Last week, in a valiant effort to find housing, Hubbalicious and I embarked upon a marathon of apartment viewings that would bring any sane person to the edge of reason (and DID, in fact take two otherwise sane persons to that particular locale). In the span of two days, we saw no less than 15 apartments. We crossed the center of Stuttgart a multitude of times. We circled blocks looking for parking. We took wrong turns. We shook realtors hands. We kept a wide smile on our faces as we tried to communicate our opinions to each other using only our eyes and telekinesis. We found the absolute end of our house hunting rope.
We saw places that were on the fifth story of a walk-up building. We saw places which, we soon learned, COULD be magically transformed from an office into an apartment, for the price of a kitchen and a shower installation. We saw one BEAUTIFUL place … which would have required an additional move in cost of 10-15k Euro, to “buy” the kitchen from the previous tenant (other than that, it was pretty darn perfect). We saw one place that had the master bathroom (save the toilet) in the bedroom itself, in a modern effort to be cutting edge….
The process of apartment viewing goes something like this: I get up early and start scanning a few trusted websites – alternating between the sites and a translation site to figure out what I’m reading. I’m getting a little better at German – I’ve learned the words for “rent” “room” and “kitchen”. Once I find a place that looks good – I toggle over to Google Maps to see if I can figure out the neighborhood it’s in and whether that is a place we’re targeting.
Once that’s done, I either call the number on the real estate web page and hope the person who answers speaks English, or I send an email via the automated tool on the site. The phone call is nice because I get usually instant gratification in the form of a viewing appointment. The automated tool is good because it emails me a copy of the message I’ve sent, and attaches a link to the ad – which I am usually frantically searching for, when the realtor calls me back to set up an appointment.
I usually try to get the realtor to share the address with me as soon as possible. This allows us to execute a “drive-by” to make sure that: 1) I read the map correctly and that the neighborhood is the desired proximity to city center (where the mass of shops and restaurants and main train station all sit), 2) that the neighborhood itself has a few shops and restaurants where we can be part of a small community and 3) that the building is well represented in the ad. If these criteria aren’t met, I can call and cancel the viewing appointment – but usually we go anyways to see what we can learn. In some cases the realtor doesn’t get back to us quickly or the address isn’t disclosed – and then we adapt what we like to call “stalking behavior”.
Armed with a few photos from the ad, and perhaps a floor plan, we’ll skulk around these neighborhoods, in search of the advertised apartment. One of us (names withheld to protect the innocent) is even bold enough to sneak into an apartment lobby behind a resident, or creep between the buildings to see if the tree shown through the window in one of the photos is indeed in this back yard. Am I proud of this (okay, yeah, it’s definitely me)? A little bit – I’m sleuthy like that! But, I also get that it’s not appropriate behavior and one that isn't necessarily going to ingratiate us to any future neighbors.
Hubbz and I stalked an apartment early in this process and fell utterly in love with it. The street is sweet and quiet and tree lined. The building is old and well cared for. There is a bakery on the corner where we can go for Sunday coffee and rolls. There is a hair salon on the next block that looked like a place I might be able to trust for a cut and color in a foreign land. The photos and floor plan in the ad look like they fit all of our criteria….but the realtor – well, he’s not really quick to return our calls.
We keep looking at GREAT places – but none of them have had the cumulative points that this one does. We have a serious, unrealistic crush on this apartment. It makes us yearn, and moan in the anguish of a probable unrequited love. It makes us giggly and sparkly when we let ourselves hope and plan for how we’d arrange furniture or where we’d have dinner. Most importantly, it makes us let other, perfectly good, apartments, sit vulnerable to capture by someone else in the hopes that perhaps we will capture the heart of this landlord, this realtor and fulfill our city living dreams. It is downright embarrassing how we pine for this little place, despite the fact that we haven’t even been inside to see yet!!! It’s seriously a case of “I don’t know you, but I love you”. Until now….
This week, I am on a business trip – and, wouldn’t you know it, that illusive realtor called and offered a viewing for this weekend. So, Hubbz, armed with a cell phone, a digital camera, and all of my faith in his decision making skills, went to tour the inside of the Holy Grail Apartment.
