Items for sale in Berlin...

For anyone who might be interested:

Highlights are the Dyson, the Kitchen-Aid, Gas Grill, and full size/double Simmons Beautyrest mattress and box-spring.

I will be adding more pages as I go, if you go to home: http://leavingberlinnow.blogspot.de
and look through the "Pages" drop down menu you will see all the pages as I add them and update what's available (and can see what our apartment looked like:-).)

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8176108087133654163#editor/target=page;pageID=2756288861197276486

http://leavingberlinnow.blogspot.de/p/kitchenaid-digital-photo-frame.html

http://leavingberlinnow.blogspot.de/p/for-sale-mens-shoes.html

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What's been happening recently? Or, Moving Again.

(It's actually a bit painful to pull myself away from the Amazon-Macmillan (perhaps now HarperCollins) spat, but since it has simmered down, I'm going to relegate it again to the post that's not up yet about my Kindle.)

So, moving again, you wonder?

Yep. Since it looks like we will be here for at least another few years and since we have made the decision to stay in Berlin rather than go to Munich (and with the last few weeks only being 60% travel, rather than 100%), we decided we weren't stressed enough so we should move again.

Our current apartment has pluses (we live here already, huge amounts of light, very central, unbelievable view-especially of fireworks) but it also has minuses:

• two floors, with the bedrooms separated by a winding tile staircase ,
  
• the hideous and always dirty-looking terra-cotta tile (when we moved in, looking at the floor made my stomach queasy),
  
• the thirty foot ceiling without proper ventilation so that the heat benefits nothing and goes out the skylights,
  
• the enormous amount of heat required to keep me always in a state of constant bronchial distress,
  
• the water-pressure issues the landlord keeps fixing but which result in the bathroom with the bathtub always being freezing,
  
• the 155 qm of which we actually use only 100 because of the terrible lay-out, but for which the nebenkosten are terribly high. Then the nebenkosten went up amazingly this year, although we did nothing.
  
• The neighbors who don't separate their trash and for whom the entire building (based on qm) pays the fines... and so on.

So we decided to start looking for an apartment. As German residents are aware, that's not so easy here. One of the only consumer-friendly laws here is that one can always give three months notice (Kundigung) on an apartment, regardless of any lease terms. On the other had, German landlords generally won't show apartments until they are empty because what if they rented it and the prior tenant was not out in time? (Easy because there are no penalties for that written into the lease and because it's, as I will show, so hard to move here.) Therefore, most apartments that one sees are available immediately. That's true even when they have no kitchens (they all have no lights, because the German Way is to leave wires dangling from the ceilings: tenants provide and install lights and therefore take them with them). That can also make seeing apartments difficult, as they must be viewed in daylight (a scarce commodity in Berlin in November and December).

It's been a hard two months looking, with our move-out date (three months after the Kundigung) approaching. We were looking for a relatively large apartment (the goal was smaller than our current apartment but better laid out) and Germans don't move very often. In particular, we were looking in the middle of the winter, when even fewer Germans (and everyone else) move. And we constrained our search into a large area in a circle around our current apartment because the German needs to remain on our current U-line in order to make his commute to the airport every week a reasonably short one with public transport.

We found several we liked, within our constraints (including cost) and off we went. The first we wanted was already under contract by the time we got home and called the broker (makler) back. Why waste our time showing it, one might ask? The second one was even cheaper than we had expected, so the 2.38 months commission wouldn't hurt too much- but they didn't like the industry my husband works in (the same as that of the owner's brother-in-law), according to the broker. The next one was supposed to " need a bit of renovation": by which they meant we would need to replace the bathroom, build a kitchen and re-do the walls and floors. They would negotiate free rent in lieu... according to the broker, the owner had no money after the purchase. Our estimate was over 25,000 Euros to make it decent. No thanks.

Then another one- the address wasn't listed on-line and when we arrived for the appointment the street was so busy we didn't bother to look: the German told the owner it was too unsafe for the kids. She took us off to look at another of her apartments in Schoneberg which was larger, cheaper and had a private playground. The tenant wasn't around but after we went back to look around inside we decided that the lay-out was terrible (although large!) and the distance from the kids' school great enough that the benefits did not outweigh the cons.

Off to a wonderful address (and a gorgeous Art Nouveau building) by the Lietzinsee. Another terrible layout (kitchen down a very, very long corridor, walking through one room to reach onother, not a single item newer than 1945 (I have never even seen a washing machine that old!) and the owner felt it was worth top price. I don't think he'll get it: it was previously utilized by students who camped out in sleeping bags on the floor and while it would be a great apartment to buy (at a reasonable price!) and completely renovate, in its current condition it would need 6+ months free rent to make it worthwhile.

