New Acquisition

It seemed appropriate...

(Also, only 7 euro --including the frame!--)

(Also, with a gift card)

(Also, score!)

So. Many. Houseplants.

Paul, After a Night of Social Excitement (read: Introvert's Exhaustion)

Our party was flappin' fantastic.

The final stragglers, around 11:30.  We're party animals like that.

Big thanks to all twenty-five people who smooshed into our living room and kitchen to chat with a whole bunch of people from everywhere around the world and take guided tours to our teal bathroom.
 

One of....six....(yeup, I just counted) substantially sized
houseplants now gracing our window sills.

And huge thanks to everyone for the houseplants and cutlery and gift certificates and candles and the cupcakes and the Pakistani fritter things and the pringles (I don't know who brought them, but bless you) and the cinnamon rolls and that fancy bottle of Hungarian dessert wine (thank you, Hungarians); the pistachios, the philo-dough feta things (thank you French people), the cookies, the people who were brave enough to try my Reuben sandwich cracker dip--thanks to you!  

WE'RE GONNA PLAY BINGO so RAISE THE ROOF!

 And thank you friendly next-door neighbors and "Tilo from the Roof" for dropping by and taking it in stride when a very excitable American accosted you saying, "Wanna play BINGO**?!  There are PRIZES!"

And thank you everybody for adding to our sticky-note map of Germany!  It looks awesome--all covered with your tourism suggestions.  And thank you, Roman and Geraldine, for leaving sticky-notes in other random places that we keep finding (Okay!  Okay!  You've convinced us to go to Marseilles!).

It was seriously, seriously so incredibly fun to have you all over.  Please come by again soon! 



**Not a chance that I actually "hand calligraphied" the Bingo game.  But I did find a cheap version at the "euro store" in the city center.  I also learned that Bingo is pretty much the most popular game ever in Pakistan--where it's called Tambola  (TAMBOLA!  Way more fun to yell.)    I also learned that Bingo is pretty much the best game to have when you have 25+ people in your house sitting on your floor.  Also, the best prizes are rainbow cellophane tape and body scrub.   And mars bars, but that's a given.

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.

Nanu Nanu.

Don't worry, it will make sense soon...

After about a month of waiting "till the conditions were right," Paul brought home three fishes to our little aqua-aquarium.

I told Paul that the aqua-rium was all his to go crazy with, but I asked him if I could claim a single fish as my own and I wanted an algae-sucker.  Algae-suckers are rad.

So I came home today to my first pet in a very, very long time.  Paul bought one algae-sucker (which is, at present, sucking contentedly on a rock immediately to my right) and two honey-colored gourami buddies.

I want to name my algae-sucker.  These are my ideas so far:

Herma (Short for Hermaphrodite, since we don't know if it's male or female)
Kuh (say it like "coo."  It means cow in German, since that's what it is pretty much.)
Herma-Kuh
Spazz (since it spent 20 minutes having what looked like fish-seizures when we first put it in the tank...I'm worried.  And yes, it has to be Spazz with two z's.  It's my vision.)


That's all I got so far.  I think I've lost every shred of creativity I ever had.

Paul doesn't think he'll name his two gouramis (because he thinks that if you name a pet, then it dies.  I think that if you name a pet it dies because all pets die...but maybe he's right.  I don't know.  Never tried not naming a pet).  As for me, in my head I've started thinking of them as "Mork and Mindy."  I don't even know why and it's completely out of my control now.  Just popped into my head.

Remember that show, Mork and Mindy on Nick at Night!?  How weird was that show, right?  Robin Williams as an alien that comes out of an egg-shaped spaceship?  I don't even remember anything about Mindy because my brain still can't get over the egg-ship.

We All Know Why You're Here

"So chic.  So mod.  So...Aqua."

You keep coming back, waiting to see more pictures of The Handsome.

Especially the final prints from the time we did our traditional "New Apartment Abercrombie-Style Photo Shoot" for Aquahaus.

It's only our second time doing the traditional New Apartment shoot.  The first time was Windy Corner in Coos Bay, where the creative theme was "brown." Which...wasn't so creative.  My muses were stifled!

First Traditional New Apartment Shoot (2008)
Blerrrrg Brown

But in Aquahaus, we transcended the banal.  We discovered the magnificence of art.  We captured the essence of...Aquaaaaaaahhhhh.

And Paul's totally going to freak out that I put that last picture in here.  But just remember!  I'm your Treasure Mouse, okay?
  

Back to Work

It's back to (real) work for both of us this week.  I say that because Paul had to work part-time all last week too.  He's a trooper.  A barnacle-nurturing trooper.

