Bye Bye Beautiful Apartment, Hello Europe!

As Fritz and I are quickly approaching the end of our time in Berlin, it dawned on me that I never gave you a tour of our lovely apartment on Crellestraße.  

After quite the run-around to find our fall housing in Frankfurt, we felt that we really hit the jackpot in Berlin!  The owners of our flat, Ulf and Bettina, were leaving for a 4-month holiday in South America which perfectly coincided with the period of time we were planning on being in town.  In the 7 years that they have lived here, they have never rented out their apartment to anyone else, so it is filled with charm and homey touches, unlike the made-for-rental flats that are full of the cheapest Ikea furniture and tacky (if any) decor.  

I've taken pictures so you can experience the loveliness for yourself.  

The entranceway to the building is a great place to start.  The detail on the walls and in the molding are quite decorative and intricate.  

The dining room is to the right of the door when you first enter our flat.  It has doubled as a guest bedroom for all of our visitors.  That white couch in the back pulls out into a rather comfortable bed. 

The living room was pretty awesome and the 1950s decor made us feel like we were on the set of Mad Men!

Bettina said that Ulf contributed the massive blue couch and the rest of the furnishing and decorations were her inspiration. 

The kitchen.

The cute little beach-themed bathroom. 

And our sunny bedroom.  I spent many mornings sitting in the big window, listening to the birds and gazing down into the courtyard in the back of our building. 

And this is our street.  Now that spring is fully upon us, there is a lovely canopy of green leaves that shelters the sidewalk.

I'm sharing these views of our apartment just as Fritz and I are moving out of it.  Ulf and Bettina are returning from South America, and I have only two weeks to go before leaving Europe and heading back to the Homeland.  Fritz will stay for another month after I go to finish up his research.  

Our adventures in Germany are coming to an end, but before they do, my incredible fiancé has planned a romantic, 2-week train trip.  We'll head to Prague for the first leg, then an overnight train to Paris for 6 days, then Amsterdam where we will sleep on a boat!  A final train ride will take us back Berlin where I'll have one day to pick up the last load of pottery, say a final farewell to my friends here, and board a plane headed for New York City.    

Stay tuned for an explosion of pictures from our Euro-Adventure!

Home Recording Studio

Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a world where anyone can have their very own home recording studio.  As a matter of fact, not only can you have a recording studio, you can even bring it with you all the way to Germany!  

Fritz had a conference in London for three days this week, so while he was presenting his research over there, I stayed in Frankfurt and made my very first music video.  

A few years ago, my friends gave me an awesome USB microphone which I brought with me to Germany.  I found my guitar at a flee market for 35 euros the first weekend we were in Frankfurt.  And computers these days have all the programs neccessary for an amature production. 

So there you have it, all the makings for a home studio!  

The last essential part of a home recording studio, is a perfectly silent room.  This was actually the trickiest part of the whole opporation.  We live one block from the busiest section of railroad in Frankfurt.  Our bedroom window goes right to the street closest to the tracks.  A clattering, squealing background cacophony is not exactly what I was going for, so the bedroom was out for a plausable recording space.  

Monday mornings, the housekeeper is in the building and you can hear her vacuuming from about 9am to 12:30pm.  So that meant no recording on Monday morning.  Then there is a guy who diligently practices the saxaphone from about 10am to 11:30am every single day without fail.  I am completely amazed at his (or her) commitment.  I have played musical instruments almost my entire life starting with the piano at 7 years old, but I have never been as conscientious about maintaining a practice schedule as this person.  Perhaps if I had, I would be a better musician.  Oh well.  Kudos to you Mr. Saxaphone Practicer!  Kudos! 

The last sound that I had to battle with, was the obnoxious and constant buzz of our refrigorator.  I tried angling the mic away from it.  I tried recording in the far opposite corner of the living room.  But our appartment is just too small to escape the off-key drone of the fridge.  So, I unplugged it.  I may or may not have forgotten to plug it back in once or twice during the process... but I think everything is still more or less edible.  

So that's it!  I recorded everything with Garage Band, then used iMovie to edit a few differnt clips of video footage that I took in the apartment.  I learned that it's a lot harder to lipsync than the celebrities make it look at the Super Bowl.  Seriously, I don't know how they do it! 

I recorded the song "Dona Nobis Pacem."  My mom taught it to me when I was little and we would sometimes sing it in rounds during car rides or when we were hiking in the woods as a family.  It's one of my favorite Christmas songs, although I think it's appropriate for any time of year.  There are only three words in the entire song, with three variations on the same melody.  Out of simplicity comes complexity as the three melodies are woven together.  The words mean "Grant Us Peace."  A beautiful wish for the world we are living in today. 

I've posted the finished product on youtube.  You can watch it by clicking here if you'd like.  

While Thinking about Thinking...

Balzac's Cafe: "Our Coffee Shop"

An interesting thing happened to me recently.  We were reading our books in "our coffee shop" (the one we come to several times a week and Fritz orders "the usual" while I stake out a table for us, and then we pass an hour or two reading or working or blogging or whatever we do), when I became aware of the fact that I had forgotten I was in a foreign country.  For a moment, I stepped out of myself to have a better look at my own thoughts and feelings, and in that moment, I witnessed a transormation of my own perception.  Frankfurt wasn't just a place I was visiting.  I wasn't just an outsider who can't speak the language (even though I really still can't speak the language), and I felt comfortable.  I felt "home".  We have a Place where the employees are familiar, we know where all the outlets are so we can plug in our computers if we need to, and we can come and forget ourselves for a few hours if we want.  The subtle din of people conversing in German as they sip their double espresso is a comfort instead of something that makes me feel different now.  After a month and a half, I'm beginning to feel "settled".  Like I am a part of the scenery instead of merely a tourist who can only see the world around her when she is looking through the lens of her camera.  