Then we saw a wonderful Altbau, across the street from us (truly, although perhaps more accurately across the avenue). We fell in love. Not as much sun, the kitchen was well-cared for but a bit decrepit, but bookshelves! Built-ins from floor to Altbau height ceiling. And charming details. The owner was offering to rip everything out and we said that we would love to keep them. We gave our application and details in immediately (here in Germany, one walks about with document folders with all one's details in multiple copies).

Then we waited.

And waited.

And called. The owner liked us- but his other tenants are older (the current occupant of the apartment we looked at is retiring to a Senior home) and he feels that, with our having children, we might be too noisy. He said he was sorry, that our application was the first and the best, but that for the sake of the other tenants, he didn't want a family with young children. As I said to the German- what are the odds of anyone moving into a 4+ room in this area without children? This is a family neighborhood with good schools! I'm not certain why he feels that our two girls, out at school all day then tucked into bed at 19:30 after ballet, would not be preferable to a new-born, but hey- his choice. What really amazed me was the total comfort with disclosing illegal discrimination: in Germany it is illegal to discriminate against families with children. But why should I be surprised? I recently hear an excerpt from a documentary on the news wherein German landlords blatantly and openly discuss their discriminatory rental and employment policies.

We had one other apartment on the back-burner , which we had seen before this, and we waited to hear (we had learned our lesson and sent our application in on that apartment before we had seen the Altbau). I had liked it very much (also Altbau, well-laid out, better kitchen, some nice plaster ceiling details) but the across the street location of the second had seduced me.

When we sent our application in, we asked for a reduction in the base rent (after looking at the publicly disclosed average area rent) and for a month's free kaltmiete, as the apartment would be turned over unrenovated (not painted and with one bedroom having no floor). I think they were hoping to get a full offer, but they wound up meeting us in the middle on the rent and we signed the contract and got the keys on the 1st.

For the first time ever, we will have an actual overlapping period in our move and I am very grateful. What with the German still being out of town it will be a real luxury.

Tune in to hear how we progress with our list:

1. Dishwasher
2. Refrigerator
3. Painting the apartment
4. Putting a floor in the bedroom
5. Setting up utilities
6. Getting beds for the kids (1 himmelbett, 1 hochbett)
7. Medicine cabinet with bathroom light
8. Curtains (and shower curtain)
9. Quarter rounds, all round:)
10. Moving. First time we have used professionals, but I'm still packing the whole apartment by myself, with one day of help from the German on Thursday this week (the movers come Friday).
    
11. Taking the lights from the old apartment and installing them in the new
12. Renovating the old apartment for turn over to landlord

It will be exciting! Or, more accurately, extremely stressful.

Also, we changed T1's school today. Perhaps in another post.

Shall we stay or shall we go?

...Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
An if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know

This indecisions bugging me...

So, while  I have been recovering from the pneumonia from heck, dealing with some kita problems, and running off to the US for a long weekend to go to BEA (my favorite time... it's a fantasy of free upcoming books, ARCs in all directions...) we have also been dealing with some other items.

One of those leads to the above question. The German has been off to Duesseldorf and to Munich interviewing for another long-term project. This project is being spearheaded by another country and the leads have been looking for a German co-lead for some time. After more interviews, at a faster pace, than seems possible, they made him an offer. They actually wanted him to start last week, but what with me being out of town Thursday through Monday, he actually started in Munich yesterday. So. Shall we stay or shall we go... from Berlin to Munich, that is.

I sent this out to a few fellow expat bloggers and received some feedback but I'm still not certain what to do.

I am very fond of Berlin right now. I have my halal shops, my decent Asian food and markets. We have friends, the children have playdates, my gosh- I have playdates! Today I had my first date to tandem (language) with a mom I met at ballette and we had great fun and then I ran across a neighbor and we had spontaneous coffee and kuchen (she ate the TwD Cinnamon squares, although I need to query her for her opinion...). I really have friends right now, more than I have had in years, and the children do too. We have playdates as often as we like, and at least twice a week. A schoolmate has just moved 4 doors down and another is around the block. The girls have a friend from ballet and her mom (a different one from my tandem partner) is great and reads the same type books that I do. I was asked to be on the board of a women's group. I love my apartment and we could never afford anything like this in Munich (floor to cathedral ceiling windows, roof deck with tomatoes and cukes and a kiddie pool....

