Hansa Sail

It's sunny.  It's above sixty degrees.  It's time for the Hansa Sail!

This is a big ol' deal here where hundreds of historic sailing ships, steam boats, paddle boats, and every-kind-of-boat makes its way to our harbor, just four blocks away, for four days of nautical celebration.  We have sea shanties, we have pirates, we have a lot of people with sailor hats walkin' around.  There are techno party boats and dinner cruises and sea plane rides and dragonboat races.

Wanna put on one of those old metal diving helmets?  Sure thing!  Wanna eat some calamari and then go on the bumper cars?  Go for it (but not recommended)!

It's just a big, big, really fun deal.

AND I tried my first Bubble Tea, which I've been meaning to do for years.  Strawberry with passionfruit bubbles--amaaaazing.  

Then being able to just walk home to our altstadt neighborhood and see our Petrikirche waiting for us...we're lucky folks, I think.  

Just such a great festival.  I'm really proud of this little city we live in and its seafaring history.

And yeah, these are all our pictures.  Go super old handheld camera!

I Like Where I Live

Not only because of the big things--you know, like the fact that I'm needing to learn a new language or that I live across an ocean from my "homeland."  I like where I live because of the little things.

Like yesterday, for example.  Yesterday I had a nice morning of homework.  Then, I got to walk a couple miles through the historic center to my German class at the university.  At German class, I got to talk with Davit from Syria and Katarin from the Czech Republic (we talked about apple struedel).

Then, I met Paul and on the way we stopped by the bakery for a loaf of bread, which they sliced for us.  And, passing the market, we got our first bunch of spring asparagus (only, only, only thick, white asparagus here--people think the green kind is just strange).

Walking home from the market, I saw my favorite view, right before we turn onto our street--with the trees budding in front of a row of colorful old houses, with the giant St. Peter's Church tower behind.

It was a lovely day.

Experience Budget

Rostock Markt by F. Geyer

If you want to get technical, the open-air market two blocks away from our apartment is more expensive than the grocery store.

So is the old butcher shop down the street.

And the 19th century bakery near the harbor.

Sometimes the prices are closer--especially when a certain vegetable is in season--but usually there's a 20 or 50 cent difference.  Or even more.

But, you know what?  I shop at the markets, and the old butcher shop, and the tiny bakery anyway.  It's part of spending my "Experiences Budget."

I get to walk in under a swinging sign of a carved bull's head and see a very friendly butcher who knows who I am ("Ah!  Die Americanerin!").

And I get to say things like, "Could I have 100 grams of mittwurst for dinner tonight?"  And I say it in German.

And she says, "Only 100 grams?!  You are not German yet!" And she says it in German.

Or, I get to walk around the Neumarkt in the shadow of that historic, brick Marienkirche, and look at those rows on rows of smoked fish and eels, or see the new kinds of flowers they sell in buckets (not the usual roses, carnations, gerbera daisies...).   Some I've seen in designer bouquets in American magazines, some I've never seen anywhere else.

I get to go up to the man with the deli truck, framed by rows on rows of tiny chickens spinning on rotisseries, and watch him cut me a "halb hänchen" (half-chicken).  I wish him a nice continuation of his day--because that's how you say it.  You have to be explicit about how you hope it continues to be good.  I think it's a nice detail.

And you get to walk home past the bakery, which is always just a little bit more stressful.  The storefront is a tiny walkway in between the wall and the display cases and you're confronted with four rows of different varieties of bread loaves.  Round, rectangular, diamond, square, seed encrusted, cracked, smooth--as a not-as-friendly-as-the-butcher-but-still-nice baker mentally taps her fingers on the counter waiting for you to choose and formulate a sentence in your head.

"My streusel is burning," she thinks.  "How do I say 'dinner roll'?!" I think.

The bread here is heavy, by the way.  They don't mess around.

Things I See When Grocery Shopping

On the walk to the grocery store.

Happy Weekend.

In with the Old, Out with the New

There's something heavy about realizing your neighborhood hasn't changed
all that much in 700 years.  

It's something that Americans don't really understand.  We try.  But it's hard.

It Snowed, and Then We Went on a Walk

Oh hey, 13th century church that is on my street.  Just, you know, checkin' out the neighborhood.

My face may be the color of a tomato, but it's a happy tomato.

Nothing to Report

I love this archive photo I found of our neighborhood.  It doesn't look any different today.

Nothing to report from Camp Hunn this evening.

We're playing a fun game called, "How Long Can We Last Before We Turn the Heaters On."  It's part of this equally fun game called, "How Many Ways Can We Save Money?"

SO FUN, right?!

So, we've dug the trenches, pulled out all three blankets we own, and have decided to warm our hands on cups of tea and our feet on each other.  That's how marriage works, didn't you know?

Considah Yourseuf!

We live approximately 15 steps away from this exact Harley Davidson.  It's the last landmark I notice on my way home every day.  First, there's the scary clown wall painting, then the old medieval city gate, the three &'s (three stores in a row with "&" in their name: P&C, H&M, C&A), the Rathaus (it's not what you think), Freaky Murder Cow Sign (requires a photograph...), and finally the Harley Davidson.

Rathaus = City Hall

And so far, this past week, I've found myself walking home with variously tempo-ed peps in my steps all because I've been getting "home-themed" songs stuck in my head.

Yesterday I practically skipped and bell-kicked my way down the busiest pedestrian street in the city humming "Consider Yourself" from "Oliver!"