I like it. 

Penthouse Home

We moved!!!  Again!!!  Because we love to carry our belongings up and down the stairs!  Hooray!!  

Luckily this was an easy move from the 5th floor up to the 6th floor of the same apartment building and we like the new place much better for a plethora of reasons: it doesn't smell like smoke, there isn't a blood stain on the bedroom floor (unfortunately, I am mostly serious about that), it has a sky light, the couch doesn't slide apart every 6 minutes, we get more exercise everyday thanks to the additional flight of stairs, and so on.  

Why did we move up one flight of stairs?  An excellent question.  The answer is kind of long and meandering, but the short explanation is that we were supposed to be in this unit from the start; however, the Bulgarian couple living in the apartment at the time got sick the weekend we were coming and asked to hang out on the 6th floor a little longer.  They were moving down to the 5th floor since that unit is a little bit larger and they wanted more space.  Instead, we temporarily moved to the 5th floor and awaited word for the date when an apartment swap could take place.  

After about 2 weeks, the date was set, but three days before the scheduled move, our property manager, Matzi*, reported that he had contracted the chicken pox and therefore would need to postpone yet again.  The Bulgarian couple wanted him to be present for the move because they had arranged to keep the bed from the 6th floor unit.  This seemed a little silly to me.  Both of these apartments are fully furnished.  Usually when you move out of a furnished apartment, you don't get to take the furniture with you.  It didn't seem like it would be such a big deal though, and Fritz and I were trying to be low maintenance.  Besides, our bed is quite light and German mattresses are half the size of American mattresses so I didn't think it would be too tricky to switch.  Plus, Fritz and I are basically expert movers at this point so one bed up one flight sounded like a cake walk.  

Anyway, we had to reset the move date to give Matzi time to recover from the chicken pox.  Saturday was the new date, but Friday night, Matzi once again, sent another interesting text message.  

"Hey you all!  Tomorrow comes fast. I will give my best to be there around 10-10:30. Don't be [mad] with me if I look a little wasted as a friend of mine is celebrating tonight :) bed switch shouldn't take much longer than 1 hour and it fits quite well as I need to be at central station at 12 in order to support my soccer team in Hoffenheim."  Five emojis followed his words.  

No problem.  Again, I really didn't expect it to be a complicated move.  Fritz and I only had 2 suit cases so if it took more than 20 minutes I would have been shocked.  Well, Saturday morning arrived and we hit the ground running at 9:30.  Fritz and I were completely moved in by 10:30 with our clothes neatly hung in the closet.  Matzi, however, was no where to be seen.  At 10:45 I texted him to make sure he was still coming.  

His response began with an F-bomb followed by some scattered texts that indicated he had forgotten about helping us and was indeed quite hungover.  Fritz and I waited around for an additional hour so we'd be able to help carry the beds, but when Matzi was still absent by noon, we decided that a sunny Saturday was a terrible thing to waste and headed out to enjoy the day.  As we were descending into the subway, another text from Matzi came through.  The general gist was "Ooops!  I fell asleep on the bus and when I woke up I was at the soccer game."  Incredible how that happened Matzi.  He said he would be back around 8pm if we still needed his support with the bed move.  He proceeded to send us pictures  throughout the day of himself partying at the soccer match.  Not too classy, but at least he's honest!

Well the Bulgarians weren't too keen on hanging in limbo until 8pm, so at 5pm, Fritz and I returned home to finish the job without Matzi's help.  As expected, the beds really were not very heavy.  They were however, too big to fit through the doorway.  It became clear that they were each assembled in their respective rooms by someone who had a drill, and that someone did a very good job of securing those screws.   

Out with one and in with the other.  Or so we had hoped.

Stuck.  That kitchen leads right into our bedroom, but the headboard on the bed just wasn't going to make it through the door with the feet still attached.  At this point, I had to question again why we were doing this.  But where there is a will, there is a way, and the Bulgarians had an iron will!  They obtained a screw driver and with some serious elbow grease, they were able to disconnect two of the legs.  We made it through, and putting the beds back together was far easier than taking them apart. 

 With the bed assembled, I went to work scrubbing the floors as is my custom when moving into a new apartment.  Mikko and Inna, our favorite Frankfurt friends from Finland, had brought us a very thoughtful moving gift when they came over for dinner earlier in the week: a mop, sponges, rubber gloves, and various cleaning products!   I was well equipped.  

By sun down we had a sparkling and organized new home!  And as if the Heavens were giving us a housewarming gift, we looked out our penthouse window to witness a most beautiful German sunset over the Frankfurt skyline!

*Matzi is a fictional name used to protect the privacy of our property manager.

We're Not Homeless!

Home sweet home!  Yesterday we moved into our very own Frankfurt apartment!  There were a few complications, but in the end, everything worked out and at the end of the day, we had a bed to sleep in.  The previous tenant apparently destroyed the mattress, pillows and blankets, so while Fritz was in class, I found the local home-goods stores.  Our landlord is exceptionally kind and basically said I could get whatever I needed for the place and then give him the receipts.  He's not really into decorating and was happy to have a helper to make the apartment feel a little less sparse.  So a few blankets, 6 forks (for some reason we only had 3 forks in the drawer), 4 potted plants, a colorful table cloth, and a bunch of candles later... we have a home!