The good news is, we were right – it’s a great place and we’d love to live there. The bad news is – the guy who showed it to Hubbz is not yet authorized to represent it – and frankly, isn’t sure that the landlord wants to rent to Americans. So the realtor will speak to the landlord on our behalf. And we’ll continue the waiting game – the weighing-all-other-apartments-against-this-one game – until something gives. Keep your fingers crossed, my loved ones out in the blogosphere. Wish us luck!!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
HOUSE HUNTING
Our first stop in the house hunting process was the Base Off- Post Housing Office. They keep a listing of homes and apartments through a contracted property management company that works on base. They are so helpful – but, after a few property visits, we determined that there weren’t a lot of places on the list that we were interested in renting – and what good ones we found went really fast. At first we focused on the small (CUTE) towns near the base where Hubbalicious will be working. But after some consideration of what our lifestyle will be like (namely, me not working and wanting to be able to walk to shops and restaurants nearby), we’ve decided to focus our search on downtown Stuttgart.
Once you have looked at a few of the properties offered by the on-base housing company, you can ask for permission to use German realtors to help you in your search (realtors are a necessity with no single listing service for housing searches). The permission part is important because the realtors charge a fee and, without permission, that fee won’t be reimbursed by the base. So, Hubbz and I are now working with a multitude of realtors, searching for a place to live. It’s feast or famine when it comes to whether they will return our calls - and when they do, we’re rolling the dice on whether or not we can communicate!
Typical German apartments do not come equipped with KITCHENS (!?!), light fixtures or closets. Families move into apartments with their own sinks, cabinets, dishwashers, etc and use wardrobes for closets (And I always wondered why the Ikea catalog had these items so heavily featured). It’s a little surreal to walk into an apartment with an (always tiny) kitchen that consists of nothing but pipe fittings and wires for lighting sticking out from the walls! Small bedrooms feel a lot smaller when space is occupied by big wall units for hanging up your clothes.
The typical deposit for an apartment in Germany is 2-3 months rent. The realtor also gets a fee of 2-3 months rent upon move in. Thankfully (mercifully) the housing office will pay for the realtor and float us the deposit – else the move in cost would be about 10,000 Euro! We’re focusing on places that have kitchens included and lighting furnished. The Navy will pay our rent (up to a specific ceiling) and a stipend for utilities. As tenants, we will also pay any property taxes and co-op dues for our apartment, along with the garbage, electricity, water and cable we’re accustomed to paying for in the US.
We do our searches online, and then send emails to the realtors representing the properties to arrange a viewing. It’s slow going. Some realtors call within minutes of my email – others after a week! Housing is very expensive in Stuttgart, so few citizens actually own their homes. Many rent for decades. This makes people like Hubbz and I less attractive tenants. Further complicating our situation is that we require a different lease (provided by the Housing Office) which, among other things, allows us to give only 30 days notice to vacate (as opposed to the 90 days that German contracts require). So, we’re not exactly the prettiest girl at the prom when it comes to the tenant pool. But we’re keeping at it, and the places we’ve seen lately have all been good options – if not yet the Shangri-La we’re seeking :)
What does the perfect apartment look like? Well, for us, it will have 3 bedrooms (allowing space for an office and a guest room) and 2 bathrooms. By German standards, this is a palace! We would like to have in-apartment laundry (as opposed to basement laundry room) and reserved parking. Of course, we require a kitchen and light fixtures, unless the rent is low enough that we can work a deal in which a kitchen and lights were installed in exchange for a higher monthly rent. We’d like it to be an easy walk to restaurants and shops – and close to a train station.
The base will lend us any furniture we need, including wardrobe/closets, a washer and dryer, and an American sized refrigerator (German ones are about half the size of US versions). The trick seems to be finding a place with room for these items! We’ll get there…it’s only been 3 weeks :)
Once you have looked at a few of the properties offered by the on-base housing company, you can ask for permission to use German realtors to help you in your search (realtors are a necessity with no single listing service for housing searches). The permission part is important because the realtors charge a fee and, without permission, that fee won’t be reimbursed by the base. So, Hubbz and I are now working with a multitude of realtors, searching for a place to live. It’s feast or famine when it comes to whether they will return our calls - and when they do, we’re rolling the dice on whether or not we can communicate!
Typical German apartments do not come equipped with KITCHENS (!?!), light fixtures or closets. Families move into apartments with their own sinks, cabinets, dishwashers, etc and use wardrobes for closets (And I always wondered why the Ikea catalog had these items so heavily featured). It’s a little surreal to walk into an apartment with an (always tiny) kitchen that consists of nothing but pipe fittings and wires for lighting sticking out from the walls! Small bedrooms feel a lot smaller when space is occupied by big wall units for hanging up your clothes.
