We live in Berlin!

At least for a few more weeks until we move to Stuttgart.

The big move across the Atlantic is over. We finally have some sort of internet connection. Now, we can commence contact with my US friends and family that we miss so much. We'll see how blogging goes. I've tried it before and was no good at keeping it up. Maybe now with a little bit of extra time (okay A LOT of extra time) it will be easier.

Today, I thought I would tell you a little bit about the place we have been calling "home" since mid July. We live in an apartment building in a Southwestern neighborbood in Berlin. We have dubbed our apartment "the hospital" for the following reasons:

1) It is a building primarily full of short-term, furnished apartments with an overall sterile feeling
2) The uncomfortable, nondescript furiture has a maroon color scheme that looks like someone's lame attempt at decorating, the windows have bad curtains, and our linens are pure white
3) Our apartment is handicap accessible (We have ended up appreciating the extra space this gives us, but it is a little strange to flush the toilett from the floor and to have a system of support bars in the shower, not to mention that there is no bathtub in which I can read.)

The kicker, we had to pay 900Euro a month to live in the hospital! Not cool husband's company that found us this place, not cool.

There are some positives to this appartment. It is about a 10 minute walk from the U-bahn. Normally this walk would piss me off, but it just so happens that the 10 minute walk to the U-bahn also leads directly to one of the largest shopping districts in Berlin. It is really nice and we have a lot of fun killing time looking at German stores. Another positive is that right across the street from us we have a little market. It is a life saver when I have forgotten something and do not want to have to walk all the way to the big grocery store. While it is no Whole Foods, it has a suprisingly large selection of things for being a little hole in the wall. One of my favorite things about this little market is that they sell beer for about 90 Euro cents a bottle and have an outside seating area. This means you can have a 90 cent beer outside right across the street from where we live. They also have Kalamata olives and fresh baked good every morning.

Here is the toilett that flushes from the floor (that black button on the floor is the flusher). Also, this may be TMI but my feet do not touch the floor when I sit on it, which the husband finds hilarious.

Here is a view of the kitchen. You can see how small the stove top is. Every applicance in the kitchen seems to be smaller than its typical American counterpart.

Here is the shower, which we both hate. It is just a big empty space in the corner of the over-sized bathroom. You can really start to see the hospital-like nature of the place in this photo.



Here is the view of the market across the street from the window of our apartment. The tree is blocking the produce stand, but to the left you can see the tables that sit outside.



Now that you have an idea about where we've been living. I will plan some posts about what we've been up to since we moved here. I hope everyone is doing well!