More than a thousand words

Pictures are worth more than a thousand words, right? Well, supposedly. Therefore, here are some of our new flat, one project that's been keeping me so busy lately...

signed and confirmed

It is signed. It is confirmed. We will be moving to a bigger nicer apartment on the 1st of November. We'll be gaining an extra room, 20m3, a balcony, the charm of Altbau with 3m high ceilings and Dielenboden, and last but certainly not least, 10 steps up instead of the actual 93 to enter our soon-to-be new home. I am delighted, as this also means that I will finally be surrounded by all my furniture and personal belongings very soon. They have been in storage in Madrid since December 2005, but it's time to send them to Hannover at last! Now, don't jump to conclusions though, Hannover is still a temporary solution, i.e. the plan of leaving to Godknowswhere asap remains. The wait will nevertheless be much more pleasant. Of that I am convinced.

See you upon our return from our swiss-italian Summer vacation in two weeks!

Projecting

I am getting fed up of so much procrastination and inaction. Waiting around for the right job is obviously not bringing me anywhere. Having decided to stay close to my husband, and therefore Hannover for the time being, means that I need to recycle myself. Doing what was the big question mark. Yes, was. Two projects, which are still at the pre-developpment phase, might change all that soon. I'll probably go ahead with both of them after the Summer holidays. Never know which one will pick up... Besides, one thing is for sure, I'll be able to work very well on both of these in my new office set up in our new bigger appartment =)

Latest

Some of the latest news, some funny/good/positive (circle which fits best), some not...

• -remember two years ago, when I had asked for a transfer from Madrid to Zurich? I had to reject their offer, as it was clearly miserable. Well guess what? They are now looking to fill in the Zurich position and are asking me my conditions. Clearly hilarious if that ends up working out!
• -I finally received my salary for my two-week-record-job in January. Only that he only paid me for the two weeks and not for the entire month like he legally has to. I now need to inform myself whether it is worth pursuing this issue with a lawyer...
• -My gastro is finally receeding. I'll be able to eat normal food very soon, hopefully even tonight =)
• -We reserved the apartment we like yesterday. It's an altbau building, where all 11 apartments will be completely renovated. If it all works out (mainly financially) we'll have a beautiful 130 m2 flat, with high ceilings, 3 bedrooms, and a small balcony. The best of it all: we can choose all the finitions, layout, etc. =D

Research baby!

My first "project" at work consist in researching the mobile market. I am therefore spending my days on the web - returning home with cube eyes as my hubby loves to say- searching for all kind of reports, studies, products, and services. Ideas if you will. And sometimes, I also stumble on something which completely grabs my full attention although having nothing to do with my research, thus providing me with a few minutes of break. Among my many discoveries today, I would like to share with you the chalkboard fridge, the catwalk, and the litter box hider. Simply because I will paint/build/purchase all those three items for the new apartment we are inches away to buy!

Oh, and if you wonder how on earth I landed on those webpages during my mobile market research, well, better don't ask! ;-)

Being reasonable

Mr. Heinrich immediately calmed down and started treating us with respect. Unfortunately, someone made a higher offer today, and their bid is higher than the market value. We will therefore be reasonable and move on. I know that we will find the right flat for us soon.

Dear Mr. H

I personally find frustrating how often you have to deal with imbeciles in life. These stupid and incompetent people are everywhere you go. And just our luck, the realtor we need to negotiate with is one of them. A little complexed man too.

After his last low blow, my only option was to send him this respectful yet sharp email. And I gotta to say that I am pretty happy with it. Let us see how he reacts now.

Dear Mr. H,

As I have family in the real estate business and it is not my first real estate purchase, I understand enough of the business to know that a first offer is a simple opening for negotiation. That was the purpose of our offer yesterday. We are interested in the appartement, if not we would not have sent you an offer. And if we are interested in this appartment, it also means that we can afford to buy it. Everything is negotiable, Mr H, and the fact that we negotiate does not mean that it is over our budget. It is not because we are young, or appear to be younger than we are, that you need to treat us with disrespect. I therefore ask you to please treat us like clients and not like young imbeciles.

We hereby send you a new offer, based on the estimate we have and the price market. We hope you will transmit our offer to the owner and hope to hear back from you soon.

Sincerely,

Les jeux sont ouverts

We had our second visit this morning. We now have the experts' opinion and have thus made an offer for the appartment. The negotiating game has started. Les jeux sont ouverts. Let's see where it will take us.

Next buy

Another project for our "new life", i.e. staying in Hannover for now, working again, getting married, is also buying our own appartment. Now that does not mean we are settling here forever. Absolutely not. But we both are firm believers that paying a mortgage every month is much more constructive as paying a rent, and the idea is to sell as soon as we have a concrete job opportunity who-knows-where.

We both have a very good idea of what we want. Hannover has many old beautiful buildings from the 19 hundreds, here called altbau, and that is one thing we want. Although that means having no elevator. We also know we want to stay in the List area, a happening yet quiet neighborhood full of shops and little cafés. We need a balcony, a guest bathroom, as well as a second bedroom, call it guest room for now, baby room in a possible near future.

We started visiting appartments a week ago and have since then seen quite a few, varying from horrible, cheap, needing to be completely redone, to ready to move in, expensive but within our limit, charming and beautiful. But we also saw THE one, i.e. the one we both fell in love with, the one we both feel is perfect for us, the one we want. It is more expensive than we had planned but also has many extras. We've been thinking it over, dreaming about it, and have now decided to have it professionnally valued and possibly make an offer. Saturday is the big day. And because a picture is sometimes worth more than a thousand words, here is one of the wonderful atouts of this appartment.

Our future little love nest

The days are flying by. I can't believe I only have today and Wednesday left at work. It's thrilling, and it honestly feels good to know that it's my last hours working with this awful team. And it feels even better to know where I will be living in Hannover. Yes, you read that right, we already found our little love nest: a small attic apartment in the central List neighborhood. We're signing the contract this week! Meaning we'll do lots more than originally planned in my trip there this Thursday. Not only will we go to see the language schools, but we'll also be able to go to Ikea and choose some of the furniture we need to buy. Hopefully this won't involve a big argument, as we can't seem to agree on the same pieces: M's priority is the cheapest price, whereas mine are nice design and good value. Call me spoiled, call me whatever you want, I need to feel comfortable in my home even if this involves spending a bit more. Especially when I am moving to a foreign country.