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SEARCHING FOR OUR NEW HOUSE IN GERMANY
July 10th, 2002
By Stef
I obtained my drivers license today. The test was fairly difficult and driving is not an enjoyable experience. The autobahn is severely overrated. The Germans will drive right through you. They say that safety is the biggest priority, but that is a lie.
When you are traveling along a blind curve down a farm road barely wide enough for one car and the car coming from the other directions doesn't even brake or TRY to move over a little when he sees you, thus making you almost run off the road into a ditch, I'm thinking that is not very safety minded.
Thursday July 11,2002
We are in our second week here and our search for a house goes on. The Housing Office has been getting very impatient and somewhat nasty because we are turning down what they deem as "suitable" accommodations. The pressure is immense. I have taken to drinking coffee in the mornings to counteract the effects of my sleepless nights. It makes me agitated, and I imagine those around me speaking in a tongue I do not understand. I fear I may be going insane.
10:00 a.m.
They made us look at two places today. The first one seemed promising. It is in a tiny one street town. The apartment is above an old blacksmith's shop previously run by the landlord's father and connected by a barn to the house that the landlord lives in. (creating a "U" shape with a courtyard in the center). It is very rustic in an appealing sort of way.
There is a big garden behind the barn and the landlord's mother keeps chickens (for the pot, not the eggs). The apartment is pretty nice but there is no place for the kids to play other than the courtyard, which is littered with old farm implements and equipment; pitchforks, chains, etc. Definitely dangerous.
Plus they keep the barn doors open and I know that a dark, creepy looking, bat filled barn will prove too intriguing for my little adventurers.
1:00 p.m.
The second house is right in the town of Giebelstadt. It is row housing. We agree that it does not look too bad from the outside, but I think we are just trying to talk ourselves into liking it.
The previous tenants, a Major and his (German) wife were there for their final clearing inspection.
She said they hated the place. When they were done, she muttered things in German, while waving her hands about and then literally dancing out of the yard. Not a good sign. I think she cursed the place. We decided against it.
Now we must go back to the housing office and turn them both down. We are afraid. Very, very afraid.
3:00p.m.
We told them that we do not want either house. They smile benignly at us and tell us that there is nothing else available.
Then she quietly consults with another of the housing reps (did I mention they are all German?). When she returns she casually mentions that she has another house available, but it is 30 minute drive to Giebelstadt. She gives us the address so we can do a drive by.
4:15 p.m.
She is right. It is far away. And we cannot find it. We decide to go and visit Gordon's friend Glenn in a nearby town. He insists that we go back and look at the house and locates the street on a cyber map. We all pile into two cars and drive out there. We look at the outside of the house and peek in the windows. It is beautiful. There must be something wrong with it. We will arrange an appointment with the landlords to see it on Friday.
6:00 p.m.
We are going home now. Not to our home of course. We do not have one. We are now living in someone else's house. He is gone. They say he is on leave. But I wonder...
Friday, July 12, 2002
The house is unusual by German standards in that it is
A) a single family dwelling, B) has a yard, a fairly large one at that and 3) it is HUGE- roughly 2100 sq ft.
The kitchen is big, (again by German standards,) and is furnished which means it has cabinets. Not a lot but some. There is a pantry also. There are two big windows in the living room overlooking the town and fields (the house is perched on top of a hill), and two doors open off the living room to a large balcony. There is a dining room, small bedroom (with balcony), and a full bath on the same level.
Upstairs are three more bedrooms. One connects by a tiny balcony to a full bath, the other two rooms connect to each other by another balcony.
The basement has a large laundry room with hot and cold water hookup (yeah!- hot water for your wash is not the norm here) plus I think two storage rooms, one with wire shelving.
BUT WAIT!! That's not all! Simply go through the carport down the brick steps that run along the side of the house and you will find yourself in the backyard (which has not 1, not 2, but 3 patios).
Enter the doorway to your left and you will find yourself in a single bedroom apartment completely separate from the main house! It has a living area, full bath, storage cubicle that has hookups to be a kitchenette and a bedroom that is soon to be tastefully furnished with Army issue furniture!
So that's the deal. The house is completely landscaped, and we have a nice yard for the kids to play in, two trees to climb in, an orchard below us (that is off limits) and a huge empty field of grass in the lot next door. We are the last house at the top of a hill.