The typical deposit for an apartment in Germany is 2-3 months rent. The realtor also gets a fee of 2-3 months rent upon move in. Thankfully (mercifully) the housing office will pay for the realtor and float us the deposit – else the move in cost would be about 10,000 Euro! We’re focusing on places that have kitchens included and lighting furnished. The Navy will pay our rent (up to a specific ceiling) and a stipend for utilities. As tenants, we will also pay any property taxes and co-op dues for our apartment, along with the garbage, electricity, water and cable we’re accustomed to paying for in the US.
We do our searches online, and then send emails to the realtors representing the properties to arrange a viewing. It’s slow going. Some realtors call within minutes of my email – others after a week! Housing is very expensive in Stuttgart, so few citizens actually own their homes. Many rent for decades. This makes people like Hubbz and I less attractive tenants. Further complicating our situation is that we require a different lease (provided by the Housing Office) which, among other things, allows us to give only 30 days notice to vacate (as opposed to the 90 days that German contracts require). So, we’re not exactly the prettiest girl at the prom when it comes to the tenant pool. But we’re keeping at it, and the places we’ve seen lately have all been good options – if not yet the Shangri-La we’re seeking :)
What does the perfect apartment look like? Well, for us, it will have 3 bedrooms (allowing space for an office and a guest room) and 2 bathrooms. By German standards, this is a palace! We would like to have in-apartment laundry (as opposed to basement laundry room) and reserved parking. Of course, we require a kitchen and light fixtures, unless the rent is low enough that we can work a deal in which a kitchen and lights were installed in exchange for a higher monthly rent. We’d like it to be an easy walk to restaurants and shops – and close to a train station.
The base will lend us any furniture we need, including wardrobe/closets, a washer and dryer, and an American sized refrigerator (German ones are about half the size of US versions). The trick seems to be finding a place with room for these items! We’ll get there…it’s only been 3 weeks :)
THE SCRATCH HEARD ROUND THE WORLD
Last weekend, our two-week car rental came due. We called Avis to ask for an extension, but the cost they quoted us was more than two times the cost of the initial rental. No worries, we thought. We booked another car online for half the price and scheduled the pick up for the same time as the original car drop off. We book through the USAA website, which is automatically discounted 25% and covers the loss/damage coverage the rental companies offer. …or so we thought.
So we dropped off the rental and smugly handed over the keys…ready to trot off and retrieve the next rental car and commend ourselves on the hundreds of Euro we were saving by virtue of our quick thinking! When the check in clerk made his rounds to check out our car and pointed out a one inch scratch in the paint, below the left front headlight. Can you see it here?? Just above the gray plastic piece?
Seriously, this thing was a minor scratch…but they saw it and we were liable. The man ran off to the computer and did 3 minutes of research and came back with a report that indicated that the cost of repair would be….884 EURO!!! HUH?? Which of course, they wanted to charge our credit card for immediately! We nodded and reacted with calm surprise. We asked what the next steps would be, signed the slip admitting our responsibility for the scratch and shuffled toward the pick up desk, dragging our tails behind us.
We called USAA immediately after leaving the garage (if you don’t count the 10 minutes it took us to figure out that we needed to dial a “+1” before the US number) and explained the story. Turns out the USAA website link we used does NOT cover your deductable, but the major costs and liability, big whoop. So in actuality, the claim went directly to our car insurance, as it would have regardless of how we booked the car. Our hundreds of dollars of savings passed quickly before our eyes. Frankly had we bought a black sharpie and colored in the white plastic showing through the scratch, none of this would have happened.
Save the day – we realized that the credit card we used also had rental car coverage and it DOES cover the deductible. So, assuming the credit card insurance comes through, we’re back in business! The lady I spoke with today with the credit card insurance policy said that she had a call just yesterday where the German rental company found damage while SEARCHING UNDER A RENTAL CAR. Now this is a thorough culture!!! Let this be a lesson to you all – if you rent a black car, especially in Germany, buy a black sharpie and don’t be afraid to use it!
So we dropped off the rental and smugly handed over the keys…ready to trot off and retrieve the next rental car and commend ourselves on the hundreds of Euro we were saving by virtue of our quick thinking! When the check in clerk made his rounds to check out our car and pointed out a one inch scratch in the paint, below the left front headlight. Can you see it here?? Just above the gray plastic piece?
