Vacation: Not

It's been a crazy month or so.

We started by going back to Westchester county to clean up our house in Westchester, NY for the new tenants. The prior, German tenants, were returning to Stuttgart. Neither our broker nor the tenants, nor any of the prospective tenants, had indicated any issues with the house.

So we were overwhelmed to discover unattended and unreported flood damage, general non-normal wear and tear damage to the plaster walls, a bathroom renovated two weeks before turne dover to the new tenants that was now destroyed (water damage, mold, marble damage), flood and mold damage in the basement (where the dehumidifying system was also set at 35% instead of 70%— or even higher to deal with the unreported mold), furniture which was destroyed and filty beyond belief: it was shocking. From the large to the small: the buckled floor in the basement to the lost remote to allow the ceiling fan/light in the living room to be turned on to losing the privacy pins to the nickel door levers to not replacing a single outside light bulb (we had left them three years worth of compact fluorescents- just not enough of the low wattage for outside fixtures). The list was endless.

All this while they had turned off the cable and phone (which we had requested to retain for the half month) so we had no easy way to contact anyone. We still haven't spoken to the insurance company officially, although we have talked to our agent and taken hundreds of photos before beginning to mitigate the damage.

There's a 4-6 week lead time on the replacement vanity (special order to be code compliant in a small bathroom) and the marble repair will wait for that. The shower doors will be in stock next week and taken care of then, but our "vacation" was having done/getting estimates for/doing:

• marble repair, floor and vanity top
• ordering a new vanity
• ordering bathroom doors
• plastering and repainting gouges in the hall and three rooms
• completely repainting another after patching holes
• emptying the house of the furniture (previously rented furnished) while discarding the destroyed furniture- we loaded it into a U-Haul and drove it upstate to storage by my parents
  
• ordering a new remote from Minnesota (easily done- the manual was there!)
• replacing all the lost/removed (why?) hinge pins so that the doors would not re-gouge the walls after replatering and re-painting
  
• fixing all outside locks (a screwdriver and a brain)
• having the basement swabbed down with bleach, the mildew mitigated and painted with special paint.
• discarding destroyed rugs (downstairs due to mold, upstairs due to the tenants' fire, which they had otherwise mitigated)
• having emergency landscaping done: we expected to do some things, but having a sumac 14 feet tall next to a bedroom window indicates that in three years they never lifted a finger. They also destroyed grass areas where they had pools or tarps. Luckily, they had no control over the irrigation system or there would have been no grass left.
• there was more, but I get a head ache thinking about it
  

This was after they spoke to the husband, as one German to another, and asked to use their security as last month. Because they assured him of how everything was in order, and because the broker agreed, he complied. I expect that will be a little less than we will be out of pocket. I expect he won't do that again, either. I also think that after the current lease is up, we will be considering selling the house rather than dealing with this again.

After we get back to Berlin next week I can't wait to start dealing with all of this long distance and time estranged to US contractors and insurance companies.

I expect that I will have a lot of additions to my Downsizing blog as well, when I can sort the photos out.

(Here's my favorite shot— the full potty left in the rotted out vanity.)

I'm back...and I'm very, very tired.

600+ entries cleared out of my GoogleReader queue (I just marked off the food entries, no way was I going to catch up), a few phone calls later, and a look at local upstate NY news and I am starting to feel a bit more in control.

Over the last 10 days we have:

