need to buy a car because public transport would take ~1hr. Also, the angle of the wall/ceiling in the bathroom slopes so steeply over the tub that it might only be possible to bathe while sitting or laying in the tub..
Apartment #2 is a small 1-br/studio apt in a commercial building in a fashionable district of downtown Darmstadt. Positives: Near a lot of shops, restaurants, etc. The large window in the living room looks over a main street to a nice big park. The whole inside of the apt was just remodeled. Negatives: It's very small.
Apartment #3 is a large 1-br apt in a house (duplex) in a beautiful residential district just south of Darmstadt - lots of old German architecture, iron gates, ivy, trees, landscaping. Positives: beautiful location, and it's a fully-furnished apartment. Negatives: living room has a putrid shade of green (1970's) carpeting. The kitchen appliances also appear to be from the 1970s. Though the tram stop is only a block away and it stops right at the GSI shuttle, the entire trip from home to work would be about 45min-1hr. Or we could get a car.
Apartment #4 is a mid-size 1-br apartment in Downtown Arheilgen (city between Darmstadt and Wixhausen). Arheilgen isn't big, but there are plenty of shops and restaurants, etc in the downtown, which looks like a nice place. Easy access to trams that go to all the surrounding cities, and it is within two blocks of the GSI shuttle stop. Positives: Just re-modeled, "large" kitchen, fabulous location. It was a difficult decision, but we really want this one. Negatives: 10 other people are looking at it too. The game goes like this: of the people who say they want to rent it, the real estate agent will weed out a few, then present his "selection" to the landlord who picks the lucky winner. It's not an equal opportunity selection process, and we've been told that foreigners have a disadvantage. So, we told the real estate agent today that we want the apartment, and now we just have to wait...
Apartment #1 is a large 2-bedroom apt in the attic level of a large house in a nice neighborhood of Greisheim, Southwest of Darmstadt. Positives: Guest bedroom, large living/dining room, really cool angles because of the sloping attic wall/ceiling. Beautiful large garden and yard for hosting barbecues. Negatives: Distance from GSI. We would need to buy a car because public transport would take ~1hr. Also, the angle of the wall/ceiling in the bathroom slopes so steeply over the tub that it might only be possible to bathe while sitting or laying in the tub..
Apartment #2 is a small 1-br/studio apt in a commercial building in a fashionable district of downtown Darmstadt. Positives: Near a lot of shops, restaurants, etc. The large window in the living room looks over a main street to a nice big park. The whole inside of the apt was just remodeled. Negatives: It's very small.
Apartment #3 is a large 1-br apt in a house (duplex) in a beautiful residential district just south of Darmstadt - lots of old German architecture, iron gates, ivy, trees, landscaping. Positives: beautiful location, and it's a fully-furnished apartment. Negatives: living room has a putrid shade of green (1970's) carpeting. The kitchen appliances also appear to be from the 1970s. Though the tram stop is only a block away and it stops right at the GSI shuttle, the entire trip from home to work would be about 45min-1hr. Or we could get a car.
Apartment #4 is a mid-size 1-br apartment in Downtown Arheilgen (city between Darmstadt and Wixhausen). Arheilgen isn't big, but there are plenty of shops and restaurants, etc in the downtown, which looks like a nice place. Easy access to trams that go to all the surrounding cities, and it is within two blocks of the GSI shuttle stop. Positives: Just re-modeled, "large" kitchen, fabulous location. It was a difficult decision, but we really want this one. Negatives: 10 other people are looking at it too. The game goes like this: of the people who say they want to rent it, the real estate agent will weed out a few, then present his "selection" to the landlord who picks the lucky winner. It's not an equal opportunity selection process, and we've been told that foreigners have a disadvantage. So, we told the real estate agent today that we want the apartment, and now we just have to wait...
Friday, January 29, 2010
Highlights of the First Weeks
1. Day trip to Frankfurt (photos)
4. The smell of fresh-baked croissants every morning (goodbye skinni jeans, our front door opens IN TO a bakery).
2. My trip to the US Consulate (name change for my passport). It could have been worse, but the unique mix of American and German red tape was especially annoying. Luckily the line for Americans was empty, so I wasn't late even after they sent me back to the subway station to pay a guy in a portable kiosk trailer 6 bucks to hold on to my cell phone because there are no electronics allowed on the consulate premise. Then I was scolded for filling out the wrong application - "applying in person" - because I should have filled out the one entitled"applying by mail". But the best part was that the official passport photos that I taken at the US post office in Lansing were "incorrectly proportioned", and "no smiling is allowed". My bad.