Seriously, this thing was a minor scratch…but they saw it and we were liable. The man ran off to the computer and did 3 minutes of research and came back with a report that indicated that the cost of repair would be….884 EURO!!! HUH?? Which of course, they wanted to charge our credit card for immediately! We nodded and reacted with calm surprise. We asked what the next steps would be, signed the slip admitting our responsibility for the scratch and shuffled toward the pick up desk, dragging our tails behind us.
We called USAA immediately after leaving the garage (if you don’t count the 10 minutes it took us to figure out that we needed to dial a “+1” before the US number) and explained the story. Turns out the USAA website link we used does NOT cover your deductable, but the major costs and liability, big whoop. So in actuality, the claim went directly to our car insurance, as it would have regardless of how we booked the car. Our hundreds of dollars of savings passed quickly before our eyes. Frankly had we bought a black sharpie and colored in the white plastic showing through the scratch, none of this would have happened.
Save the day – we realized that the credit card we used also had rental car coverage and it DOES cover the deductible. So, assuming the credit card insurance comes through, we’re back in business! The lady I spoke with today with the credit card insurance policy said that she had a call just yesterday where the German rental company found damage while SEARCHING UNDER A RENTAL CAR. Now this is a thorough culture!!! Let this be a lesson to you all – if you rent a black car, especially in Germany, buy a black sharpie and don’t be afraid to use it!
EATING IN GERMANY
Dear Friends, do you remember when you would ask me if I was excited about moving to Germany, and I replied with a shrug and said: “I’m excited about living in Europe. Germany is less exciting – I didn’t study Germanic based languages and I’m not a huge fan of German food or beer”. Does this sound familiar? The reason I remind you of this is simply to point out that I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. Strangely enough – after having visited Germany no less than 7 times before moving here – I had no idea how delicious eating can be here!! This is good and bad – good because Hubbz and I are enjoying our time here and having a “German” experience with gusto…bad because the party HAS to end soon. Soon is when my jeans get any tighter….and soon is just around the corner!!
In addition to the German foods we are learning about, we have discovered a multitude of Italian restaurants which are DELICIOUS and the wonderful world of Kebab that is spread throughout our neighborhoods. We are enjoying the heck out of what we once knew as schwarma or gyros – called “döner” here. YUM!
In addition to the German foods we are learning about, we have discovered a multitude of Italian restaurants which are DELICIOUS and the wonderful world of Kebab that is spread throughout our neighborhoods. We are enjoying the heck out of what we once knew as schwarma or gyros – called “döner” here. YUM!
DRIVER'S LICENSE:
As American residents, we can drive for about 30 days in Germany before we are required to have a German Driver’s License. There is an agreement between the German government and the US which allows us to procure a US FORCES German License. License procurement involves : 1- having a valid US license, 2-taking a Driver’s Ed Class (about 3 hours) and 3- taking a written test (in ENGLISH!) of about 100 questions.
Now, Hubbalicious has been the only driver of our rental car here in Germany. This was not our original plan (Avis, our go-to company, allows me equal permission to drive the car as a spouse without even being there to flash my license at the time of check-in). However, when we arrived, weary and ready for the freedom of the open road, the counter person at the German Avis counter informed us that, yes, of course I could drive…for the added cost of 17 EURO PER DAY. I smiled sweetly at my husband and said “Call me Miss Daisy”. BUT – this arrangement has given Hubbz a distinct advantage in the driver’s test arena. He’s been assimilating some of the signs and behaviors of German drivers, as I punch in GPS coordinates and try to find the German street sign we’re looking for to make the next turn. So when we started to read the study guide, answers came so naturally for him – and I was a series of shrugs and wrong answers…whoops!
How hard can it be, you might ask? Like the US, they drive on the right side of the road in Germany. The cars are built like US cars, save the speedometer being in Kilometers per Hour instead of Miles per Hour. All of this is true!! The driving itself, is not THAT different. The driver’s TEST, however, is another animal. It all boils down to three little words: Right of Way. Yep. There are some real strict rules about Right of Way – and the test really requires that you knuckle down and learn them. The test includes diagrams of three cars at four way stops, sometimes with horse drawn carriages, sometimes with traffic cops. And asks you… “In what order should these cars proceed?” Um…..huh?