The groseltern come in two weeks to give me three days to look at Munich- a city I have never seen. I have appointments with what would be the girls' kita and grundschule, because if I don't like them that will give me an easy answer and then I need to look around and see whether the quality of life (for me and for us) in Munich can be good enough to go against the quality of life here. It's a strong point that here I would be a single mum for 4 days a week, but here I can also drive the girls to school. I can change my mind about which school to send Thing1 to and keep her in the attached grundschule, which would make my life so easy! She loves the environment, both girls love their classmates and teachers, the new school director is absolutely wonderful and has created a real change in the school, with expectations of parental involvement....

In Munich, the schools are in the Altstadt and I understand that there would be no way to drive them in, so then we need to expect weather with pick-up and drop-off and to not be in walking distance. We would need to look for a place on the lines that give us easiest access and then expect to walk, in snow and rain, in dark and cold, to and from subway stops. I have no idea where best to look and what I do know is that housing is about 3x the cost from here to there as well the schools being significantly more pricey and requiring us to be enrolled for Kirchgeld rather than simply paying fees (a very significant amount and one without a cap that we will see, unlike the cap on other income related taxes, payments, and fees).

The school year starts September 14th in Bavaria and September 1st here, so all our decisions need to be made at what Germans would consider the speed of lightning (rather than the normal German housing decision speed, which I would consider the speed of molasses in an Upstate NY winter). We have already had estimates on moving, but we cant really do anything else until we (that is, I) have gotten out there and at least looked around. I would also like to make sure that the German is enjoying the project, because if it were only for 6 months, we definitely wouldn't bother to move. For longer and it becomes vastly more important.

The reason I want to decide rather rapidly is primarily for the sake of the girls: Germans don't move very much. Please, don't tell me you know individuals who do: I married one. But the general German does not move and children know each other from nest through gymnasium. It will be hard enough on the children if I move them and they lose the dear friends they now have (especially Thing1, who still misses her American friends) and their familiar routines and loved activities: what I don't want to do is to move them after the beginning of the school year, so that they are not only the odd ones, the new ones, the ex-pat ones, but also the ones who didn't become part of groupings and cliques that might actually have a bit of lee-way at the beginning of the year.

Any folks have recommendations? We are lokking for a sunny three BR, garden space (to actually plant in), easy commute/walk to Marienplatz/Altstadt, nice area for a family with playgrounds and safe bike/rollerblade areas? Help?

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!

Stopping to Exhale

Only as life is starting to become more normal am I realizing how stressed out and chaotic my life has been for the last 10 months. As I was living through it, I just kept slogging through it.

The move from the Pension in Prenzlauer-Berg, where we shivered and got sick, arriving in Berlin with inadequate clothing, coming from 80+F temperatures and landing in 60F and raining (and raining) and where I realized that SADD is real and that having constant rain = having no sun.
The extension, the new temporary, furnished short stay apartment. The Alien Registration, and Citizen and Marriage and Family registration and Schools registration and Driver's license registration. The 'my school' registration, and then the forms to allow the girls to go to school and then their school registration. The arranging of bus service and children's seats (resulting in my needing to carry the carseat for Thing1, considered old enough here to not require a 5-point harness, with which I disagree, up and down the stairs every day).

The arrival of the container and the arrival of the extra pallet, both delivered 5+ hours west of here. The unpacking of those and the dealing with red tape and idiots at the ports who can't find boats or containers or lading documents. The unpacking and repacking of boxes damaged by being left on a dock in Bremerhavn. The winnowing of our possessions as we decided what we needed in Berlin versus what should stay. The total inconveniencing of my kind in-laws, whose house we took a portion of and whose belongings we displaced and whose garage we filled. The additional extension of time in Berlin.

The waves of sickness for all of us, life starting to happen. Starting to read other blogs widely enough to interfere with my novelreading;-). Looking to see what is around, visiting the in-laws and seeing traditional holiday festivities. Eastercon for a weekend- the first ever away from the girls overnight. They liked it.

Starting to think that I like Berlin. Starting to think that I wish I had some time to actually see it. Starting to think about finding social activities and attempting to actually meet other adults. Got a longer extension of time here. Starting to really need social interaction.

Looking at and joining book clubs. Contacting other ex-pats, and finding some so homesick that they went home! Starting to feel comfortable in the city, no matter how bad my German is. Starting to organize my chaos and get my household under control.

Receiving the go-ahead to stay in Berlin as long as we want. Deciding on our neighborhood and finding an apartment that is almost perfect.

Moving this week.

What I haven't been blogging about.

Is that I am just tired.

We did really enjoy going out last night but it's not that it helped me catch up on any sleep. The girls are pushing me to the limit every day with bed time. They went to sleep with the babysitter at 8 pm without a peep, but as per usual with us, it's 21:15 and Thing2 is still running in and out and even Thing1 is doing it tonight. It's broad daylight out there and I understand that they want to stay up, but that's why we put dark blinds in their room! And the yelling: every night I have a headache after bedtime.

