We Did It!

We signed a lease on Tuesday! Hooray! It's not quite finished, because we have to go meet with the management company to pay the deposit and then we meet with the housekeeper to get the keys and such, but fingers-crossed we did it! We're lucky enough to have had 2 choices of apartments with people that wanted us to sign. We picked the one that's a little bigger, has better storage, and is less expensive. The other choice was brand new, near a great park, and higher end. We'll let everyone know the address once we've moved in, hopefully the first week of December. This all depends on when our container is here and available for delivery. As of yesterday it's supposed to arrive on the 27th so hopefully we can get it delivered on the 4th!

Next hurdle is figuring out internet, cat sitter for Christmas, washing machine, living room furniture, etc. I walked around IKEA for a few hours yesterday being inspired but we'll need to wait to order things until we get a better sense of the space and what we're missing. This is especially true of the kitchen as it's small but there's a perfect space for some kind of island.

We've had some cooler weather the past few days with more rain and wind. It rains everyday but not all day. As I type there's rain lashing the windows and wind howling outside. Nothing we can't handle though! I start my German class on Tuesday! Yikes. In the meantime I'm off to Amsterdam for Campsterdam 2015!! Ruby is flying home from Africa with an overnight in Amsterdam so Kate and I are going today for some extra touring time and Dag and Ruby will join us on Saturday for one night! Can't wait to see the city and it will be so nice to spend time with some of my closest friends!

Construction of a Christmas Market outside the town hall.

The Christmas markets might be open by the time I get back to Hamburg and the weather is supposed to turn colder and stay that way soon so it'll be perfect timing for Glühwein! :)

The Thrill of the Chase

Town Hall in Bremen

It's apartment hunting season folks. I'm in the thick of it, but we might see the light at the end of the tunnel! But first I'll recap the past week starting with the weekend. We had the pleasure of Damien's company again last weekend, and the 3 of us went west to Bremen to visit another friend from uni, Louis. Louis has been living and working in Germany for like 9 years or something! He also works on green energy (so does Damien) and speaks at least 4 languages. He and his soon to be wife have 2 kids and the oldest speaks German and French interchangeably so it was quite funny/difficult to talk with her.

Bad candid photo of the 3 men.

We walked around the the green space near the river for most of the afternoon, stopping for beer and sausage to go along the way. We ended up in the old part of town as it was starting to get dark. The parts of Bremen that are just outside the center aren't very nice but all the green space and the historic center were quite incredible. Louis explained that there's so much green space because it's flood plains for the river and there are laws that it's illegal to build housing in those areas.

Sunset in Bremen.

Small alleys in the old part of town - I wish this existed in Hamburg!

"If you're not going to ride your bike, I will." 

 We took the late train home and finally got to sleep around 1am. Sunday was a lazy day. We cleaned the whole apartment in the morning then went exploring in the afternoon. We walked the Old Elbe Tunnel from north to south and hoped to take a boat back north but the boats don't run on the weekend. Oops! We did a lot more exploring of the shipyards and huge chemical/oil plants than we expected. We called it the "Behind the Scenes" tour of Hamburg. :)

We took the S-Bahn back into the city and had sushi for dinner in St. Pauli. The restaurant was ok, very modern/hip and the food was good but the sushi was very complicated. We happened to walk right past the DOM on our way home so we went in and walked around the loop.

The DOM is in Hamburg 3 times per year for a month at a time. We just so happen to be living about 3 blocks away right now and can see the ferris wheel from our apartment. It was really busy and full of people and food. There were tons of stands selling sausage, sweets (donuts, candy, gingerbread cookies, fruit dipped in chocolate), beer and Glühwein. Mixed in between all the food were lots of typical games and rides. For each ride though there was a person in charge of narrating the ride and selecting music. It was quite funny and I could not imagine being the person who had to pump everyone up for the same ride over and over again. It's quite the experience and I think it's great timing that we arrived just before the DOM did and that we're so close because we might not have gone otherwise.

Pickle stand! Only in Germany...

Some of the sights at the DOM.

Monday came too soon and also marked the beginning of our apartment viewings. We saw 2 places on Monday, one that we moved forward with and the other we did not. The place we moved forward with is brand new, very nice, but also small and at the top of our price range. We saw 3 more places on last night, all of which we really liked. We also heard in the morning that we got the new apartment we applied for so now we're trying to get a 2nd one before we lose the first. It's all such a game and a roller coaster. I think it's kind of fun to look at all the ads, then you get the rush when you find one you like, apply to see it in person and wait to see if you'll hear back. If you do hear back, it's exciting to think about what it'll be like in real life, but it's also important to not get one's hopes up too high! It's kind of like dating in a way, but this time I'm reliant on Google Translate and Chrome auto-translating web pages into English and asking everyone on the phone, "Sprechen Sie English bitte?" So I think we'll have an apartment by the end of today - hopefully!