Another bonus (for the kids at least) is the ABUNDANCE of snails and gargantuan slugs that they think are delightfully gross.
So about the town- it has a huge Catholic church (that we will not attend, as Mass in German is even more boring for the kids), at least 4 Gasthaus' (restaurants) a couple backereis (bakeries) and at least one metzgerei (butcher). There is an elementary school and kindergarten too. What looks to be an appliance store and a toy or second hand store. The train station looks very dilapidated and scary, but this is very metropolitan for this area of Germany.
Anyway, our Army furniture should be delivered on July 25th and our household goods on the 26th. FYI, the Army has furniture that it will issue to use while we are here- sofa, chair, beds, dressers, wardrobes, etc. Most of it is very ugly to be sure, but since there are no closets or cabinets you need to store stuff somewhere!
I am still apprehensive about living so far from post, (yeah I know 13 miles) but there are no other Americans that we know of living there and that makes it very isolated for us non German speakers. Especially when Gordon is flying nights or deployed somewhere. And we have to pay for some things out of pocket as the Army only allots us so much money for housing.
The bad thing about that is we get paid in American dollars, but pay rent and bills in Euros and the rate has been dropping lately. About One Euro = $.97
But we do have a lot of space, and anyone who wishes to visit is welcome. We now have a place for you to stay that is totally separate from my three heathen children, so you will have complete privacy and no need for a hotel room. You just pay us instead. hahaha
Anyway, I will continue on with the story of the rest of our weekend.
Saturday July 13,2002
Firstly it rains all the time here. And it is not the rainy season yet. And its usually in the mid 60's. That is normal weather here. Our plans to visit Rothenberg (a medieval walled city close to here) were altered. We instead decided to visit the Festung Marienburg- the huge walled castle looking fortress that overlooks the city of Wurzburg.
It was here that we quickly learned Lesson-#-1-When-Touring-Europe-With-Small-Children:
MUSEUMS ARE OUT OF THE QUESTION **ESPECIALLY** WHEN YOU CANNOT EVEN READ THE PLACARDS EXPLAINING THE EXHIBITS BECAUSE THEY ARE IN GERMAN!!! Do not even THINK about seeing the Louvre in France, unless you mean the outside of the building!
They very quickly tired of hearing us say "Oh look at this blah blah blah, it's 800 years old, or look at this portrait of Countess Von so and so!" (The dates and the names were pretty much the only things we could read!)
They did like walking around the Fortress walls until Ben's bladder and Emily's rumbling stomach concluded our visit and initiated a search for a restaurant.
We went to a little Chinese restaurant (strangely enough named "Chinese Restaurant") housed in a boat on the Main River (pronounced mine) which is right below the Festung. The restaurant had been recommended to us by our sponsors, but they did not warn us the little Chinese man that greeted us would speak so quickly we had no idea if he was speaking Chinese or German!
No one there spoke a syllable of English or at least never let on that they did. We sat down and prepared to order our drinks when our friends Jeremy, Mike and Regina called and were going to meet us there.
The next few minutes were spent vainly trying to explain to the waiter that we had three more people joining us. We were rescued when they walked in and we just pointed to them. At last he understood! The meal was funny as we tried to figure out what we were eating (the menu thankfully was in German and English!) but we still had to play "name that Chinese dish". But we sure felt less stupid with three other dumb Americans sitting there with us!
Sunday, July 14,2002
We went to a little folkfest in a nearby town. We sampled some wonderful tortes and listened to the band play some wonderfully traditional German songs like "YMCA", and "Eye of the Tiger". Gordon's platoon leader lives here and we fell in love with the town. They live right in the town square (not every town has one) right by a huge fountain and under the shadow of the church bell. The town Christmas tree gets placed right outside during the holidays and in the spring, the town's Maypole. Yes, they have Maypoles here.
That evening I went junking with Emily. The Germans get taxed on their possessions, so every year each town has a junk day where they put out anything they do not want to get taxed on into the trash. It is not necessarily stuff that is broken or damaged. Furniture is a big junk item and since they are into the "modern" stuff, they throw away, you guessed it, antiques and similar items.
Our sponsor Jennifer has some awesome stuff that she has found. Sonia, you and I would have so much fun here!!