The test included 75 questions about how many meters you can park from a cross walk (5), about the minimum speed on an Autobahn (60 kph) and how long your license will be suspended if anyone in your car doesn’t fasten their seat belt on base (one week for the first offense). It included about 7-10 diagrams (gulp) and 25 road signs that you match to their definition from a list they provide. (Sidebar, the road sign thing was harder than it sounds….consider the fact that in the US you’ve been looking at those signs for 16 years before you’re tested on them….).
Anyways – I was STRESSED about this test. No amount of studying seemed to help me try to cement these diagrams correctly in my brain. No amount of self-talk seemed to relieve the feelings of anxiety I had about taking this bloody test!! The fact that failure (which happened to about 25% of first time testers) meant only you had to re-take the test was somehow no comfort at all!! This demonstrated to me that I was letting anxiety triumph over logic – a bad sign in the world that exists in my head. I studied that practice test for a pretty solid 24 hours – but soon realized that I knew the answers due more to the fact that the question itself was familiar, than because I could confidently understand the scenarios in the diagrams. What ultimately saved my bacon was that 90% of the test questions were taken directly from the practice test. Hubbz passed with a 99/100 and I with a 97/100.
Apparently I was visibly anxious enough about the test that Hubbz skipped a prime gloating opportunity and refrained from celebrating his 2 point victory over me. He just smiled and hugged me and said “Good job Babe!!”. Yeah, he’s a keeper :)
Now, Hubbalicious has been the only driver of our rental car here in Germany. This was not our original plan (Avis, our go-to company, allows me equal permission to drive the car as a spouse without even being there to flash my license at the time of check-in). However, when we arrived, weary and ready for the freedom of the open road, the counter person at the German Avis counter informed us that, yes, of course I could drive…for the added cost of 17 EURO PER DAY. I smiled sweetly at my husband and said “Call me Miss Daisy”. BUT – this arrangement has given Hubbz a distinct advantage in the driver’s test arena. He’s been assimilating some of the signs and behaviors of German drivers, as I punch in GPS coordinates and try to find the German street sign we’re looking for to make the next turn. So when we started to read the study guide, answers came so naturally for him – and I was a series of shrugs and wrong answers…whoops!
How hard can it be, you might ask? Like the US, they drive on the right side of the road in Germany. The cars are built like US cars, save the speedometer being in Kilometers per Hour instead of Miles per Hour. All of this is true!! The driving itself, is not THAT different. The driver’s TEST, however, is another animal. It all boils down to three little words: Right of Way. Yep. There are some real strict rules about Right of Way – and the test really requires that you knuckle down and learn them. The test includes diagrams of three cars at four way stops, sometimes with horse drawn carriages, sometimes with traffic cops. And asks you… “In what order should these cars proceed?” Um…..huh?
The test included 75 questions about how many meters you can park from a cross walk (5), about the minimum speed on an Autobahn (60 kph) and how long your license will be suspended if anyone in your car doesn’t fasten their seat belt on base (one week for the first offense). It included about 7-10 diagrams (gulp) and 25 road signs that you match to their definition from a list they provide. (Sidebar, the road sign thing was harder than it sounds….consider the fact that in the US you’ve been looking at those signs for 16 years before you’re tested on them….).
Anyways – I was STRESSED about this test. No amount of studying seemed to help me try to cement these diagrams correctly in my brain. No amount of self-talk seemed to relieve the feelings of anxiety I had about taking this bloody test!! The fact that failure (which happened to about 25% of first time testers) meant only you had to re-take the test was somehow no comfort at all!! This demonstrated to me that I was letting anxiety triumph over logic – a bad sign in the world that exists in my head. I studied that practice test for a pretty solid 24 hours – but soon realized that I knew the answers due more to the fact that the question itself was familiar, than because I could confidently understand the scenarios in the diagrams. What ultimately saved my bacon was that 90% of the test questions were taken directly from the practice test. Hubbz passed with a 99/100 and I with a 97/100.
Apparently I was visibly anxious enough about the test that Hubbz skipped a prime gloating opportunity and refrained from celebrating his 2 point victory over me. He just smiled and hugged me and said “Good job Babe!!”. Yeah, he’s a keeper :)
On Base or Off Base?