• Put together 29 pieces of Ikea furniture.
• Bought a couch and a washing machine from a discount outlet in NRW (the couch is a nice, angled black leater. The european style that allows pulling a hidden section out to form a bed).
• Brought all our belongings (that could be fitted in the trailer) back from the in-laws. We are still missing the coffee table, end tables and bookcases, but at this point they may stay there (we got a 9.99 end table at Ikea and the ottoman would be in the way of a coffee table).
• Brought all our belongings from the "furnished) apartment we had rented to our new apartment. Lucily, we had only bookcases (they seem to breed around me), printer stands, file cabinet, etc, there in addition to clothing, books and toys.
• Put together "closet" shelving for the closet under the stairs- the only one in the apartment. We still have some commercial shelving to put together for the keller, at which point some of the things stacked up here will go downstairs. This is the first time in 10 months that I have seen my kitchen implements and had the foodstuffs that we brought all unpacked: I have been revelling in Trader Joe's Indian food and whining that Aldi (which owns TJ's) doesn't carry anything remotely spicey.
• Had 6 lights installed and a curtain line put up, on which we have strung 6 curtains. I need to put 6 more up here in the wohnzimmer and then we need to put up lines in the dining area, the vorkuche and the children's room: right now, they are using our room because they couldn't sleep without room darkening curtains or blinds, as the sun is up here past 10. Our room (with slanted windows) came with rollshades.
• We have installed the washing machine and the dryer (which we had brought with us from the US: it was a fortuitous gift from a German family that had brought it to the US only to discover that one cannot retrofit German dryers to work in the US). The washing machine has a distressing leakage problem that we can't seem to fix so we will need to call a plumber in. Perhaps at the same time we can find a way to run a water line to the terrace, which I had hoped to have planted by now, but which I am starting to think will not happen until next year.
• We ordered a kitchen island from Bauhaus: the price was 40% of the analogous price at Ikea. I can't wait until it gets here. We are exploring kashrut right now and the tiny kitchen (that was what I gave up in order to have the area, the light, the windows, and the outdoor spaces) has no place to allow separation of milchig and fleishig. The first 6 months will be a trial and if all works out well, I think we will kasher the kitchen, dishes, et al.

I have unpacked all except for 6 boxes which are living in my cornfield (the vorkuche) right now.

We need: to get the lines up (I am going to use flannel sheets to darken the windows in the girls' room), get some more lights up,get a toaster, CD player/radio and a coffee machine. I think we have done pretty well for this short time, though.

We also need to get a TV. Although my sister-in-law generously gave us her older TV, it can't support our DVD/video player and I need to be able to let the kids see movies and to see the subtitles myself (I find it useful when watching German to read English, and even to read the German while listening to it). I'm also looking for a staning freezer on sale so that I can actually cut back on the 5 days a week that I go shopping with the ability to buy meat only once a week and to prepare meals ahead of time as well as to be able to actually store left-overs.

Enough of that..I hope to talk about at least a few of the non-boring things that we have done recently in the next few days. Tomorrow is my next to last day of German and the last day is an ausflug (field trip) so I hope to have some fun next week, during my week of freedom: it's the last week the kids are in school and yet I won't have class!

Deutsche Leistungsfaehigkeit (Efficiency) and Apartment hunting in Berlin

One of the leitmotivs in my ex-patriate life here in Germany is my ongoing disbelief at what utter Quatsch my original belief that Germans are efficient was. They are certainly methodical and rule following, but they are as far from efficient as a people can be.

In fact, it often seems that they will create a procedure that has one running in circles just for the sheer joy of telling one that since a rule has not been followed throughout its winding and twisting turns, one must either start over or just give up.

(Sometimes I still hyper-ventilate when I think about American Express and how completely incompetent their operations in this country are. And one day I will write that post, but at the moment it annoys me too much.)

So let us proceed instead to apartment hunting. The German real estate market here is relatively opaque and monopolistic. Since the renter (as well as the purchaser) pays the commission there is no incentive to negotiate commissions and they are therefore high (as are most professional compensations in Germany).

We are currently apartment hunting because (yeah!) the German's firm has told us that he may station himself permanently here in Berlin if we so desire, rather than moving to Duesseldorf and we gave that a great big "Yeah!". We did a lot of research on immobilien socout, which is a great resource, and then we started to call brokers and make appointments. And this is where German efficiency comes into conflict with my American version of efficiency: in many cases, apartments were not available to view for several weeks, even though listed, because the currents tenants did not want to allow viewings. In most cases, the photos posted were horrible and in many others no photos were available and even floor plans were not available. In several cases, when the German called to make appointments he was told that the broker had enough possibilities and would contact him if those fell through. In one case (that particularly rankles), the broker did not return calls, did not have an answering machine, and when he responded to an e-mail inquiry sent information on a completely different apartment in a different area! This while the apartment has been listed for 4+ weeks!