Some random things I'm missing a lot but I know are coming in our container: pepper mill, Kosher salt, frying pans, my bike.

Some things I won't miss about the temporary apartment: open tub with now shower curtain and no place to hang the shower head, creaky floors, limited kitchen stuff, mini fridge.

Some things I'm loving about Germany: double beds all have 2 twin comforters which at first I thought was weird but in practice is brilliant!, kids are almost always dressed in a one piece rain suit so they can play outside in all weather - also brilliant, everywhere we've been so far is so bike friendly, everyone I've encountered is very friendly.

Some things I don't understand/don't like about Germany: there's no salted butter (!-buying kilos in France when we go for Christmas), so much smoking, lots of people on the subway drinking beer, no one drinks tap water.

What a Week!

So here we are, one week in. It's been quite a busy, exciting, frustrating, and fun week. From where I left off last time, we did do a bus+boat tour on Friday. We really like and recommend bus tours when new to a city because it's the easiest way to get acquainted and see a lots of different areas and how they fit together. This tour was good and the guide did most of it in English and the parts he only said in German Benoit could interpret for me. After the bus we had lunch at an "imbiss" which are ubiquitous fast food snack bars located throughout the city (and country). We both had mini fish sandwiches and a beer, though I had cooked fish and Benoit had marinated herring filet that he's been talking about for weeks.

Fried Fischbrötchen and Matjes Brötchen (little bread/roll) from the imbiss.

 The boat tour was an add-on bundle and really interesting though by the afternoon it turned cold, cloudy, and very windy. The boat tour was also only in German and Benoit could not hear much so we mostly just looked at things. Afterwards we were quite cold from the 2 hour open air boat tour so we stopped by a coffee shop for some Kasekuchen and lemon cake with coffee. They also had incredible looking gelato!

Some random photos from the rest of the afternoon:

Frozen Turkey! 

Post woman's bike! So cool the Germans deliver mail by bike.

Saturday morning started with a trip to a small but incredible outdoor market close to where we're staying. We bought veggies, meat, cheese, fish, and fruit! I loved how the mushrooms were packaged for us:

Benoit bought these by the "handful." He asked the vendor how to say, "I'd like a handful of mushrooms" and she said, "das hand-full!"  

We bought some things to make a chicken soup and also for lunch because we had a special guest! Benoit's friend Damien from uni was in town for the weekend with work so we got to see him Saturday and Sunday! Here's the 3 of us close to our apartment.

Damien, me, Benoit

 After lunch we walked around the city and headed west to check out Altona and Ottensen which are neighborhoods we're thinking about living in.

The street in St. Pauli red light district where women are not allowed.

 Saturday night we went to a Halloween party put on by one of Benoit's colleagues. We saw lots of kids out and about trick -or- treating and we were both really surprised by how into Halloween folks are here. Sunday we were lucky enough to get to go on a road trip with Damien North East to the Baltic Sea and to Lübeck. Our first stop was a beautiful little beach town on the Baltic Sea, Timmendorfer Strand.

Lunch was more Matjets for 2 of 3 of us, I'll let you guess who didn't eat it. :) 

Fall exists in Germany! Not as vibrant as NE but still pretty good!

 After lunch we headed to Lübeck where Damien left us and he continued on to his next location. Benoit and I walked around the downtown for a few hours before taking the train back to Hamburg. Some photos of Lübeck, a beautiful city that we will be returning to, plus it's only 45 mins on the train!

"Texas has nothing on Germany." - Benoit

Monday was Benoit's first day back to work but we went to register with the government first thing. Benoit's HR woman met us at the "Welcome Center" to help us which was really nice because a new rule went into effect that morning so we were all a little unsure if we'd be able to register. Everything turned out in the end and I have an appointment to go back in January to register myself for permanent residency because I'm not a EU citizen. Benoit enjoyed his first few days back and I've been getting back in my "housewife" mode. There's still lots of paperwork to do and apartment searching as well. I've been leaving the apartment and talking to people in German everyday so it's getting less nerve racking to buy bread, but I still feel really lost sometimes. My language class starts in 2.5 weeks and it feels so far away. Hopefully time will fly by and while I'm at class I bet I wished that I wasn't. ha. It was much colder this week than last and really really foggy for 2 days - more so than SF which surprised us. We're both on the look-out for winter coats, hats, gloves, and Benoit might even go for a scarf. To end on a high note, I was running an errand at the main train station yesterday and look what I found!?

The pride of Eastern MA in Hamburg, Germany!

Hallo from Hamburg!

