Week of September 26th Part 2

Sorry I didn't get part 2 written earlier. Life got busy as I am about to tell you. After Stanley's accident, the next big thing that happened was that we signed a contract for our new apartment! It has been neat seeing how this has all come together these past 2 months. About a month ago, we thought we found the perfect place on Jakobstrasse. However, as things (God) had it. We put our application in, we were accepted, but we just couldn’t seal the deal. Couldn’t get a hold of the real estate lady, owner was on vacation, real estate lady was on vacation, couldn’t get in to see it one last time, etc.

In the meantime, this place on Rollplatz materialized. It started with a gal from church making an announcement that we were looking for a place to live (we didn’t ask her to do this, she just did). The owner of this place knew it was going to be vacated soon, so he contacted us. We weren’t able to contact the real estate guy for it, but finally we were able to see it. We loved it and the lady moving out agreed to sell us all of her belongings and move out earlier if we would be responsible to paint it. Turns out this is much better than what we were originally looking at. God is good, and He gets the credit for this deal. Btw, it’s really hard to find apartments in Weimar, which is why the real estate people don’t have to have “customer service” in their vocabulary.

Anyways, on Wednesday I took the day off for Stanley, but we were able to use the day to get a lot of paper work done. Contracts signed, bank book arranged (for deposit), etc. Things that I did not have time to do while at work. Again, it was a God thing arranging events to make it happen.

On Thursday night we met with the lady moving out to sign the contract for the belongings. We were told going into it that we needed to check for damage and problems, and to literally look behind pictures and furniture for problems. We did check, but not as extensively as we were apparently supposed to.

On Friday we signed the actual contract, and let’s just say this was the most intense apartment check that we have ever experienced. The real estate guy and his assistant came, and they checked everything. As we’ve mentioned before, in Germany apartments come bare (no kitchen, light fixtures, cupboards, etc.) and since we were buying everything people were concerned that we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. The real estate assistant was looking everywhere for the tiniest damage. They dinged the lady for a chip on the bathroom sink, and said they’ll charge her for a new sink. They had her remove some adhesive hooks from the door and are charging her for the damage from those, they were noting nics on the floor, etc. Our friend Susanne was there to help translate, and she was looking around too, behind curtains, under furniture, etc. We have a lot to learn about German apartment contracts.

Finally that was all done, papers were signed, keys were exchanged, we paid the lady for the belongings she sold us, and we had our new home! To see a youtube video of it, click here.

Unfortunately, we were not able to move in right away because it needed to be painted. Orange, green, and yellow walls are just not our thing. Erik picked up some paint at the store for me, and let me borrow his painting tools, and the work began. Ok, not right away, we took our friends out to dinner to say Thank You. Saturday I worked on taking down pictures and shelves, and then Saturday night I began to paint. I worked Saturday night from 10 pm – 1 am. Then on Sunday after church our friends Marcus and Babette helped me from 2:30 pm – 6 pm. Then I was back at it from 9 pm – 2 am. Monday was German Reunification Day so I had the day off work to work. I painted from 12:30 pm – 6 pm, although the real work began at 2 pm when Franz came over to help. As you can imagine, I was completely wiped by Monday and my motivation level was at zero. From 12:30 pm to 2 pm I got very little done because I was moving so slowly. I even laid down at one point because I was frustrated the work I had done was not turning out right and I was so tired. Then the phone rang, Franz had arrived. Together we were able to finish up all the painting!

So there you have why I was not able to update the blog, I’ve been busy painting! Tomorrow the carpet people are going to come to get measurements and the owner is going to have the carpets replaced in the two carpeted rooms. Hopefully we’ll be able to move in some time this week. The big Onion Market is next weekend and we’d love to be right there in downtown for the market! This is the 358th year for the market. Puts our markets in the USA to shame.

I’ll have to save for the next post Kindergarten, German Class, and running. I am doing the city run this upcoming Saturday. I was signed up for the Portland Marathon which is on Sunday, but I won’t be doing that now. Take care, thank you for reading this and praying for us. Another work day tomorrow, but only a 4 day week, yay!

From Germany,

Scott, Heather, Stanley, and Holly