flights, weddings, berlin, apartments.

hello everybody!

we're back in germany, after a very excellent excursion to the united states of america.

allie & joe's wedding was fantastic: allie was so pretty and the dancing was super. they are absolutely good together (!) & the whole thing went very well and i was le excited to be able to be part of the experience.

thanks to my lovely, young & beautiful parents, we hung out in raleigh for about two weeks. when we got home we had dinner with our awesome neighbors. a few days later we went to kaye's school to give a talk about living in germany to her german 2 class, which was tres bien (i felt kind of cool, as in, yes, i do live overseas). it was very nice to see my family. xoxo to mom & dad & nike & space chicken & liloface. while we were in raleigh, we hung out with stephanie, allie, and family, and went to see allie's kids' show with dana at wake forest high school, which rocked. we went to a girl scout reunion dinner the night before i left, which was neat: i hadn't seen most of everyone in practically forever.

there were some people i didn't get to see while we were in raleigh and that was kind of sad, but we really didn't have tons of time, alas, alas. it was really good to see my family, and i hope that everyone plans to come overseas and visit if this works out and we get to stay here for a long time. . .

on the day we ended up flying out, dana met us at the airport (so wonderful) and took us all speedily through security- it's really nice to have someone at the gate with you: i almost forgot about it in this post-9-11 airport state. we got to fly first class again(!) which rocked, although this time we declined all alcohol (it was hard! they keep pressuring you! "just one glass of champagne," they say sneakily. or: "what wine will you be drinking with dinner?")
it was definately harder leaving this time as it feels altogether more permanent.

we got back to duesseldorf at around seven thirty in the morning local time. we waited for our many, many suitcases and then caught the S-bahn (train) to solingen, where fred came to pick us up at the station. it was a lot easier (on the train, with all the luggage) than we suspected it would be, mostly because the S-bahn doesn't have steps up- it's more like a long-distance metro or aboveground subway or something. i cannot think of what this is called in english. alas.

once we were back in solingen, phil (very unsleepily) went to work on some renovations in an apartment for a friend of fred & regina, and i (very sleepily! ick, jetlag) started to look for a temporary apartment in berlin.

i didn't expect to move to berlin so quickly, but i didn't find that many apartments available that weren't tourist apartments, weekly rentals, super expensive, or only available from march to april of next year. when i finally found someone that wanted to rent for the next month, it was friday afternoon, and the girl who wanted to rent was leaving on saturday, and said that if we could be there before lunchtime, we could have the apartment for 450 euro. which isn't super cheap (but also isn't super expensive), and it has heat, internet, nice furniture, etc. and is clean, which is very, very nice. (some of the apartments i was looking at online were not at all clean. not even kind of clean).

we left saturday morning via train and got to berlin around 11 am. the apartment is near the prenzlauer allee S-bahn station, not really all that far from alexanderplatz, in is mostlikely east berlin. everything worked out excellently with the apartment- we went there, gave her the money, she gave us the keys, and then we left so she could finish packing for her trip. when we got back at five (after exploring the neighborhood), we almost couldn't figure out the key to the door ("o no," i thought)! we got in downstairs but the apartment door seemed completley stuck. we called katja, who was at the airport, and she laughed and said that we have to pull the knob as we turn the key, which worked (thankfully; i was imagining sleeping on the stairwell). . .

plans for the future/next steps: 1. apply for visas (i'm following this guy's advice, because it's the most complete info i've found so far, except that i have to apply without a residence permit- we don't have a real address- which shouldn't be a problem) and visiting the office tommorrow while phil applies for his student visa (a lot more straightforward than my weird english freelance visa) and as soon as i have that, i can start working part time for all these companies that have said they would hire me to teach some classes once i have the right paperwork. 2. get an actual apartment: we need a visa to do this, but i've already started looking online and in the papers

xoxo, more later!