Anyway Emily and I only had so much room in our little station wagon but we managed to get an old wine crate, a basket, a table (perfect for the patio) and two chairs. We tied the hatch down with Emily's boot laces!!
Monday, July 15,2002
We went to housing to tell them we wanted the aforementioned house, and later that afternoon we had a little accidental incident.
Ben was playing with the 10 yr old little boy (Randy) that lives upstairs from our current accommodations. They were throwing apples (from the apple trees that are next to the apartment) when they decided that they needed more apples.
They found a aluminum looking shovel and Randy knocked some down. Ben decided he wanted a turn and as he was knocking them down Randy bent over to pick them up. Following this so far??
Unfortunately, the shovel was a little too heavy for him it fell over and whacked the kid in the head. He started screaming and his mother rushed down the stairs to see blood streaming down his face and neck. Poor Ben was terrified as she said to me that Randy told her Ben whacked him with the shovel.
Now anyone who knows Ben knows he would only be mean like that to Emily, (ha ha) so we pried the truth from him and Ben went upstairs to apologize to him when he returned from the doctor's where he received only 2 stitches! Randy was fine and told Ben it was only an accident.
Well, I guess that catches you all up to where we are now.
We plan to visit some castle this weekend with our friends the Beebe's who are stationed in Stuttgart. Hopefully nothing weird will happen.
Friday, July 19,2002
We have plans to meet up with our friends Lisa and Tim Beebe in Bad Wimpfen tomorrow. Jeremy is going with us so he is spending the night on the couch so we do not have to pick him up in the morning. (opposite direction) We amuse ourselves by watching Seinfeld reruns and finally Blazing Saddles, which Jeremy and I find hysterical and Gordon.... well, not so much.
Saturday, July 20,2002
Well, Gordon and Jeremy head out to our new house to drop off a load of stuff. Our sponsor (my new friend Jennifer) meets me here and picks up the kids and I and some more stuff to drop off. We meet them at the new house. We all stomp around the empty house and Jennifer and Jeremy seem pretty impressed.
Then we clamber into the two cars and head off to Bad Wimpfen to meet up with the Beebe family. It was great seeing them again. We have not seen them in over a year. Ryan, you 'll remember them- Lisa was Anabelle's stand-in Godmother at her Christening.
Anyway, Hannah (a few months younger than Ben) seems so much bigger and while still quiet, she is not as shy as she used to be. Catherine (four months older than Anabelle) is a little hellion. Neither Anabelle or Catherine wanted much to do with the other, but we laughed because they are so alike. Catherine always picks on Hannah (bites her) and Anabelle gets down and dirty with Emily (pulls her hair and kicks her).
Well, the little ones swapped siblings and were perfectly content to be sweet and nice to them, holding hands, etc. Check the link for new pictures and see all the girls, and also one of Belle and Catherine eating ice cream.
Anyway, we visited the tower in Bad Wimpfen, and walked around the town. It is a beautiful town. They were hosting an art festival, which was fun, although a lot of the art was weird-nouveau-modern-
your-kid-could-do-the-same-thing-only-better kind of art.
We ate lunch at a Thai restaurant (again, fun for all- ordering Thai food in German) and decided to head back to our place here in Moos, (sounds like most without the "t"). We stopped again at our new house in Grunsfeld to show Tim and Lisa (they will only be about an hour away in Stuttgart) then headed to Giebelstadt to buy some food at the commissary for dinner.
Jennifer was tired so she went home, (Jeremy stayed as he knows the Beebe's from Bragg)
After feeding the kids, Lisa and I took off for Wurzburg for the PX, arriving a mere 12 minutes before they closed and raced through there to find what we needed. We then got into a good natured argument with the Cinn-a-bun guy about his day old cinnamon rolls, but that's another story, and as you know how obnoxious I am, I am sure you can pretty much figure out what happened!!
FYI, as Gordon explained earlier, the bases here are small and scattered to protect American forces from being annihilated in one swoop in the event of nuclear attack. The bases are for the most part, called Barracks, which is confusing as you think of a barracks as where the single soldiers live. It is not so here. So the Beebe's live on Kelly Barracks in Stuttgart, and their PX and commissary are very small.
Our PX and commissary at Leighton Barracks (in Wurzburg) are the largest in this part of Germany. There are also Harvey and Larson Barracks (among others) about 20 minutes from Wurzburg in Kitzingen.
