Holy. Mackerel.
Stop it. I don't ACTUALLY have an apartment here in Hamburg, do I?
Okay, for some clarification.
Technically, I've been out of the youth hostel for a couple of weeks now. They were great there. When I finally found out that I'd be able to leave, there were rounds of high fives and requests that I come back to visit!
I checked out of the youth hostel and took the train back to Frankfurt, where the rest of my luggage and host family were waiting. I had a great dinner with the host fam in an Italian restaurant downtown to celebrate Lara's birthday. The original plan was for me to rent a car and drive my two HUGE suitcases and guitar back to Hamburg on the Autobahn. The Autobahn is the super famous German version of the highway. Super famous mostly because there's no speed limit. I mean, I'm no wuss, but I wasn't exactly looking forward to sharing the road with David-Hasselhof-loving, sausage-eating, no-speed-limit-having Germans. Luckily, after discussing the plan with my host mom Mariella, she informed me that the German train system has a luggage service which includes DOOR TO DOOR LUGGAGE DELIVERY. At a sixth of the cost of renting a car. I was, needless to say, jubiliant. My luggage arrived a couple of weeks ago and it's been amazing having more than one pair of shoes and being able to unpack pictures of the family, books etc.
The TEMPORARY apartment I found a couple of weeks ago (which allowed me to check out of the youth hostel, yes, but was only availble until the end of February) has turned out to be perfectly okay. I share it with a woman in her mid 50s or 60s. The apartment itself is totally fine. My bedroom is huge and came equipped with bed, couch (!), table and two chairs (!!) and TELEVISION (!!!). The shower and toilet are separate and both completely ghetto. The shower is teeeeeny tiiiiiny. And there are no shelves in it. Which means every time I bend over to pick up shampoo/soap etc, I bump the shower curtain and risk leaking water all over the floor and into the tenant's apartment below us. Kind of stressful, not going to lie. My roommate Katja is really nice, but, you know...old. Sorry. I know some readers will NOT approve of my use of the word 'old', but she IS older than I am. You can't fight me on that one. She only speaks to me in German, likes to watch me while I cook, seems completely mind-blown that I eat a lot of meat (um, I honestly didn't think that would be a problem in GERMANY but what do I know), and never seems to leave the house. But she's very sweet, always asks me about my day and work, and what's on the menu for dinner :)
Since having moved in with Katja, it's been all about finding a PERMANENT apartment. I went on interview after interview, met old African women, young Germans, musicians and furniture designers and saw places in St. Pauli and Winterhude and the Karo Viertel - I was all over creation. And it was rejection after rejection. At first it was fine. But as the weeks wore on, it started to get kind of discouraging. I remember talking to Ethan and saying "Um. Okay. I don't get it. You and I both know that I am AWESOME. And that most people would LOVE to live with me. What is going ON??" I was SO over the search, and needed to start spending time on the real reason I was here in Germany - namely teaching English and getting into Grad School!
So last Monday I went to go see an apartment on a street called Bundesstrasse. It was beautiful. It's right on one of the main streets of the Schanze/Grindelallee neighborhood (the alternative and university quarter), across from a huge park, is up on the second floor, has high ceilings with beautiful crown molding (moulding? is there a difference? or have I been reading too much british-english Harry Potter?), a huge kitchen, and one and a half baths (!!!). The room itself comes furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a TELEVISION (!!!!). (What is up with my luck with televisions? I remember telling Mardi the other day that I'd just kind of come to terms with the fact that over the next couple of years I would be watching zero television. But au contraire!) I sat down with two of the three roommates (Gerry and Tim) and we had a nice interview. Gerry designs stamps (as in TooMuchFunRubberStamps) and Tim (adorable) studies Urban Planning at a University in Hamburg. We got along really well and they said they'd be letting me know by the next day (Tuesday) whether or not I had gotten the apartment. I got a phone call late Monday night from Gerry and he told me personally, that die Chancen sehen sehr gut bei dir aus! [my chances of getting the apartment were really good!] and that they'd like to invite me back Tuesday night for a 'call back' (yeah - I know - this whole finding an apartment thing is WAY more intense than I had thought) so that I'd be able to meet the other roommate. I was PUMPED. I went back last Tuesday night, met the other roommate Christa (who is Gerry's girlfriend of 13 years WHOA), got along fabulously with her, and got a phone call early Wednesday afternoon saying that I GOT THE APARTMENT. I GOT ONE! Finally! Amazing! Did I mention there's room for guests? And that we have our OWN PRIVATE GARDEN in the back? And a basement? And that famous German composer Gustav Mahler used to LIVE NEXT DOOR? Yeah. All that. I'm moving in March 1st. And can't WAIT.
Other than that I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, getting things ready for my FOUR REGULAR CLASSES PER WEEK! I have a schedule! It's incredible. It's more than just subbing, and I have complete control over what I teach and how I teach it. Tuesdays I have a group of 8-10 6-8 year olds for an hour and a half at an after school program in an elementary school here in my neighborhood. We've been playing alphabet and 'getting to know you' games, learning the body parts, filling out worksheets and ending every class period with a classic girls vs. boys game of speed spelling/pictionary, etc. Wednesday afternoons I have two adorable Swedish kids, a brother (4) and sister (6) for 45 minutes. It's a lot of coloring, singing and dancing. Last week we did Old McDonald, the Hokie Pokie, Head Shoulders Knees & Toes, etc. And they're teaching me a little Swedish :) Thursdays I have another group at the Elementary School for an hour and a half, and then travel out to the boonies for a group of 4 three year olds (!!!) and their moms, where we dance, sing and eat gummy bears. Then the moms and I drink tea and eat cake. Not a bad deal.
It's taking a little while to settle into the schedule and I definitely fall into bed every night after I have classes. I'm really excited knowing that I'll be staying with these kids for an extended period of time, though, and I'm going to start putting together a more over-arching plan for lessons this week. And the classes in the after school program end with a performance of some sort, too, which is, let's face it, right up my alley :) And in two weeks I start my BERLITZ TRAINING! Berlitz is the mother of all language schools, a super old and well respected organization, and after two interviews, they invited me to take part in their intensive two-week long training program. I can't wait. Having Berlitz on the old resume is going to be HUGE. Other than that, I started training for Kindermusik (teaching kids english and music together) and have FINALLY started applying for Grad Schools. Which is VERY exciting.
I also can't wait to see E, Mardi and Papa's beautiful faces in this amazing city in a mere couple of weeks :)
Hope you all are well! I love and miss you!
Aud
Pictured: Bundesstrasse! Park (not pictured) on the left, and my apartment (you can't see it, but it's farther up on the right)! Credit: google.