The German just got home, so a few orders from him seem to count more than anything I say. And he just got home because he's been putting furniture together all day. He drezzed his EC card by accident and so is not able to go shopping by himself. So the girls and I had to go along with him to Ikea, which is a bus ride and a walk away. Thing1 was able to go to the playground, but Thing2 is too small and she needed to shop with us, a process she finds tedious. Even though we had done all our research in advance, printing out all the furniture that we needed and even though we walked into the store from the back, we were able only to get information to give us some site locations: we needed to go upstairs and get custom modification on the printout for our kleideschrank. Also, while I was waiting for the German to get the row numbers, I saw the white Anneboda and I liked them very much. So instead of getting the much more expensive Pax sliding door wardrobe and pink dressers, we got each of the girls an Aneboda kleideschrank and nightstand and a three drawer dresser to share. We got a highboy, a lowboy, 2 nightstands, a dresser and a large kleideschrank ourselves, as well asa few lights to put in to go with the ones we picked up yesterday from the BauHaus. All our bedroom, living room and dining room furniture will be in the relatively new schwarzbraun. Our current bemustert schwarze Billys will go upstairs to the gallery and we will pick up a few bookcases and schubladen in schwarzbraun for the entryway. We found a "man with a van" from Craig's List (in itself a surprise because CL is generally so inactive here) who picked us all up at Ikea and then helped the German unload and spent a few hours wiring light for us: German apartments come really stripped, with bare wires hanging from the walls and ceilings. We have to purchase and install 12 light fixtures and I think so far we have 6 or 7. We will need to mail-order the ceiling fans as they are relatively uncommon here. And we still have so much to do and can't do anything on Sunday: the country closes on Sunday.

Also, we have a school party tomorrow at which both the German and I need to fulfill duities and then he needs to drive 6 hours west so that, bright and early Monday morning, he can load a trailer with the bits and pieces that we have at the in-laws (such as our beds! Finally, comfortable beds again!).

The annoying thing about all this is not that it needs doing, but that this weekend in Berlin has so many great things going on and we really can't manage to do any of them! There is a street festival at Nolldendorfplatz, "48 Hours" in Neue Kolln (where one of my classmates has a showing), a book festival with tumblers at Unter den Linden.

Yay!

Just in time for vacation the German has been told that we are extended again. Another three months here. I am so pleased. We are so happy here right now. And it's not that I have acquired the Teutonic resistance to change but that it is so difficult to overcome that resistance when we need to change. So the Things remain in their school, I get a 2 month course break and re-start with my same group, I get to actually use the gym I have signed up for, and I am applying to be Thing1's school parent. And we get to enjoy Berlin in the spring and perhaps even longer. Time to retrieve the bikes from the in-law's!

Sick again and again...

Sunday December 30: I have finally recovered from what was apparently a bacterial superinfection after the flu. The girls were out of school for one week, then they both went back for two days and in those days I went to two doctors, got a scrip for ten days of doxycycline and started to feel better a few days later. But on Tuesday Thing1 had what seemed to be a burn on her finger and that evening she developed an earache which got worse and worse as the evening wore on. Although she went to sleep, she woke up late in pain and the German wound up going to the children’s emergency at about 2 am, which definitely was not something that 1 wanted! The doctor there said that the pain was a result of a build up of fluid behind her sinuses and that we needed to get her mucus to loosen, so that was our next try, with a prescription nasal spray and an emphasis on blowing.

But of course I kept her home the following day and she went with me to my doctor. On the way home I noticed that she was limping and when I looked at the bottom of her foot I saw what appeared to be a wart, so that evening we called Dr. R and asked him what to do and of the two choices (cut out or medicate) we decided on medication. So, off to the Apotheke for wart medication. However, when I examined her foot on Thursday, the spot had blown up and no longer looked like a wart, but rather seemed like her finger, which we now decided was an infection rather than a burn. So, another call to Dr. R later, the German came home early and ran 1 to his practice. Speed was of the essence because almost everything and everyone closes down in Germany for the Christmas holidays. Dr. R decided to lance both and start 1 on antibiotics because of his concern that she might develop an infection over the holidays. So, antibiotic for the next 8 days and a second visit Friday morning to do a second lancing, just to be sure before the long holiday.

On Saturday we had hoped to take the children to visit the KinderWeihnachmarkt at the Citadel in Spandau, but it was too cold and raw, so we just cleaned up, packed up and had lunch before heading off to my in-laws for the next week. The German makes the trip far more tolerable because he manages to make it in an average of 3.5 hours, rather than the 6+ hours that it takes F. There is much to be said for the Autobahn when one lives in the hinterlands .