3. Laundry. Of course there is nowhere in Wixhausen to do laundry. So on a snowy Saturday afternoon, we lugged huge shopping bags full of dirty laundry with us on the train to Darmstadt. It's supposed to be a fairly painless process once you get there - just drop it off and pick it up a few hours later, all clean and nicely folded. Well, we walked in to the place just as it was closing (sorry miss, you're not in the land of 24-hour service anymore...things close at 3pm on Saturday). I burst in to tears because every piece of clothing I had packed was dirty, and the two precious bath towels that we went all the way to Frankfurt to buy were also in the mix. Alfredo helped console me with a trip to the nearest bakery (espresso + cheesecake) and a shopping spree to get more towels and clothes to tide us over until Monday...
4. The smell of fresh-baked croissants every morning (goodbye skinni jeans, our front door opens IN TO a bakery).
2. My trip to the US Consulate (name change for my passport). It could have been worse, but the unique mix of American and German red tape was especially annoying. Luckily the line for Americans was empty, so I wasn't late even after they sent me back to the subway station to pay a guy in a portable kiosk trailer 6 bucks to hold on to my cell phone because there are no electronics allowed on the consulate premise. Then I was scolded for filling out the wrong application - "applying in person" - because I should have filled out the one entitled"applying by mail". But the best part was that the official passport photos that I taken at the US post office in Lansing were "incorrectly proportioned", and "no smiling is allowed". My bad.
3. Laundry. Of course there is nowhere in Wixhausen to do laundry. So on a snowy Saturday afternoon, we lugged huge shopping bags full of dirty laundry with us on the train to Darmstadt. It's supposed to be a fairly painless process once you get there - just drop it off and pick it up a few hours later, all clean and nicely folded. Well, we walked in to the place just as it was closing (sorry miss, you're not in the land of 24-hour service anymore...things close at 3pm on Saturday). I burst in to tears because every piece of clothing I had packed was dirty, and the two precious bath towels that we went all the way to Frankfurt to buy were also in the mix. Alfredo helped console me with a trip to the nearest bakery (espresso + cheesecake) and a shopping spree to get more towels and clothes to tide us over until Monday...
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Welcome to Germany
This town is different than I thought it would be. All the physicists at MSU complained about how SMALL and BORING it is, with such emphasis on those words that I came to imagine a few small huts in the middle of an empty field with a dirt road going through it and nothing else. Now I see that it was a very different kind of small and boring they were talking about. The population is about 3000 here in Wixhausen (northern suburb of Darmstadt), and houses line the narrow streets in an arrangement that makes me feel like a rat in a maze. They have an eerie uniformity: all 3 stories tall, white, and all are spaced 5 feet from their neighbors in grassless, fenced-in yards. The problem is not that it's a small town, it just has too few resources for its size. There is a convenience store, a few small restaurants, bakeries, and drug stores, and a train station. The apartment we're subleasing for now is very convenient. It's connected to a bakery, just across the street from the train station, and a short distance from the GSI lab. It's an apartment with strange proportions. There are four equal-sized rooms, bisected by an open corridor that contains the staircase to the landlord's front door. I've never lived in a place where the living room and the bathroom are the same size. Don't be jealous though. The shower inside our opulent bathroom is a 3-foot by 3-foot box. Alfredo and I had to use t-shirts to dry ourselves off after our first few showers because there is nowhere in this town to buy towels.
Everything is smaller here. Showers, ovens, refrigerators (2.5'x3' including the freezer!), cars, everything. The biggest bag of rice I can find in the supermarket is the size of a large coffee mug. The single bed in our apartment measures 35 inches wide. Our first night was heavenly because we were exhausted and had been sleeping on the floor for a month, followed by a night in economy class airline seats. The second night was less comfortable, so we decided to move to the living room and give the pull-out couch a try. Drooling over the thought of being able to both lie down on our backs, on something other than the floor, we opened it up only to discover that the couch pulls out to a width of 40in. It's a little better than the bed, so we've been sleeping there ever since. I can't wait to get an apartment of our own and buy a new mattress...please tell me they're available in king size here!
Everything is smaller here. Showers, ovens, refrigerators (2.5'x3' including the freezer!), cars, everything. The biggest bag of rice I can find in the supermarket is the size of a large coffee mug. The single bed in our apartment measures 35 inches wide. Our first night was heavenly because we were exhausted and had been sleeping on the floor for a month, followed by a night in economy class airline seats. The second night was less comfortable, so we decided to move to the living room and give the pull-out couch a try. Drooling over the thought of being able to both lie down on our backs, on something other than the floor, we opened it up only to discover that the couch pulls out to a width of 40in. It's a little better than the bed, so we've been sleeping there ever since. I can't wait to get an apartment of our own and buy a new mattress...please tell me they're available in king size here!
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