Finally!

Our furniture arrives tomorrow!  Woohoo!  I painted the University of Miami room last week, so it's all ready to be turned into our bedroom, and the room we are currently using as a bedroom will be the living room!  Currently, my clothing is in three locations: the hanging clothes are in the wardrobe that our landlord was kind enough to loan us, half of the other stuff is in a pint sized (2.5 ft tall) wardrobe that also doubles as Jason's computer desk, and the other half is in my suitcase, which doubles as my computer desk!  So as you can probably guess, I'm tired of having to move my computer or Jason to get my clothes!  But I have a new wardrobe arriving tomorrow between the hours of 7am and 1pm!  So, once we get it put together, no more moving computers or Jason to get to my clothing woohoo!  And perhaps our tiny apartment will no longer echo!

Pictures of Jena... finally!

Jason wrote an excellent blog describing a bit of our day here in Jena, so click here to read it.

On Tuesday (the day we moved in), I cooked for the first time in my brand new kitchen :). And what did I make you ask? Well, simply delicious fried chicken of course! We had to go for something we couldn't get at a restaurant here!

My cute kitchen, complete with stainless steel hood: (The crate filled with plastic next to the stove is now gone. It belonged to the roommie, and I think he moved it into his room the next morning when he realized we had moved in.)

Chicken bubbling away:

The finished product (obviously not the same pieces in the skillet):

And we had baked potatoes to go with it, complete with bacon and green onions:

You might have noticed that my plates aren't square. We were unable to make it to IKEA and the plate selection here in Jena is pretty slim. Department stores in the malls here sell clothes... and that's it. So our choices were Mueller and Komma 10. Mueller reminds me of Target (slightly) and Komma 10 is kind of a hodge podge store, similar to World Market, but much smaller and focuses more on kitchen and cleaning items. We found these plates at Mueller in the "clearance" section, and they were way nicer than the plates we found for full price at Mueller and Komma 10. Either way, I'm happy with my plates.

Jason is going to make lasagna for our friends this weekend, so I'll have another foodie post soon!

We're In!

We're all moved in... for now, or until we make it to IKEA.

Gourmet kitchen: (define) This kitchen has a nice dishwasher, a stove with four burners, an oven, a fridge, and nice cabinetry. It even has one of those pull out pantries you can access from both sides. I'll post pictures when I am at my camera again.

Internet comes with the apartment for only 5 euros a month! Wow. We're just waiting to get the code so we can log on to the wireless connection. Unlike in the US, EVERYONE here in Germany remembers to encript their wireless. Yuck, but I guess very smart at the same time. :)

So there is a drawback to our new place, but he'll be leaving at the end of the month. That's right, we've got a roommate. It's a little strange... he could do an AXE commercial... you know, the ones where gorgeous women are suddenly drawn to a strange guy walking by just because he uses axe body spray. Turns out he uses Axe too. We don't see much of him, but 3 people in 516 square feet is a lot of folks. We're excited about him moving out. In the meantime though, it means we don't feel compelled to furnish our apartment completely since we don't have access to his room which we will convert into the living space. Our landlord has also offerred us a TV, so we'll pick it up sometime this week. The only major thing we are missing for the moment is a washing machine (dryers are a luxury here), and we're going to pick it out this afternoon after Jason's group meeting.

Today I remembered why I liked having a car. I was dripping wet by the time I got to Jason's office. Granted, I have NO desire to drive in this town... I'm never sure where the lanes actually are here. So I'll stick to public transportation and invest in an umbrella.

Consequences of Finding a Flat

We found a flat! We signed the contract yesterday and have a new address. Email if you need it!

We ended up with a quaint apartment in Jena-Ost (east). Amazingly, the kitchen belongs to the landlord, so we won't have to purchase a new one. I get the impression she (landlord) knows the apartment is a bit on the expensive side, but the price will never go up as long as we live there, internet and satillite TV are included (and she's willing to throw in a TV if we want it), and it's just right off the tram line. The tram will take us directly downtown, but it's not too far to walk if we end up staying at someone's house until after the last tram has left. By having internet, I'm actually going to be able to use Skype on a regular basis. Woohoo! However, we will have a slow connection, so the picture might not go through very well, so it will be a bit of trial and error.

The kitchen is gorgeous! Four burners, an oven, a dishwasher (!! we haven't had one of those in years, and we sure didn't expect to have one while we were in Germany!!), a small fridge by US standards, but that's just fine considering the tram goes right to the grocery store!

In the meantime I'm thinking about all the things we are going to have to purchase before Tuesday (we move Sept 1). Curtains, kitchen stuff (as in plates, glasses, pots, pans, etc), a bed, linens for bed and bath and kitchen, a broom with dustpan... The list goes on and prices add up quickly. But we did get the kitchen included, so that's another (minimum) 1000 euros we won't have to pay. I'm excited to get new things, just a little overwhelmed at the same time. Our kitchen is so modern Jason even told me I could buy square plates (which I wanted when we got married, but he didn't like them with the rest of our decor). Of course, I know we are going (most likely) to get the kitchen starter kit from IKEA, which comes with white round plates, but I'm happy anyway.

The only issue now is figuring out how to get to IKEA. It's in Erfurt, so we'll take the train, but the Erfurt bus routes are not well publicized, so we'll have to ask around until we can figure things out. IKEA is on the outskirts of town, but there's bound to be a bus that goes out that direction. Right?

I'll post pics of the new kitchen next week! :)

PS- I must be excited about this place. I woke up singing Mrs. Murphy's Chowder this morning... and if you haven't heard that song before, your childhood was lacking.

Finding a Flat

This past week has been somewhat frustrating. Jason and I have been trying to learn our way around apartment hunting here in Jena, and it isn't as easy as going to craigslist and calling a number. First of all, we don't speak the language, so we are dependent on others to call the landlords for us and then accompany us to the places we want to see. Jena is also different from Winston-Salem b/c apartments are not seen as temporary housing. You find and rent an apartment, you're going to be there for at least five years, if not much much longer. Therefore the apartments are empty when you get them. And I mean empty. No sink, no kitchen, no toilet, no light fixtures, etc etc.

Jason and I looked at two places on Tuesday, both within the same building, and the previous tentants were willing to sell us their kitchens, so we are getting more hopeful about finding a place that we won't have to completely furnish. But those two places just weren't right for us, so on we go with the hunt.

To find a flat, you generally need to go through an agent, and agents charge 2.38 x's rent plus 19% tax to find you a place. YIKES!! The two places we looked at on Tuesday were directly through the landlord, so we wouldn't have to pay that fee. Cuz that fee is STEEP! I have learned that since most people move into apartments to stay for years upon years and don't buy, estate agents have to earn their money somehow. But YIKES.

Today we looked at the perfect flat. No estate agent to pay, top floor, downtown (city central), near shops and buses and trams and all kinds of wonderful things, including work for Jason. However, we went to the open house for it. We spoke with the current tenant, who is willing to leave the kitchen, one of his sofas, and perhaps negotiate with us for some other furniture. We signed ourselves up on the list, the tenant will give the list to the landlord (and mention his top two choices), and then the landlord will decide who gets to move in. While we were at the flat (approximately 30 minutes) we saw three or four other groups come in and put their names on the list, and the open house was to last for 4 hours. So we just have to sit back and wait with our fingers crossed. A lot of the other groups we saw were students or people who were much younger, so we are hoping our age will help us out on this one!