I woke up this morning in a panic because I realized that after spending a week completely in vacation-land, I have half a German workbook to complete, a Master's course to start, another German project to start and finish, an English lesson to plan, and a GIS freelance contract to wrap up all before Wednesday.

Huh.  That should be fun.

But aaaanyway, check out these aqua-vases I found for 3 euro.  I got them because there are tulips for sale in the street markets.  I think the purchasing process for vases and flowers is usually the other way around...

That's how we roll in the eastern hemisphere.

It's Paul's New Year's Present to Me!

I'm so happy.**

We plan on putting many more black dot stickers on this puppy by the time 2013 rolls around.

**Points for movie quote identification.

Last Night at the Aquahaus

Mystery Solved

I heard there was some controversy concerning the identity of a certain strangely shaped present pictured behind us in the Elegant, Classy Christmas Card we made.

Mystery solved.

It wasn't an ironing board or a slide, though extra bonus points to the slide guess.

But, here's the thing.  When you have nine-feet-high ceilings and you've managed to set off the smoke detectors a couple times...you realize that Santa needs to bring you a ladder ASAP.

So thank you, Weihnachtsman (Christmas Man).**  You did us good this year.

** Santa doesn't actually have a name here.  He's just "The Christmas Man."  

I think it sounds kiiiiiind of like a serial killer name.  Probably because one time I was walking home in the dark (it's dark at 3:30pm) and heard a creepy-sounding children's chorus wafting around the old city streets singing what loosely translated as, "He's coming, he's coooooming....the Christmas Maaaaaaaan is coooooming to seeeee youuuuuuuu."

Straight out of a B-movie horror film.  Am I right?

What should we call it?!

Camelioned!

Did I tell you about THE WALL yet?  Because...this wall is serious business.  It's not even made out of...wall...stuff.  It's big.  It's orange.  It's shiny.  It's...like...ceramic?

Don't hate me because I have an orange wall.  Or because I'm beautiful (because who wouldn't be standing next to The Wall?)

Having a giant orange ceramic wall really sets all your creativity free, you know.  Wait till you see what we did with this thing.

But, you're going to have to wait a bit longer because our internets are weird again.  So, for now, you only get unedited, single-photo (albeit with hawt poses and sexy walls) posts right now.

Es tut mir leid (I'm sorry).

Turkey Teaser Trailer

And we totally took all of these pictures

We just picked up the keys to Aquahaus this morning, I still have lessons to plan for the week, Paul is trying to figure out electric and internet contracts, and we are going a little crazy over here getting ready to move during these next couple days.

I don't know when we will be able to really have reliable internet, but I didn't want to leave anyone hanging (or maybe I kind of want to leave you hanging a little bit) so I thought I'd post a couple pictures to keep you interested.

A couple of our adventures in the land of sheep intestine sandwiches and ancient history (clockwise from top left)--Basilica Cistern, Spice Bazaar, Blue Mosque at night, Topkapi Palace.

Adventures in Survival

At this moment on a Saturday morning, I'm be-hoodied and be-blanketed, sitting on our double-mattressed bed with a hot cup of pfeffermintz tea (I'll never be able to say "peppermint" again).  You may be wondering why I'm sitting here still rather than up and about the house doing Saturday things like, perhaps, watching my new favorite, "My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic" (German edition), on television?*

Well, it's mostly because our bedroom still has remnants of body heat and I'm conserving every bit of it while I can.

Because our heater and our hot water have stopped working.  Actually, it's been spotty for a month now, but this week has been the first time both have been off simultaneously.

Previously, our maintenance requests looked like, "Ohhhh...our heater hasn't been working for three weeks, but it's been okay so far.  Whenever you have a chance to look at it, let us knowwww.  Hugs and kisses.  Don't hate us."

But, after the hot water disappeared a couple days ago, we upped it to something really confrontational (for us), which looks more like, "Um.  No hot water?  No heat?  Please help us.  We die.  You should know that if this lasts for longer than two days we might start disliking you strongly."

There was actually even a day when the heater, the hot water, and the internet weren't working, but that is a dark time no one speaks about.

So, thank you to the Meldrums, for giving us an excuse to vacate our little weekend icebox and go to Berlin tomorrow.  A person can only spend so much time hunkered down in a bedroom before they start going a little crazy...



*  I'm only being weakly sarcastic about this.  I've actually gotten really tired of the only English television (24-hour CNN or BBC news), and any television for German adults is just too confusing, fast, and they, like, assume you understand words?  So, when I get bored enough for television, I go looking for kid's shows.  I highly recommend this if you want to learn a language from scratch.

