chesneycat

It's photo-dump time!


Not bad!

Well, I've narrowed down this weekend's flat selection to twelve, and hopefully they won't all be gone by monday!  There's bound to be at least one good one in there!

While I wait for the rain clouds to move away, I think I'll crack on with the Longest Meme in History!

As if I wasn't fragile enough right now, I've just had the wonderful experience of being turned down for the one decent flat I've found so far simply because I'm childless.

Yes, that's right. I'm being penalised because my babies keep dying.

Fuckin' A, man.


On the plus side, at least I'm not this guy:

I have just been informed that [name removed] who came into the Department to discuss climate change about two weeks ago, and has been causing a nuisance on campus, was arrested and sectioned yesterday.  [Name removed] has since escaped from a secure mental unit and may return to the Hicks Building posing as his twin brother.

There's always someone worse off.  Plenty of someones, really. 

Or maybe they're not. Maybe it's just me.
( The WOES of wohnung-searching, or, house-hunt-hell )

Sympathy, please? Or a WAAAAAAAHMBULANCE? I need one or the other right now.

Today's viewings were off in far-flung Ziegelhausen.  The first one was on a street called Oberer Rainweg (hopefully the map has a nice green arrow on it - the flat in question is off the road down a footpath below and to the right of the arrow).  Quite a few steps... and more that take you downwards to the bottom of the valley (so you only need to go DOWNhill to catch buses!) but if you think about it, it's comparable to being two flights of stairs up an apartment block.  It's very close to a swimming pool/sports centre, the #33 bus goes every 20 mins... but from that end of town, you're looking at a 30min journey into the centre of town.  If you walk down the path you can catch the #34 as well, which could do the journey in 15-20 mins... but I just don't see it as being very convenient for Jez.  Aside from that, it was pretty damn perfect.  Gorgeous, two good sized bedrooms, and living room about the same size as our current one with south-west views and a door to the terrace.  The kitchen and bathroom were lovely, and it also had a 'Kellar' - not really a cellar, more of a storeroom where you can stick your washing mahine and bicycles.  There was a second door to the terrace from the kitchen, and the outdoors is generally lovely.  Sunny aspect, with a small garden and sweeping views across the valley.  'Take me!' the apartment whispered to me... but I'm trying not to listen...

The other was in a more convenient location for public transport - RIGHT on the main road through Ziegelhausen (further south than the arrow for th road).  The letting agent described it as 'charming'... and if your definition of 'charming' stretches as far as 'capable of causing brain damage on the same scale as Cthulhu', it's pretty damn apt.  There was an oven in the living room.  Oven. Living room.  Does not compute!  The kitchen could have been lovely, except for the rather random smears of red paint all over one of the walls (the one which didn't have units/fridges/whatever on it).  I think they were going for the Slaughterhouse Look (tm).  The second bedroom was upstairs, with a balcony, and would have been lovely were it not for the 'look out! I'm a dodgy loft conversion' damp patches and the use of half a tree as a banister rail.  Uh-huh...  Oh god, I've just remembered the bathroom.  Mushroom. You know, one of those weird off-brown colours that was dead popular in the seventies/eighties, and should NEVER, EVER come back into fashion again PLEASE!

Anyway, I'm looking at one just round the corner from here tomorrow.  Pricier, but with a Schlossblick! (I.e. a castle view... though I've looked at the flat from the outside already and don't believe a word of it - think Mrs. Richards' complaint about the Sea View from Fawlty Towers...) And it's walking distance from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), which is a definite plus.

Apparently, most 2 bed+living room German apartments don't come with a fitted kitchen.  As I'm in no way ready to purchase a new kitchen for a flat I may not be staying in long-term, this is kind of a bummer.

So, I'm now looking at 1 bed apartments as well as 1.5-2.5 bed places... some of them are actually over the 70m^2 [Where the hell is superscript, by the way?] size, and might be okay.  Plus, there's more of them towards Rohrbach, which I think might be one of the best locations for me to live, alongside Kirchheim, Weststadt, and Neuenheim.  I like Ziegelhausen a lot, but it's probably too damn far away.