After 5 whole days in my new apartment and almost non-stop work, I think I can say with 95% accuracy that we have finally finished moving in. There is about one big thing left to do and that is just putting in our shower curtain. You may ask yourself why we haven't completed this task yet since in most situations you could easily assume that it just requires us to hang up the curtain on some rings and attach them to the pre-existing shower rod. Sadly, in this case, you would be wrong. According to Julian, when he asked, the former tenants did not have a shower rod or any sort of apparatus to surround the tub. Instead they said they just took baths. I really don't know why, what we believe were 3 adults, would only take baths. We are living in the 21st century when that is just the normal thing to do once you reach a certain age and I am definitely certain these three adults have reached this point (we do live on the 5th floor with no elevator so we know they could walk and therefore stand). Either way, we are living without a shower curtain, which I have come to realize is really an invaluable thing to have.
The first shower I took I had to just hold the shower hose and that was not an enjoyable experience because 1) I had to continuously turn it on and off while I was washing my hair, etc and 2) I did not feel extremely clean afterward and my hair still felt greasy and like there was conditioner left in it, which I am pretty sure there was. After our second trip to IKEA and Bauhaus (German version of Lowe's), we found something that we could use to hang the shower hose on the wall and make it more like a shower I was used to. When I tried it out the next day, still without a shower curtain, I pretty much covered the floor in water. I left the water running like a typical American shower and I think that led to the flooding of the floor. It was like a mini-lake on our bathroom floor and I knew this wasn't going to work without the curtain. My third shower, which I just completed, was a combination of shower 1 and shower 2 (I will say that more showers have been taken, but these main showers I am referring to are about "big" showers in which I washed my hair). With my third shower I had the shower hose hanging on the wall, but I would turn it off in between washing my hair, etc in order to have minimal flooding of the floor. Luckily this worked out and I managed to not get any major amounts of water on the floor and I feel very clean. Even though it was a success, I will say the sooner we get a shower curtain installed, the better. We are just waiting on the former tenants to tell us who was the handyman they used to install their kitchen counters.
Besides the shower sitch, everything else is pretty much good to go. We completed all of the painting and I must say it looks very nice. The hallway was covered in marks on the wall from different things and the walls were in general just dirty. We put a fresh coat of Polarweiss (polar white) paint on them and now it looks as good as new. Julian was also brave enough to install some lights in the ceiling and so we no longer have to depend on floor lamps and desk lamps to light our kitchen while cooking. My curtains have been installed and all I need is just one more curtain since my windows are so big (we forgot to take that into consideration while at IKEA). At least I can now change in my room without too much worry that the old couple living across the street will see me naked. The counter top in the kitchen has also been finished and thanks to my Habitat for Humanity caulking experience I was able to help caulk the sink. It was a bit tricky and worked out okay overall, but the caulk was a bit messy and weird.
With all of this work this past week I think we can say that we now have a nice place to live and I think Julian and I are going to be quite happy living here. The area is fairly quiet, at least at night when it really counts, and I don't really hear the people living next to us. I did hear someone practicing the saxophone, but after last semester and the outrageous cougher that lived right above me, this saxophone player is a walk in the park. We also have a lot of space in our apartment and it doesn't feel cramped at all. My initial concerns of not having enough space in the bathroom have been subsided and thanks to Julian for not having much bathroom stuff, I have plenty of space (no joke, I have about 5 bottles on my corner of the bathtub for the shower and he has 1).
The grocery stores have also been found and I know that soon enough I will have figured out where everything in the store is so that it won't be a stressful situation running around the mid-sized grocery store. I also know where there is a Kaufland if I feel the need to enter a large, American-sized grocery store that can offer me a ton of selection. For every day I think we will be sticking with Niedrige Preise since we don't have to really cross the street to get to that one unlike if we want to go to Kaiser's.
After these first 5 days I can still say that I am happy and I see this semester going well. The next big hurdle will be getting my visa, which will hopefully happen without a hitch on Tuesday. I'm sure that will be quite the experience and I will most likely have a nice blog just about that fun bureaucratic adventure. Until then, schönes Wochenende!
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