Did any of that make sense? So my reason behind telling you this was simply to explain that going to the PX is a big deal when you have a little tiny one of your own.
Anyway, after we left the PX, I drove Lisa around a little and impressed her with our little farming communities. We watched some more Seinfeld, and tried to watch "the Royal Tannenbaums" BORING!!!!!!
None of us got it. Maybe we were just too tired, or maybe its just a dumb movie? Anyway, the Beebe's bunked down on the living room floor and around 2am we all called it a night. Except Lisa who is an insomniac, so who knows when she actually went to sleep!
Sunday July 21,2002
This afternoon we headed for downtown Wurzburg. Avoiding the Chinese Restaurant, but had some burgers at a cafe. Another interesting fact; on Sundays- my favorite shopping day- stores are closed. They are required by law to be closed. They are also required by law to close by 8pm on week days (as previously explained in our Wal-Mart story) and they close at 4pm on Saturdays. Of course the restaurants are all usually still open, so you can window shop and then eat.
Well, I am tired so I am off to bed myself right now. Umm, actually now that I remember I have to get the laundry from the dryer first. It takes about 2 hours to dry one load of laundry. American dryer. German electricity. Whatever.
I hope you are all doing well. Please email us with what is going on in your lives, even if you think it is boring. I assure you we will find it interesting. (remember we have little-to-no TV here!
I think Gordon is going to add on some stuff to the end of this, mostly history about the town we will be living in.
July 19th, 2002 - By Gordon
Herrn Gordon Cimoli
Am Göbel 25
97947 Grunsfeld, Germany
That's our new address. Of course, you can write to that address if you want, but it will cost $1.30 for postage for a regular letter! SO send everything to the APO address!!
The postal system here is so fast that I was talking to Duestche Telekom last night to get our phone hooked up and they said to expect a letter in the mail soon....well, to my shock--the letter showed up in the mailbox at my new house the very next DAY! Amazing!
Anyhow, here is a website for our town if you would like to check it out:
http://www.gruensfeld.de/
Here is a loose translation of some of the content on the website...
The city church St. Peter and Paul
The church became at the end of the 15th century. Out of the origin time, yet the foundations of the spätgotischen choir and the quadratic tower are received. Before the church, we find moreover another gothic Totenleuchte out of the late 15th century. The long house, at which the Marienkapelle with its double story is connected, emerged 1659. The high altar was created 1781 by the spice castle sculptor Georg winter stone. The carved pulpit out of the 17th century is carried by a stone column. In the church, we find furthermore a grave disk produced by Tilmann strap tailor for countess Dorothea of Rieneck, in addition differently further Grabplatten and numerous Epitaphe.
The city hall of green field
Out of a row of very pretty buildings, the half-timbering city hall of 1579 juts forth. The city hall is an imposing Renaissancebau with a very pretty half-timbering waiter story and half-timbering gable. The stairways tower of 1620 becomes of a lantern bekrönt. The tower pass is trimmed with a row of crest, figures, costumes and ornament. The building counts with art experts as one of the prettiest Profanbauten francs.
----------------------
As you can see the translation is not 100% coherent, but you get the idea. It is a very old and established town like many over here...over 500 years old!
And finally, here is our weather for the next 10 days (Jul 19-29th)
10-Day Forecast
High /
Low (°F) Precip. %
Today
Jul 19 Mostly Cloudy 69°/52° 20 %
Sat
Jul 20 Partly Cloudy 74°/56° 0 %
Sun
Jul 21 Partly Cloudy 74°/52° 30 %
Mon
Jul 22 Partly Cloudy 69°/52° 20 %
Tue
Jul 23 Partly Cloudy 71°/52° 20 %
Wed
Jul 24 Mostly Cloudy 71°/54° 30 %
Thu
Jul 25 Mostly Cloudy 68°/53° 30 %
Fri
Jul 26 Mostly Cloudy 67°/53° 20 %
Sat
Jul 27 Mostly Cloudy 68°/53° 0 %
Sun
Jul 28 Mostly Cloudy 71°/53° 0 %
As you can see, it is pretty mild here...bordering on cold, but pleasant. There are hot days, we did have a 90º day a few times...but these temps seem to be more "normal" for now.
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