I had no shame.  I was seriously doing that fakey Broadway strut-walk thing in time with the song--the one where you kind of throw your head back, smile really big, and swing your arms up across your chest marching-style?

At some point I realized I actually was humming along to the song playing on my ipod:  "Considah Yourseuf AT HOME.  Consider yourseuf, paht o' the faaaaamily."

And I want to add that I finished the song as I was putting the key into the door.

Is there anything better than songs that make you feel like you're actually, for really real, in a musical?

I propose that there is NOT.  Except...

...oh yeah, maybe more gratuitous photographs of Paul in THE SHIRT.

Signing Aquahaus: Rich and Poor

Check out that awesome
next-door building!

Today we will be (barring any random insanity) signing a contract for a place I've christened "Aquahaus."  At 5pm.  Set your watches--there might be some sort of astronomical sign that occurs at the same moment my pen hits paper because this is nothing short of a miracle.

A very expensive miracle.




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Here's a mini-lesson in Rostock Real Estate for you (you can skip this starred section if you want to fast forward).  There is a university here, with many students.  Actually, this particular year there are approximately 30% more students than there have been any other year, which is probably how I got a job, actually.  You should also know that our income is approximately 30% of what a student makes (I kid, I kid.  But it isn't much-- 1800 euro a month).  So, as you can imagine, we're sort of trying to get the same kind of apartment all these thousands of extra students are trying to get--in the main part of the city, small, one room, cheap.

This particular combination of factors hasn't exactly been helpful for us--we went to see an apartment last week (three weeks after the semester started!) and there had already been 30 people to see it.  Oh, and we called the owner exactly one hour after it was posted online.    Also, the bathroom was such a skinny, tiny room that the toilet had to be turned sideways and you had to step over it to get to the shower.  25 people had already applied for it by the time we made it to our showing.

Of course, that sort of interest is only for the apartments that don't have a real estate fee--which is understandable since these fees generally are around 1000 euro.

But even the apartments with the real estate fee (which, to give you an idea, are around 95-99% of all the ones we've found listed) have a lot of competition too.  Of the 30 apartments (THIRTY) that Paul has seen these past two months, all of them have had at least seven other people apply for them.

Of all the times that Paul has applied to those thirty apartments, he has only gotten a response once, and that was the tragedy that was Peptohaus (or, should I say, NepoHaus?!).

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But, even with the same odds on Aquahaus, we were chosen!!!!   Woo!  I have no idea why or how or who paid who what, but we were the number one applicants this one, golden, miraculous time!

And so we're gearing up to have a life that's a bit poorer, but also quite a bit richer.

Poorer because...
Aquahaus is one of those real estate fee apartments, unfortunately.  But, truly, we had kind of resigned ourselves to it a couple weeks ago.  What this means is that today, we're going to go sign a contract, pay the real estate agency 1000 euro, and pay the landlord a deposit of 850 euro (ouch).   That's before we start even paying rent!

The sort of nice thing about Germany is that your deposit goes into a high-yield savings account and you get it all back with interest when you vacate.  The sort of not nice thing is that we're kissing that 1000 euro fee goodbye--never to be seen again--and that's a lot of money for us right now.  Especially since we still need to buy things like, oh, a bed?  And ohhhh, a spoon to eat with?  Maybe two spoons if we get extravagant. And oh, like, a refrigerator?

Also, Aquahaus is a little bit more expensive than we were hoping to have to pay here--not because we can't afford it, but more because we were prepared to live in a closet so we could save money to travel to exotic locales.  I was hoping to find a place that would cost around 450 euro "warm rent" (that's including water/heat/garbage, but not electricity).   We found a few of those, but again, there were always 30 people interested as well.   Aquahaus is going to be around 570 euro "warm rent" (420 euro "cold rent") but hopefully we can get a bit of a refund at the end of the year if we go easy on our water and heat.  At any rate, it was about 50 euro more each month than our hoped-for upper range.  **Shout out to the ex-pats:  How much are you paying for rent or for electricity?**

What pushed us to taking Aquahaus (other than the fact that it was an actual OFFER) was the fact that the kitchen (minus fridge) came with the apartment so we wouldn't have to buy a stove/oven, sink, and cabinets on top of all our furniture and household necessities (yes, that's a common thing--needing to buy a kitchen).  Also, it's a rather large kitchen comparative to the others we've seen, so we'll have space to bake and cook--which is sort of a hobby and cost-cutter for us.

Blah blah blah budgeting stuff blah blah.  I'm totally into talking money, but I realize it probably gets boring to most people.  I should pace myself.

What I'm REALLY saying is that Aquahaus is going to cost us more than what some other apartments would cost us (if we could ever even have a chance to get one).

BUT

We're going to be RICHER in so many other things:

Like in the fact that we'll be living in the oldest part of the city
(This is our immediate neighborhood).  And it's a quiet part of town, unlike
the cheaper, though more crowded, closer to work student district.

We'll live within the remnants of the
original medieval wall--and see it every day

The largest outdoor market is a five minute walk away--along
with the Marienkirche (St. Mary's Church) and all her
beautiful organ concerts.

And this will be our commute--down the historic
street of the Kroppeliner Gate (one of the original city gates)

Instead of walking 30 minutes to "experience" this beautiful part of the city, it will be our home for the next two years.  I think that's worth a fee and 50 extra euro a month, don't you?