Apartment

Address:

Martha Scott Johnson

Pestalozzistrasse 9 6/201

96052 Bamberg, DE

If you have the capability, I would love it if people sent me pictures in the mail.  My walls are so bare and it makes me a little sad.

Update about my living situation!  Finally got into my apartment the other day, although I do not have internet (the guy comes to our building tomorrow at noon, but I don’t know if I’ll have it right away or if it will be later this week), for the time being I’m borrowing Lee’s whenever I’m over.

Getting keys to the apartment was a little difficult.  The Hausmeister (house-master, so  basically, caretaker) in the building only works (or has office hours, I guess) in the mornings and the first day we were too late.  The second time we tried, the Hausmeister was not in the building the papers from Auslandsamt said he would be in.  Finally we find the family apartment with office hours posted on the door so we knock.  A girl is leaving and a woman comes up behind her.  I tell her who I am and what I’m looking for and she yells to the girl to show us to the Hausmeister.  She does not even stop to look at us, then points to a different building and says to go in there.  We find the Büro (office) of the Hausmeister and it is locked, we knock, but no one answers.  We go back to the family apartment and the woman calls the girl then subsequently the Hausmeister.  He comes and takes me to my apartment.  Really nice guy, I like him.

My roommate is home for break (I assume, the fridge is unplugged, everything is pretty empty and I have yet to see her or signs of her), but I think she is Polish or Russian.  NOT German.  Her name sticker outside the door is not German and some of her stuff is not in German.  Russian or Polish looking.  She is very clean (yay!).

My room is sparse.  I have shelves, a desk, a bed, two lights, a bedside table and a floor to ceiling window (I do not have a nice view, but the view from the hallway is of a church and playground).  My closet is in the dining/cooking area, it has it’s own lock and key.  In the kitchen there is a small table with two chairs next to the mini fridge, stove top and sink. I have a cabinet to myself where I put my groceries (German groceries are funny!).  The bathroom is small, but just fine.  It smells a little funny so I’ve been spraying air freshener.  The shower gets nice and hot, but there’s no lip so the floor is a puddle when you get out.  Roommate has a squeegee which I think is for scooping the water away.

I have a sheet (it’s pink and jersey, I got it for 6 Euro at Real), 2 pillows and a fleece blanket (which is brown and I got for 2 Euro at Tedi) and a big fuzzy yellow blanket (I got it at Gebers for 5 Euro, which mostly sells blankets and pillows).  I also got a bowl, plate, mug, cup, two knives, two forks and two spoons at Tedi (the German version of the dollar store).

I live at Pestalozzistrasse, aka Pestheim, which is near the business school (about a 20-30 minute walk from the city center).  Pestheim has many buildings, it’s very confusing.  I know which block is mine, but that’s about it.  It’s on the outskirts of town so there’s not anything interesting nearby, but the busses take you to the city center and the walk isn’t too bad when it’s not cold (which it has been…bitterly cold, it’s currently snowing).

I’m living sparsely, but I’m going to make it work.  I’m just happy to have a place to live and so happy to be here.  Everything is an adventure, from grocery shopping to eating dinner.  I definitely miss my family and friends a lot and it’s hard to be far away, but I’m really looking forward to really digging in to the culture and learning more German (still waiting for my skills to come back, listening comprehension is great, my speaking is not so fast).

I’ve just gotten back from a meeting with Kabel Deutschland (internet and telephone company) and I should have a modem by Monday, yay!  It is not high speed internet, though, but it should at least work some.  It was a little hard because he didn’t speak English and I don’t know internet vocabulary, but he spoke very slowly and was really nice to me, so that helped.  I think I understood, I hope so anyway!

Liebe,

Martha