Many, many annoyances later, a particular apartment that we had called on three weeks ago was still posted, so the German called the broker again. Although we had previously left our information in case the "open contract" fell through, the broker had not done so. But this time we were able to make an appointment to view (the just renovated) apartment. The German looked at two apartments in the same day, both of which looked great on paper, and came back enthused about the re-opened one. I looked at both of them the following day the one I had thought I would like was far worse than in photo while the "re-opened one" was far better in person: I handed the broker the completed paperwork after a 5 minute walk through.

Then the real work started. The broker told us he would call us that evening: we called him. Then he said that he would call the next day when he heard back from the owner (a bank). We called him. He said he would call us the next day (Friday). While biking around the lake, we stopped and called him and he said he hadn't yet heard but we should perhaps send in additional documentation (from the firm) stating that the German would be stationed in Berlin, rather than elsewhere in addition to the employment contract which we had already submitted. So the German called his chef out of a meeting to get him to send a letter to the broker. That afternoon, the German called back to see what was up and the broker mentioned that it was a good thing that he had followed up, because the woman at the bank had misread his employment contract and thought that we would be returning to the US in August, and wondered why we would bother to apartment hunt for three months! Note that she did not call the broker to query him. And note that the broker only called to ask status or if there was other documentation that would help our case after the German had spoken to him four times, each time initiating the call.

Dear Reader, we got the apartment. But only because of our tenacity and follow through. We are pretty excited and you'll be hearing more about it as the next few weeks progress. There is an einbaukuche (built in kitchen) but, as is typical in Germany, all light fixtures are empty and we will need to purchase and install 8 light fixtures in the next 21 days, as well as get a washing machine and my heart's desire: a chest freezer. Luckily, we brought along a dryer (strange thing, someone had brought one to the US, found it was too much trouble/impossible to retrofit, and gave it to us to bring over) so that's one less purchase. We'll be visiting Ikea a bit because there are no built in closets, so we will need shelving and wardrobes.

But! It's a great apartment! A small balcony off the kitchen area and a huge rooftop terrasse. It's bi-level and we will need to thinl about how to best safely utilize the space, but more later!

The view from my kitchen window...

This is a meme from Lulu's Bay in Cairo

She asked what we could see out of our kitchen windows. Since my apartment is in a traditional style building, built in a square around a central courtyard, my kitchen looks into the center, which is not so interesting.

So I have included as well a bit of the view from the front balcony :-)

Getting settled

The children are in school. That took quite a bit of work.

First, the German had to register our marriage in the Sauerland where he was registered. Then, when we returned to Berlin, he registered both of us and the children here. I did some research on line and found some kindergarten/kitas within walking distance, called them, and set up appointments. The first one we went to, one that was supposed to be based on a nurturing method, left me in tears. The head told us that they were not really interested in children that would be “transient”, eg staying for less than three years, and that also the documents that the children require would take weeks and weeks to get, so why would we even bother to put them in school when they would be leaving Berlin in the spring? I pointed out that Thing1 was very sad, had walked up to a little boy in the school and asked him to be friends, and that Thing1was regressing due to interactions being mainly with Thing2. The head didn’t exactly shrug, but didn’t seem to give a darn.

She did give the German the number of the state agency that would provide the required documents, but reiterated that it would take weeks to get the forms, perhaps even months. When we walked out the door, I really was in tears at the thought that the children would not be able to play with other children for the foreseeable future. The German told me that everything would be alright, that in a country where children have a legal right to schooling that it would be impossible for it to take so long to get required documentation. In the event, he called the agency the next morning and when he went there, the woman in charge was wonderful. She assured him that it would take only a day or two for the document for Thing1 to reach us, and that she would be able to issue one for Thing 2 if he could provide documentation that I was taking a course.

So the German registered Thing1 for the 5-7 hours of kindergarten that she is legally entitled to. However, Thing2 could not be registered until I provided documentation that I either had a job or was taking an integration course.

When wandering about our new neighborhood, we had discovered the Jewish Community Center (Judisches Gemeinde Haus). When we stopped in to ask about the community, we were told that they have a Volkshochschule, which is a type of community school all across Germany, where I could take a Deutschkurs for Anfangers (German for Newcomers). So I signed up for the semester, the German took the information to the state and we received the documentation for both the girls within three days.