House hunting here is full of new rules and experiences. Without the guidance of our base housing office, we would 1- have a hard time affording local housing and 2- have no idea what questions to ask when we were looking at potential places to live. Here’s what we have learned:
Our first concern when arriving in Stuttgart was whether or not we’d even be allowed to live off post. The literature we received back in VA stated that the housing office could insist that we live on base. On base housing consists of basically six apartments in three story buildings. They call them stairwells. The only stand alone houses are Flag Housing – and we’re never gonna qualify to live there! There are advantages to stairwells: They all have US and European power outlets. They are rent free and utility cost free – they come with cable, phone, power, etc… And have an English speaking office that you call when you are in need of a repairman, etc. The downside is that there are actually 4 bases in the USAG Stuttgart area –and the base they assign you to live is almost never the base where you work. Your neighbors are all Americans (which is nice for making friends, but not exactly the experience of living in Germany for some of us).
Hubbz and I arrived hoping to embrace the full “living in Germany” experience, and to live off post – but we had friends who arrived just 2 months before us, that were told that they had no choice and were assigned base housing. There were too many vacancies on post, and, frankly it’s waaaayyyy cheaper for the US government to house us on post than help us live in town. They were disappointed, but ultimately this is a good outcome for their family. They have young children and the husband will be deployed frequently from Stuttgart, so the support they will have from military neighbors and the ease of moving in immediately is/was valuable. They got a newly renovated place, which Hubbz and I saw last weekend. It is really nice and spacious and they have made a lovely home there!
By the time Hubbz and I arrived in Stuttgart, the rules had changed. The base has changed the rule to instruct all families with soldiers with ranks E7 and below to live on base. So, right now, we couldn’t live on base if we wanted to!! (which we don’t). So, now we’re in the midst of navigating German real estate. We’ve learned a lot so far – but have yet to find our holy grail of apartments.
Our first concern when arriving in Stuttgart was whether or not we’d even be allowed to live off post. The literature we received back in VA stated that the housing office could insist that we live on base. On base housing consists of basically six apartments in three story buildings. They call them stairwells. The only stand alone houses are Flag Housing – and we’re never gonna qualify to live there! There are advantages to stairwells: They all have US and European power outlets. They are rent free and utility cost free – they come with cable, phone, power, etc… And have an English speaking office that you call when you are in need of a repairman, etc. The downside is that there are actually 4 bases in the USAG Stuttgart area –and the base they assign you to live is almost never the base where you work. Your neighbors are all Americans (which is nice for making friends, but not exactly the experience of living in Germany for some of us).
Hubbz and I arrived hoping to embrace the full “living in Germany” experience, and to live off post – but we had friends who arrived just 2 months before us, that were told that they had no choice and were assigned base housing. There were too many vacancies on post, and, frankly it’s waaaayyyy cheaper for the US government to house us on post than help us live in town. They were disappointed, but ultimately this is a good outcome for their family. They have young children and the husband will be deployed frequently from Stuttgart, so the support they will have from military neighbors and the ease of moving in immediately is/was valuable. They got a newly renovated place, which Hubbz and I saw last weekend. It is really nice and spacious and they have made a lovely home there!
By the time Hubbz and I arrived in Stuttgart, the rules had changed. The base has changed the rule to instruct all families with soldiers with ranks E7 and below to live on base. So, right now, we couldn’t live on base if we wanted to!! (which we don’t). So, now we’re in the midst of navigating German real estate. We’ve learned a lot so far – but have yet to find our holy grail of apartments.
Hotel Living
Given that this is “moving season” for the Army (summertime has lower impact on school aged children) – the base is flooded with new and naïeve folks like us, bouncing around trying to figure out which way is up. This also means that the base temporary housing is full, so we were told pretty early in our moving preparations to find a place to stay in town. We were given a list of approved hotel options from the base from which to make our choice. There were many hotels – all unfamiliar to us in their city placement, and most new to us in their brand names. We contemplated a German brand with an Embassy Suites type set up – with a living space separated from the bedroom and microwave/fridge provided – thinking that the extra space may quell any frustrations of having to sleep/wake at the same time or not have any solitude whatsoever. However, ultimately we decided to rack up some hotel points with a US Chain that had American style beds and at least some guaranteed English channels on the tv.
The setup at our hotel, although not luxurious, is pretty great. We are close to the two bases that we frequent most regularly. Breakfast is included in our room rate, as is parking and internet for one laptop. We get 15% off of all of our meals purchased in the hotel (still dang pricey), and there is a “PCS Lounge” downstairs which has free sodas, a microwave, a big screen tv with the movie channels unscrambled, and a foosball table/toys for the kiddos - and a washer and dryer for our use (whoopee!!).
