Getting started in Germany!

I must say that I should have started this blog two weeks ago, when I first arrived in Germany.  But I confess to being a notorious procrastinator when it comes to writing about my travels.  If I don't write about my travels as soon as they happen when I'm still excited about them, then it becomes a chore and then I really have to force myself to write.  So of course in that case there's the distinct possibility that I'll never get around to it...

This time I think I have a somewhat valid excuse and that is that after slumming it around South East England for two months, living in many hotels (sometimes a different one each night), with family and with friends, not to mention an unexpected trip to Australia, I really didn't have the energy to sit down and write about it!  And when I first got to Germany I moved into my very basic (but nice) flat and I didn't even have a table or an Internet connection.  So again, blogging was really not something I could be bothered to do, even though I wanted to document my initial "Oh wow, look at that!" impressions of my new home here in Ulm.  Oh well, it's a personal sort of excitement anyway that is difficult to convey!

The problem with this business of living in different countries is that as wonderful as it is, there's no escaping the fact that the logistics of the relocation are a damnable nuisance.

The house that isn't my house - it's the one on the left!

But now I've been here for two weeks and two days and I've settled into my temporary flat, so I can finally sit down and put thoughts to keyboard.  It might be only temporary until I find a permanent place but I can tell you what, after those two months of vagrancy it's heaven to have my own "home!"  I've got my Xbox 360 and my computers nicely setup in the living room, a messy kitchen and a slightly untidy living room and thus it now feels like home.  ;-)  I don't even have to pack up my suitcase to take it to work with me every morning.  Do you know how nice that is?

Even the girl in my local coffee shop automatically brings me my morning cappuccino without me having to ask, so I must be settled in!

I'm in a place called Söflingen (pronounced "Zerflingen"), which is a little suburb-that-used-to-be-a-village on the edge of Ulm.  Until part way through the last century there were open fields between here and Ulm and Söflingen was an independent village in its own right.  Even today, Söflingeners consider themselves to not be from Ulm, even though Söflingen has been well and truly absorbed by Ulm.  I'm a bit spoilt by living here to start with because it's one of the nicer parts of Ulm and so when looking at houses in the less salubrious parts of town I find myself turning my nose up.  It's like going to London for the first time and staying in the King's Road in Chelsea when you know that ultimately you're going to be living in Dagenham (for those not familiar with London, you really don't want to live in Dagenham, which was once judged "The unhappiest place in the UK").

But earlier this week I applied for a 4 Zimmer (room) flat in the Fischerviertel (Fisherman's Quarter) in the Alte Stadt (Old Town).  Flats are classified slightly differently here - instead of saying "a 2 bedroom flat" they will say "a 3 room flat" (lounge + 2 bedrooms).  And a room has to be a certain size by law before it can be classed as a room, so you get oddities such as "a 2,5 room flat" which is a 2 room flat (usually lounge/kitchen combined and 1 separate bedroom) with another room that is very small so they are only allowed to say it's a half a room.


Oh and it gets odder.  My temporary flat is apparently a 1 room flat as it is a studio apartment with a large combined living room/bedroom/kitchen (the bathroom doesn't count in the room count and nor does the kitchen if it's separate, or the hall).  Ok fair enough.  Except that in the middle of the flat are stairs leading upstairs to another room that is more than large enough to make a comfortable main bedroom and is at least 50% as large as the main living area.  But it's in the roof so as large as it is, it's classified as a wardrobe!  So I have a 1 room flat.  With wardrobe.  That you could fit a car in.

Odd.  As are many things in Germany.  And don't get me started on how to put out the rubbish because that's even more complex and I haven't figured it out yet.  Every time I go to the area where the (multiple and varied) rubbish bins are I flee in fear of the next door neighbours yelling at me for using the wrong one!

But I digress.  Back to the flat in Fischerviertel.  It's newish (1970s) and is surrounded by half timbered 17th century houses that are very pretty.  And it's huge.  And there are no light fittings, just bare wires coming out of the ceiling (which is normal in Germany) but at least it has a kitchen sink (which is not - the tenants usually take it with them when they go).  These are both rants for another blog entry.  Cross your fingers for me that I get a "yes" answer!