Our German Home

Okay, so “home” might be a bit of a stretch.  We are living in an extended stay hotel.  But we are living here for 13 months, so we’re treating it as our home.

I shared a handful of photos here but now you get the full tour!

Here is the building, in case you didn’t catch it the first time.

The first thing you have to do is walk down Cramerstraße to the parking lot.

When you round the corner you can see the smoking deck.

Our windows are directly above it.  I have observed that Europeans really love to smoke.

We pass this on our way to the stairs.  It’s the small things, like beautiful photos, that make it feel more like home.

There is also an elevator, but we only live one floor up.

Although I’m fairly sure these stairs have it out for me, someday.

What is it with hotels and fake plants?  I can’t stand them.  Our last furnished apartment had fake plants too.

You would think that living next to an elevator would be annoying, but it hasn’t bothered us at all.

Here it is from the inside.

This is what you see when you step through that door.

I LOVE the light from those windows.  And the decorations are on point.

I’m okay with looking at that for a year.

Why is your fridge in the corner, you ask?  Because of this bad boy:

This turns off all the energy in the room EXCEPT for the outlet with the fridge.  It says emergency, but I’m under the impression that the extremely energy conservative Germans use it a lot more.  I think about this during my long walks across the room to the fridge.

Here’s my kitchen.

Yes, that is the entire thing.

Here is our dinner table.  Hilarious.  No, you can’t come over for dinner.

Just kidding.  Do you want to see the bathroom?

So inviting.

The ledge instead of a cabinet is an interesting concept.  For a year it’s fine, but after that I think I’d like to actually have covered storage.  Like a medicine cabinet.  Or literally anything.

I’m in love with the deep windows.  They are all like this.  So much space!

Notice that the toilet isn’t connected to the floor.  This probably makes it easier to clean… I wouldn’t know, since I don’t have to clean it!  I’m sure you can figure out what the large and small circular buttons are for all by yourself.

I’m not really sure how we are saving space by having the shower fold inwards… but I love having options!

As far as I can tell this is some sort of radiator.  You turn it on, it gets warm, and so do your towels!

The bedroom is spacious, comfortable, well-lit, and nicely designed.  Yes those are two mattresses, and yes the ledge between them hurts a bit.

More beautiful windows.

In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t much storage space.  This is my solution.  This is probably the only time I’ll ever show you what is underneath my bed.

This is from Mr. Meena’s side of the bed.

He gets a fancy bin for the important documents on his side.

Koopa gets his own ray of sunshine.

Time for a German window demo.

In this photo the window is closed.  Don’t you just love that tree?  It’s gorgeous and provides another layer of privacy.  I’m going to miss those leaves in the winter.

It might be hard to tell, but this window is open at the top.  Yup, it’s just leaning inwards.  I’m still not entirely convinced that this heavy thing is not going to fall on me.

And here it is wide open!  No screens.  That makes life hard for Koopa and easy for flies.  I’m terrified of being woken up by a wasp in the middle of the night (there’s no AC so the windows stay at least cracked).

And just in case you need some privacy…

Full metal blinds controlled by a switch on the wall.  I want these in my future home, they are so handy.

The first day we closed them completely and the room was still blackout dark while it was bright and sunny outside.   It made the time change even more confusing.  We only partially close them now.

This is our view out the back window.  Makes for a decent sunset!

Perhaps you thought, “Oh my goodness the place is meticulous!”  Well, we have no choice really.  If it isn’t clean then the maid service can’t do their jobs and the owners wouldn’t like that.  Don’t expect this from me at any other point in my life.

But for now, it’s nice.