In fact, I'll even give you a mini-review!  So, here are the best shows to watch if you actually want to try and learn some words:

Dora the Explorer
Sesame Street (Sesamstrasse, hah!  I love that.)

Here are the best shows to watch because you understand what the story is even if you can't understand all the words:

My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic (I realize I could just say "My Little Ponies"...but the full title makes me laugh every time)
Spongebob Squarepants
Phineas and Ferb

Also, I'm just going to write a whole new post about German television watching now that I think about it.

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.




******************************

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?!).

****************************

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?

The Doors of Borwinstrasse

Well hello everyone.  Turns out that I made it and the Hunn Invasion is now at full force.

I made it all the way across America's loneliest road and all the way through an incredibly fun week for my sister's wedding and all the way into the eastern hemisphere.  I made it all the way to Germany!

I know there's a lot to say.

But for now, since I have to go traipse about town with Paul in about ten minutes looking at another apartment, I'm bringing you a few of the doors of Borwinstrasse (Bor-Vin-Strah-Suh), or Borwin Street.

Can you see me reflected in one ?

We're living here on Borwinstrasse right now, down the street from the Church of the Holy Spirit.

The Church of the Holy Spirit on Borwinstrasse...
and my knitted traveling gnome (thanks South Slough co-workers!)

My first morning in Germany I woke up hearing church bells.  It was a rather nice way to wake up, next to Paul, up in our little garret, hearing church bells, half of my body stuck in between our mattresses**, and me thinking/mumbling WHERE AM I WHERE AM I WHERE AM I!!!!!?????


Those first two seconds were a little stressful and panicked.  But since then, Germany has been treating me pretty well.  I've already taught two English classes to varying success (more on this later).  Yesterday I enrolled in the university's German as a Second Language course (more on this later).  I've been to the foreigner's office to get my "Don't Deport Me, I'm Perfectly Legal" card.  I've even opened a bank account (more on these things later)!

All in all, it's been a pretty great week here on Borwinstrasse.   Wish you were here!


**So, it's pretty much impossible to find a queen or even a full-sized mattress here.  Instead, what happens is you buy a queen-sized bed frame and then put two twin-sized mattresses on and wedged into it, next to each other.  This can lead to a sort of "Black crack of Calcutta" problem when you somehow manage to wedge half your body down between the mattresses during the night.

Bad News and Good News

Bad News:

The owner of Peptohaus decided to let the apartment to a friend.  mumble mumble nepotism mumble...

Good News:

We won't have to live in a pink, boxy building?

Second Good News:  

We will be able to stay in a temporary (albeit expensive) furnished dorm apartment till another option opens up...somewhere... sometime.



I'm starting to think that Rostock is a city without any housing anywhere, ever, at all.  I'm going to shuffle over to my window now, stare longingly over the landscape and start singing some West Side Story tuneage~~

 ::trembing voice::

"There's....a....plaaaaaaaace for uuuusssss.  Somewhere...a...plaaaaaaace for usssssss."

The Allure of PeptoHaus

Das PeptoHaus

Today I met up with Paul on video chat at the usual hour, knowing that I would be getting my daily Apartment Hunt Briefing.  Right off the bat, Paul sent me an e-mail with this picture of the apartment he visited today with the caption, "Isn't it pretty?"

I just laughed right out loud and said, "Not on your life or my life or our nonexistent dog's life are we going to live in a Pepto-colored building for two years."  Because, you know, I thought he was being sarcastic with the photo caption.  Actually, he probably was being sarcastic because, you have to admit, this is probably the most frightening building facade you or I have ever seen on the planet.

Across the Pond: Apartment Hunting

Petrikirche.  Tallest. Tower. Ever.

Paul arrived in Rostock last Friday and, like a real estate warrior, has pitched himself into the battle of finding us an apartment.

There's one apartment he's checking out on Monday and he went on a walk to scout the area.  It's in the oldest part of the city--which, meh, I guess I could get used to.

Hah!  Just kidding.  It's totally awesome!

Old city (altstaadt) street and potential neighborhood

There are a few less expensive apartments closer to the Institute in the "new city" (aka things built between 1750 and 1900) and so we'll probably end up over there.  Don't get me wrong--the New City is preeeetty awesome in it's own right and I would not complain if we ended up there at all.

 But if this apartment is as awesome as it's sounding (top floor, lots of windows, about €550 per month) then who knows?  It's a 30 minute walk, but I don't think I'd mind a 30 minute walk through the altstaadt (old city) any day.   Even if we don't take this apartment (we could totally save a hundred or so Euro each month in the other area after all), I think this area will be one of our favorite places to go and just "experience."  Viva cobblestones!