(Germany has an amazingly good post system. It generally takes only one day for mail to reach us from just about anywhere in Germany. If we haven’t received something in three days, we know that there is a problem and know to call to see what is wrong.)

We got the names of some Jewish kindergartens from the JCC and called a few to see which would have openings and how far some might be. The real problem was Thing2, because the spots for her age are generally filled (there is a legal requirement of fewer young children per teacher at her age). We went to one lovely school in Grunewald, but not only would it be quite difficult for me to reach by public transportation, but also they would have had a problem with Thing2- she would not have been able to start until January, when they would be adding a teacher. The head was very nice and after showing us around, she sat the girls down to play with toys, took us back to her office, and started making calls for us. After two tries, she was able to make an appointment for us with the head of X school. So we called a cab and went there. We drove back and forth but this time, after stopping and asking for help and calling for clarification, we finally found it. This was funny, because we had attempted to reach X school almost on our arrival in west Berlin. But when we had called to get directions there we had not been able to find the school: it’s not easy to find.

In the meantime, I had gotten information from the JGH about Jewish kindergartens and kitas and had spoken to an International School (second choice, being both quite expensive and thwarting our aim of having the girls exposed to German as soon as possible). ) So when we got to the X school, finally, we were very impressed. The Rabbi knew our previous school, was warm and friendly (from the US;-) ), the classes seemed good and at least one of each teacher pair spoke some English, and the curriculum seemed great and familiar (although with both German and Hebrew). This is just what Thing1 has been needing.

The Things started school October 8th, the first day after Succoth, when my class also started. I spent the first two days with them at school, making certain that they would be ok, and on the third day the bus service that the school has started and I was able to go to class. We are all enjoying our classes now, although you would never know it from Thing1: she doesn’t tell me anything that goes on! Thing1 has been to the Zoo and the Opera House and to the library, but I only know that from the teacher: she is not yet good at communicating this information.

We have suffered through waves of illness. First, I was sick. A bronchial illness that hung on until I went to der Artz in the Sauerland (the weekend our container finally came in) and wound up getting antibiotics. Then, the week after Thing2 started school, she was quite sick. She had a temperature of 104+ and I had to find a doctor within our area and run her over. Dr R assured me that it was a virus and I should continue to concentrate on keeping her temperature down, which I needed to do by medicating her every six hours around the clock with Motrin. Her high fever continued from Sunday through Friday, when the doctor had told me to return if she were still running a fever. The doctor looked again, said it was still just a virus and prescribed a mucus thinner as well as continuing with the Motrin. Thankfully, her fever finally ended on Saturday. I kept her home on Monday, just to be safe.

This had played havoc with my classes, of course. I took two days off, we hired a babysitter one day, the German stayed home through my class one day, and the final day we had another babysitter, who we needed to send home because she was unable to comfort Thing2 (the only person, ever. We complained to the agency about her.) So back zur schule went Thing2 on Tuesday and on Tuesday night Thing1 started to run a high fever. So, Wednesday I went in to class for a few minutes to pick up my work. Thursday she seemed a bit better so I brought her, with coloring books, to class with me. She was exhausted and wound up falling asleep on me when I carried her out, but it was the day of my appointment with the Alien Affairs office and I needed to be there with the German in person.

So Thing1 and I took a cab there and met the German, they quickly called us in and gave me my residence visa, and then he called us a cab and went back to pick up the forms and come home later. Germany is extremely organized in processing newcomers and it’s admirable.

A new apartment and swimming through the red tape

While trolling the internet I ran across an apartment and the German leaped on it on Monday.
We are at my in-laws now, and yesterday registered myself and the children and the German's married status with the state. Today we got photos for the children and applied for their German passports. We splurged on the type required for the US, which is more expensive than the ordinary child’s passport. We also took photos of myself and the German for drivers’ licenses, but won’t be able to do that until next week, as the DMV was open only a half day today.