We stayed in the Sauerlands from Saturday night through Friday the 28th and it felt like a milder reprise of August in NY : our palette load had finally arrived and when picked it up at Bremerhoven three weeks ago, we discovered that all of the boxes had been opened and examined. Now we found that they had been left on the dock uncovered and there had been water exposure and damage. So we spent several days moving boxes, opening boxes, repacking boxes, examining boxes. We were clearly punch drunk toward the end of our packing in NY, because we actually sent a box of paperwork that we had planned on hand carrying and I was very grateful to see it.

We wound up staying through Friday rather than leaving Thursday because we needed to run to Ikea and pick up a bookcase and a double wardrobe to actually allow us to make a habitable area. The wardrobe was a hack for the German to put together, because the ceiling is low and he had to put it together standing up. Took some time but by Thursday night we actually were able to hang clothing up for the first time (there are no closets in Germany and there had been only a tiny armoire in the apartment). I also unloaded all my book boxes and filled two Billy book cases (we got the new black with white flowers design: pretty cool). Other than the packing and moving it was a gentle and relaxed vacation. F & G had a tree, which the kids liked looking at. They also had real candles, which I found strangely hypnotic to watch (as well as a strand of electric candles). We took a run into Soest to buy a humidifier and some undershirts for the girls and met C for a coffee and cake. We found all their Little People figures and most of R’s toys and games in the new boxes, so the girls were ecstatic. We had a traditional (sort of) Christmas Eve dinner of potato salad and bratwurst (although in this case they were a very untraditional turkey sausage) and on Christmas day Gerlind made beef for us (and rabbit for the others). On Wednesday, we all shared a raclette dinner. We socialized with sister-in-law G and her friend C, sister-in-law C and her husband E and their kids K and B through most of the week and stopped in to say hello to the German's uncle H and aunt U and their daughter C and her friend A.

Thing1 fell in love with their cat Shnurri (which means purrer). We came back Friday evening (December 28th)and unpacked and piled boxes everywhere (we brought a lot of stuff back with us- cake mixes, cereal, peanut butter, books, toys, 1's costumes, more winter clothes, etc). I was grateful that we had gotten the Mercedes R320TDI as our rental: not only is it a super car to drive in, with great handling and a wonderful ride, but there’s a huge amount of space in it, so we could load up.

Saturday morning we dashed out to the Kaufland and then to Ikea to pick up a bookcase for here in Berlin (we got a Billy and a Benno to hold CDs and DVDs). Then we stopped at the Post on the way back to grab a package (with an automated package retrieval system-very interesting and efficient) then ran back to unload and take the care seats out before the German had to return the car and grab the kids so that I could run to get my hair done. I finally got my hair cut (and colored) on Saturday for the first time since July- I feel like a new person! I know that I should be able to get things done on a regular basis, but with class until 1 pm and the girls getting home at 2:30 and then being sick so much, it’s been impossible and this was great. Maybe I will even be able to get my nails done some time! We put the bookcase and a Benno together and loaded them up with all my books and magazines and CDs and DVDs and the place is really beginning to be under control: I really can’t live for any period of time without having a bookcase available.

We weren’t able to get a babysitter for New Year’s, so instead we had booked someone for Sunday afternoon, which gave us the opportunity to have brunch at the local Greek place and then to walk around the Museum isle and look at a craft market. It was nice to spend a few hours with the German without the girls and it gave us the opportunity to check out our new babysitter, S , who will be watching the girls next week when we are at The Ring of the Nibelung over the next two weeks. The girls loved her, so we are pretty happy about it- wouldn’t want to worry through 24 hours of opera!

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.

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.

In the beginning...

My husband (referred to hereafter as the German) and I had concerns that when we had children that they would not be able to communicate with their extended family if raised as monolingual Americans (after all, I could not communicate with my extended family when my parents chose to raise my brothers and myself monolingually). We attempted to deal with the situation by having German au pairs while I (G) continued to work after having Thing1. We had some great helpers, particularly Chrissie. However, after we had Thing2 and a problem with an au pair who quit two weeks before the end of my maternity leave, we decided that there had to be a better way. Why not go to Germany on an internal transfer with his multi-national firm and we could all learn German? That way, when we returned to the States we could continue to speak German together and the reinforcement would let the Things retain the language.

Ten months later, after a considerable amount of stress, it finally happened.

I am posting retroactively and hope to go forward as well as fill in the spaces, but this is my first blog, so please, if you are reading this, forgive my learning pains and feel free to give any advice you think might be useful