Well, we made it! We've been in HH for about 2 days and things are going really well. The flights were better than expected in some ways in worse in others. Better because we got rows on both planes to ourselves and they passed quickly and worse because the cat was less happy than when we fly from CA to MA. This was our fault though and one we won't repeat: if the cat is trying to dig her way out for hours, check to make sure she hasn't gone to the bathroom 2x in her carrier. Her nose was raw from rubbing it against the mesh. :( On an up note though, she is settling in much better than in Natick. She's not really hid much and seems to like exploring. She's still startled by noises and the water heater in the bathroom is one of the worst.

Benoit has been busy fixing the apartment we're living in for the month of November. We've done some grocery shopping and cooking and are both amazed and excited that food is much less expensive than SF and the US in general. We've only made 2 mistakes so far in not reading labels - I bought margarine and Benoit bought stabilized heavy cream that's really bad. We were running around ALDI grabbing things yesterday. Schade!

Fleischwurst and Leberwurst

Today we walked around downtown running errands and visiting the Yelp office to pick up boxes we shipped there. We'll do a bus/boat tour tomorrow and then maybe a Halloween party on Saturday!

Halloween exists here! 

Some things I've noticed about Hamburg/Germany:

• There's almost nothing but American music on pop radio here - they're playing the new Adele that was released a week ago in the US.
• Most people really do speak English
• I know almost no useful German :/
• The weather has been better than expected but I know it'll get cold and rainy.
• Lots and lots of cyclists and I'm sure I'll get yelled at soon for walking in the bike lanes/not looking for bikes when walking. Fingers crossed I don't get hit! And that I can manage when our bikes do arrive.
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  Some random photos from the day on Thursday:
  

  
  

  One of the canals - very still morning with sun!

  
  

  

  Lower Alster lake with fountain.

  

  Lower Alster lake.

  
  

  

  City hall.

  
  

  

  American store with Stonewall Kitchen - photo for the mom's!

  
  

  

  Weinerschnitzel and duck - lunch on Thursday!

  

  Beer with lunch!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Things are Getting Real

Phew. Ok, so we just came through a really busy week. I think it will continue to roll with ups and downs going forward. The busy week came from a confirmation on the moving date from SF. That meant that we could buy flights from SFO->BOS. We also purchased our flights from BOS->HAM and while I was at it planned a multi-stop East coast trip in October to NYC and DC.

We leave SF for "good" (for now anyway, we have no idea what the future holds) on Tuesday September 29th on the red eye. The cat is so excited, let me tell you! Now I'm looking at that date and counting back to make sure we fit in everything else we need to do before then.

Things that are moving forward well:

• all plane tickets have been purchased + cat on board confirmed
• selling of items is moving along 
• opening new bank accounts and moving money around
• informed landlady we were moving out and she thinks it's exciting

Things that have not been moving forward:

• still in process of getting the car title from MA (shakes fist at RFCU and MA RMV)
• learned a lot about how to get a cat to Europe and found out she had fleas and herpes on the way
• no one wants us for a month with a cat in Hamburg :( - we need one month of temporary housing while apartment searching
• moving company is still not being good about communicating

Big things for us coming up are Outside Lands this weekend, I'm having my Lasik re-done in one eye next week and then Alaska in about 2 weeks! Holy cow. Maybe I'll have some photos to share instead of just words! 

Here's a cute photo just because:

T'is the season for spreadsheets, Ebay, and Craigslist!

You know things are getting real because we have at least 3 spreadsheets going! One prioritizing the to-do list, one for selling things, and one for the insurance list. Big priorities have been broken into the following categories:

• Financial
• closing US accounts and opening accounts that will work abroad
• making sure tax stuff is ok
• Housing
• notifying current landlord, making sure current apt is move-out ready
• finding temporary housing in DE
• Moving
• working with movers on dates and times
• building inventory for insurance
• filling out all paperwork - oh so much paperwork!
• Cat
• making sure we have documents as needed, or appointments in the future for pre-travel health certificates
• coordinating cat supplies in MA and then in DE
• taking the cat on some car trips to get her a little bit used to travel
• Travel
• book flights SFO-BOS
• book flights BOS-HAM
• plan October vacations
• "Things and Stuff"
• Go through room by room: move to DE, sell, donate
• clean, photograph, and post all things we're selling, including the car - anyone want to buy our car!? 

Those are the big things. There's more on the spreadsheet! :) We're also thinking about what we want to do before leaving SF. Benoit's main goal is to eat as much Asian food as possible. Not sure what mine are yet. We're also trying to remain calm and positive about this endeavor. My mantra is "it will suck but it will be worth it." 

Phoenix Time?

I'm considering resurrecting this to chronicle our next move. So many moving pieces (no pun intended) that it might be nice to have a record in the future.