Now that we’ve been in Würzburg for 2 weeks, you may be wondering what we’ve been doing. If not blogging vociferously, then what?
Well, many things have not been glamorous. We’ve had 3 meetings with various administrators about schooling for Maggie. We finally got her registered at our neighborhood elementary school, and school starts Tuesday. She is super excited! Kindergarten is proving trickier (surprisingly), but we will triumph.
We spent a full day walking from internet provider office to internet provider office, talking to them about our semi-permanent position and asking for short-term contacts. Found a company — waiting for hook-up now.
We opened a German bank account, which fortunately could be done online with English-language support. It did involve me sitting for an hour in the alley behind a hotel with WiFi, though, since you need a domestic bank account to sign up for internet at home. One afternoon we devoted to figuring out how to transfer money from our US bank to our new one without paying our bank’s $50 foreign transaction fee and hideous exchange rate, plus the per-minute-charge of the half-hour-long phone conversation. Thank you Transfer Wise! (Which all seems to be legit, although I’m always nervous with money stuff on the computer.)
We’ve had several appointments (and at least one more pending) at City Hall to get ourselves registered in the city and obtain residence permits. These have been the most nerve-wracking for me — they hold our futures in their bureaucratic hands! Registering was simple, although it took an extra visit because we were initially missing a piece of paperwork. The residence permit will take some more doing, and I get a little rush of adrenaline just thinking about having to sit across the desk from that Frau again. Oh boy, was she not afraid to tell us we’ve done everything wrong so far! When we accomplish residency, we will have a fantastic party of some sort — you are all invited.
And Bill has met his collaborator and host, attended a group meeting, got office keys and a desk, visited the apiary, and spent a few days already doing work stuff.
And there have been simple, mundane things to check off our list. We got library cards and discovered they have an amazing board game selection, but that you have to pay for movie rentals. Our extra boxes of living and winter things are on their way via post (thank you, Steph, for going through that rigamarole!). And we figured out that German Amazon orders arrive even quicker than US prime ones.
And of course, we have an apartment to live in! We are calling it Das Blaue Haus (who can guess why?). We are on the 5th floor of an office building, with one other living apartment below us. Our landlady is lovely and kind and seems a very reasonable person. She already came over once to teach me how to use the washing machine, with good humor.
After spending a summer staying in 1 or 2 rooms (Bill and I often sleeping in the kitchen where there’s access to wine in the evenings and coffee in the mornings), we are living in luxury here! 2 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom — whoa!
We spent several days moving furniture, visiting Ikea, assembling furniture, visiting Ikea, emptying kitchen cupboards, disassembling furniture, visiting Ikea, sweeping up long black hairs everywhere, stocking the refrigerator (somewhat by visiting Ikea), and discovering how and when to open our windows around the schedules of local pollinators. And we devoted 15 minutes to unpacking our little backpacks.
Living in the middle of the city has been awesome! Across the street is a pharmacy, a block away is an Aldi-type grocery store, Maggie’s school is a 7 minute walk, and the library and bigger grocery stores (along with wineries, book stores, cafes, shoe stores, restaurants, churches, and the market square) are less than 15 minutes walking. And bakeries? There are four within 2 minutes of us! And then two per block every street after that!
In conclusion, living somewhere is a lot different than vacationing somewhere. (Duh, right?) But I have a feeling that in a month or so, we might feel more vacation-y again. Or, at least, we plan on taking full advantage of all the fun things we find here!
Magrilless 