The saga of the container has been thrilling and chilling in terms of the utter lack of coordination and total messed-up-ness of its journey, but we hope to see it here next Friday and with it not only our bicycles but also our warm clothes: We have been freezing ever since we got here as we left behind 90+F weather and came here to the 60F and below chilly, dank, frequently rainy city of Berlin. The two light jackets I brought with me were not enough and the ch ildrenare rotating between only a few pairs of warm clothes as their shorts and tees are not useful.

The first week

Well, we are here in Berlin, in an area formerly east of the wall called Prinzlauer-Berg. It’s a bit what I imagine Greenwich Village was like 70 years ago, when it was still affordable, although it probably won’t be affordable to its prior residents within the next 10 years. Very cute, but not family enough and we are hunting for short term apartments in the Charlottenberg area, which is west of the line, more settled, and with a Jewish Community Center and kindergarten that I hope to get Thing1 into. Right now we are staying in a pension, and this is the first time that I have lived without a washer/dryer at least in my building in 24 years. It’s definitely worse with children.

The trip over was better than it might have been because we upgraded to business class with miles. I went through a whole rigmarole to get Felix microchipped and get him an international health certificate and then we wound up walking through immigration with him: we realized later that the border control didn’t notice him because the German was carrying him in a soft sided container around his neck. Now we wonder whether Felix is in the country illegally… On the flight itself, Felix wound up getting out of his carrier (the silly thing was able to be pushed open unless you pinned the sides and I missed it, always having used a hard sided carrier before). The German woke me to tell me that one of the attendants had come and taken the carrier away and I rushed back to see why only to discover F being dandled and pampered by an attendant who said that she had found him in the aisle: luckily, they were all cat lovers. And everyone was very nice to us in business class: definitely worth the upgrade.

I’m online because (old East) Berlin has free (slow) wireless, because there is no landline in the flat and although I might have gone insane without internet, we won’t get broadband until we are in a real apartment.

So far my culture shock has been primarily that even Germany moves at a molasses pace compared to the US. I mean, I knew it because German HR was so darned slow, but nothing beats walking into a Citibank to open an account (we have one in the US to facilitate international transfers) only to discover that one needs to make an appointment and that the earliest one can get is two days away. Or that it will take 4 weeks to get a landline, if we decide to get one, or to install DSL. And I couldn’t be part of the bank account because I am not yet registered with a “permanent” address here in Germany, even though I have a certified copy of my marriage certificate and my passport and the German already had a registered address (with his parents). There’s more, but I need to digest…

Sheer Insanity

So, instead of moving to Duesseldorf, the German got a call in mid-July asking if he was interested in a long term project in Berlin. But if he were, he needed (this was a Thursday) to be ready to fly out Sunday.

We looked at each other, thought about it, and said,"Sounds great."
He came back August 15th, the container was delivered the 17th, we had a garage sale on the 18th and we will be hada relatively large farewell party on the 19th. On the 20th the container will be picked up.

Then we all had medical appointments and exams, went upstate to go to my 25th High School reunion (I could only manage the picnic because we still had so much packing to do- we were also dropping furniture with my brother and boxes in the storage unit we have up there).

We didn't finish up before the container left, so we packed and threw out and donated masses of stuff, all through the night into the day before we left, when the German ran a half pallet to the docks to follow us to Bremerhaven and we met with our tenants ( a great family from Stuttgart) to show them how things work and help them with the car transfer (we sold them our Sienna).

Monday back home, Tuesday the 28th turning the house over to the tenants and then grabbing a van to the airport (as we will be selling the tenants our Sienna). Gosh, do we have a lot of stuff! 6 suitcases, a stroller, two car seats, two carry-ons, a diaper bag, a purse, and a cat.

I haven’t even started looking at maps of Berlin and I had just started seriously thinking of what areas of Dusseldorf we should be looking at. Had contacted the Jewish kindergarten, spoken to people from the synagogue, met with an American woman (married to a German man) who will be moving into our neighborhood next week from Dusseldorf (by way of three months in an apartment in White Plains), spoken to the American Women’s group in D’dorf… and so on. So now I need to start from scratch and without Ernst taking off 4 weeks to help/look for an apartment.

The German found us a pension to stay in when we arrive, not easy finding a temporary place in Germany, and particularly not with our cat.