Laundry in Germany is an experience. Once you figure out how to use the machines (with all buttons and dial stops in German), you realize the following things:
1- The washer door locks as soon as you hit start, and won’t stop until the load is done….so DON’T drop a sock as you load the washer!!
2- German dryers are “condensation” dryers; which means there is no vent for the steam produced by the hot air on your wet clothes. So: it takes a long time for things to dry…I mean, like 2 hours….AND – when you pull the clothes out they are hot and damp so it takes a few minutes to determine whether they are actually dry or not. (Once they cool, the last bit of moisture evaporates to get them to the final dry stage). Opening the door and pulling the clothes out requires one to exercise a lot of caution…they are H-O-T. I’m talking “Hot Potato” hot. “Oven mitts would be good here” hot (Note to self: Perhaps a pair of Ove Gloves would be a good purchase for when I am doing laundry at home in the future).
The logic behind the condensation dryer makes sense – given that the buildings here are frequently a hundred years old. No vents were plumbed in 1910 apartments, and today’s citizens require the ability to do laundry in house. However – this process means that a load of laundry can take us 3 hours from washer to hanger – and that’s quite an investment of time. Add to that the added complication of there being one washer and dryer for use of all of the families using the PCS Lounge, and we’re spending 12 hour days attempting to do laundry each time – and not necessarily getting it all done.
Hotel living has its ups and downs. On one hand, it’s nice to have someone else making the bed each morning, and having breakfast immediately ready when we’re hungry in the morning is a definite luxury. The downside is that we’ve been eating out for every meal for pretty much a month now. This is impactfull on our waistlines despite our best efforts (If fabric could scream, you’d hear the cries from where you sit reading this now, I’m sure). But Hubbz’s new command has been amazing about giving him time to get settled here and find a place to live. So, really, we’re spending a ton of time together, and it feels a lot like a European vacation…with hot damp laundry :)
The setup at our hotel, although not luxurious, is pretty great. We are close to the two bases that we frequent most regularly. Breakfast is included in our room rate, as is parking and internet for one laptop. We get 15% off of all of our meals purchased in the hotel (still dang pricey), and there is a “PCS Lounge” downstairs which has free sodas, a microwave, a big screen tv with the movie channels unscrambled, and a foosball table/toys for the kiddos - and a washer and dryer for our use (whoopee!!).
Laundry in Germany is an experience. Once you figure out how to use the machines (with all buttons and dial stops in German), you realize the following things:
1- The washer door locks as soon as you hit start, and won’t stop until the load is done….so DON’T drop a sock as you load the washer!!
2- German dryers are “condensation” dryers; which means there is no vent for the steam produced by the hot air on your wet clothes. So: it takes a long time for things to dry…I mean, like 2 hours….AND – when you pull the clothes out they are hot and damp so it takes a few minutes to determine whether they are actually dry or not. (Once they cool, the last bit of moisture evaporates to get them to the final dry stage). Opening the door and pulling the clothes out requires one to exercise a lot of caution…they are H-O-T. I’m talking “Hot Potato” hot. “Oven mitts would be good here” hot (Note to self: Perhaps a pair of Ove Gloves would be a good purchase for when I am doing laundry at home in the future).
The logic behind the condensation dryer makes sense – given that the buildings here are frequently a hundred years old. No vents were plumbed in 1910 apartments, and today’s citizens require the ability to do laundry in house. However – this process means that a load of laundry can take us 3 hours from washer to hanger – and that’s quite an investment of time. Add to that the added complication of there being one washer and dryer for use of all of the families using the PCS Lounge, and we’re spending 12 hour days attempting to do laundry each time – and not necessarily getting it all done.
Hotel living has its ups and downs. On one hand, it’s nice to have someone else making the bed each morning, and having breakfast immediately ready when we’re hungry in the morning is a definite luxury. The downside is that we’ve been eating out for every meal for pretty much a month now. This is impactfull on our waistlines despite our best efforts (If fabric could scream, you’d hear the cries from where you sit reading this now, I’m sure). But Hubbz’s new command has been amazing about giving him time to get settled here and find a place to live. So, really, we’re spending a ton of time together, and it feels a lot like a European vacation…with hot damp laundry :)
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