Our World

Would you like to see where we live? The pegs below show only a few locations, and we might add to them as time passes. Our apartment is the third peg from the bottom near the A in the street name Alpenstraße. The peg above it is Nikolas' school. There's a peg for where Peter's office is, and our grocery stores, and other places we've found important so far. The peg at the way bottom is the excellent park.


View Larger Map

People have been wondering what our apartment/neighborhood is like. Our apartment building is one of many drab apartment buildings on a quiet circular street just off the Alpenstraße, a very busy main street. Just down the block towards the park, you get into even quieter streets of small chalets and chateaus which are quiet pretty. Most people in our apartment building seems to have lived here for a long time and are pleasant, and also quick to tell you the 'rules' of the building (don't wear high heels inside because it disturbs the people under you, clean out the lint filter of the communal dryer so it's ready for the next person, shake rugs out the bathroom window NOT off the balcony, etc.). The neighborhood seems to have quite a fair number of Ausländer (foreigners), mostly from Slavic countries.

We've grown to really like out apartment. It is small and sunny and very comfortable. For those of you who knew our small 2nd floor apartment in Buck Hall, this apartment is a similar size but with the added bonuses of a small balcony off the living room, space in the kitchen for a table, and a Winter Garden (enclosed balcony) off the kitchen. This apartment is also on the second floor, although there are only 1 1/2 flights of stairs and no elevator.

When you first enter the apartment, to your right is the very compact living room. It has a big (VERY BIG) bookshelf/entertainment center that takes up one whole wall. Since we trashed one couch, we now only have one couch left which is in desperate need of a new slipcover (Ikea here we come!) and various comfy chairs so there is seating for 7. Make that 8, because my desk is in here and someone could sit on my desk chair. Attached to the living room is the balcony which seems to get sun all day and has a table and two chairs.

To the left of the front door are the toilet room and shower room (yes, two rooms). The toilet room has a toilet and the medicine cabinet. The shower room has a shower, enormous sink, water heater, and washing machine. It is a small room for all these things and feels quite cramped, though we don't spend a lot of time here.

Further down the hallway to the right are our bedrooms. Nikolas has a small room with bunkbeds (which he thinks are a great adventure), a cabinet (no closets in bedrooms here), and an electric piano. This had been jammed into the living room, but we moved it in here and Nikolas enjoys his 'grownup' Klavier. There's a good amount of floorspace left over for playing. Our bedroom is very big with a king size bed (actually two single mattresses in a kingsize frame) and a very big cabinet (taking up one wall) for clothes. Peter also has his home office here - a desk, file cabinet, and bookshelf full of Uni Maine things.

The kitchen is around the corner from the bedrooms (a straight line from the front door) and is a decent size, but with a door (not just a doorway, but a real door) into the room and a door into the winter garden, one entire wall is pretty much taken up by open doors. Counter space is almost nonexistent and the oven only has one rack in it. Hmm. No dishwasher, of course, and the sink is small. But it is workable, especially with out two fridges. We've cleared out the winter garden which seemed to be a storage room in the past and have made it a more usable space with a floor to ceiling shelf full of things for the students on one end and the new fridge on the other. There is space for two chairs in there and in the winter this will probably be a nice place to sit because it is so sunny with a wall of windows. It's also a great place to set up the drying rack!