It has been four months to the day since we returned to
For my readers who have come all the way with me, I thank you. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.
An American expatriate in Stuttgart, Germany
It has been four months to the day since we returned to
For my readers who have come all the way with me, I thank you. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.
John took his car down to the tire shop first thing in the morning to swap out his old flat-spotted tires. We ran some errands and then left in the mid-afternoon to drive the minivan to the Lufthansa Cargo facility near the
We were up at 7 am, giving us plenty of time to enjoy a relaxed breakfast. Beth and Axel arrived at 8:45 and helped schlep all of our luggage down to their B-Class. We managed to fit everything in, just barely, and headed off to the airport. After we got all checked in (we only had to open up one of our six pieces of luggage for the security check, thank goodness), we returned to the outer waiting room to say goodbye to Beth and Axel. Beth and I tried to keep it short and sweet but I started crying anyway. I didn’t really fall apart until we went through the X-ray and into the big waiting lounge, where I had a good cry in the corner.
A few more pictures from our last day in Stuttgart:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157604590058213/
I’ve put a few pictures of Botnang and Schloss Solitude on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157604568973502/
John picked me up around 11:00 this morning to go over to the house for the official handover of our apartment. We were supposed to meet Monika, our relocation rep from Professional Organizing, but she was late. While we waited, Frau Dörr arrived. I had warned John that I thought Frau Dörr was going to have her own painter come, because she didn’t understand that Daimler was bringing their own contractors. Sure enough, both painters showed up, along with a guy from the cleaning company, and quite a bit of confusion ensued. I basically told John to keep quiet until Monika arrived; it wasn’t our problem, after all. Monika explained the situation, but of course Frau Dörr still wanted to use her painter because he had done all of the work on the house previously. Monika finally said that he was welcome to put in a bid for the work as well. I was just happy that we didn’t have to do any of the talking!
While we were at the apartment, Dorota F. called to say she was still at the hospital with her mother and was not going to be able to make it. I made arrangements with Frau Dörr to leave Dorota’s things in the garage so she could pick them up later.
And that was it – we walked down the familiar stone steps one last time, shut the gate behind us, and said goodbye forever to our little green house in Botnang.
Sometime during my travels today I received a message on my cell phone from the lady whose car I had hit over the weekend. I called her back while I was at Beth’s (just in case I needed a back-up German speaker) and tried to explain to her what had happened. She just wanted my insurance information, which I didn’t have handy since the car was five flights of stairs away. I told her the car was insured through Daimler and that I would call her back later with the information.
I had to get up with John at the excrutiatingly early hour of 6:45 this morning so I could drive him to work (yes, please tell me how sorry you feel for me). Traffic was heavy on the Autobahn and it took a full hour to make the roundtrip to
After breakfast at SI-Suites, we left Cody and Scotty at the hotel again and headed over to the house to complete the move-out. There’s nothing quite like the hollow echo of an empty house. Our place looks a lot bigger without any furniture in it. A guy named Dieter arrived at 10 am sharp to pick up the wardrobe. He came well-prepared with a battered leather toolbag and a large (by European standards) van. He was surprised at the excellent condition of the wardrobe and pleased that we helped him take it apart and carry it downstairs. It actually came apart pretty easily – Dieter knew just how to detach the hinges; hauling it all down three flights of stairs was the hard part. He gave us an extra 25 Euro for helping him out, which I thought was quite nice of him, especially since he ended up sitting in our driveway for another hour taking all of the hardware off so the wood wouldn’t get scratched up on his drive home. Beth and Axel arrived in their new B-Class to pick up their stuff just as we finished carrying all the wardrobe pieces downstairs. They already own two chairs that match our dining room set, so Beth had laid claim to our chairs several months ago and it was relatively easy to convince them to buy the matching table as well. I also convinced Beth to take most of my Asian cooking ingredients, including some fish sauce, crystallized ginger, and coconut milk. (We had been warned by the moving company not to put a speck of food or alcohol in our shipment to ward off the prying hands of U.S. Customs agents. Apparently if they find something edible or otherwise suspicious in your shipment, they are liable to break into all of your boxes whilly-nilly, destroying your possessions in the process.)
We feasted on the fabulous breakfast buffet at SI-Suites this morning and then headed back to Botnang to preside over the emptying of our house. (We left Cody and Scotty behind at the hotel with the “do not disturb” sign on the door.) Jürgen, Sonja, and Uwe’s son arrived around 11:00 with a large refrigerated van to move out all of their purchases. Don’t ask me why or how they managed to borrow a refrigerated van, it’s just significant because a refrigerated van has a lot less space in it than a regular van, and they really had to do a stellar packing job to get everything to fit. We said goodbye to a lot of big items in one fell swoop: our beloved red microfiber couch, which had been the bright and comfortable focal point of our living room, two coffee tables, our TV, stereo, and TV stand, the china cabinet from the dining room, the small red convertible sofa from the office, and a variety of smaller items. I told Jürgen I was pregnant (to explain why I was unable to lift heavy objects) and I swear it brought a tear to his eye! We also managed to offload a bunch of odds and ends on Jürgen and Sonja that we hadn’t been able to sell to anyone, including our fire extinguisher and some random kitchen items.
It was dark and drizzling by the time we got back to SI-Suites, so we could only give poor Cody, who had been cooped up in the room all day, a meager evening walk around the empty fields near the hotel.
Speaking of German bureaucracy, something strange happened this week. I went outside one morning and discovered that someone had put up two “no parking” signs on the sidewalk in front of our house. These weren’t any flimsy cardboard signs either; they were the real heavy-duty metal street signs, mounted in heavy plastic blocks. (The symbol for no parking in
Today marked my last morning walk with Evelyne and Marlene. It has been getting harder and harder to drag myself out of bed in the morning (although I should be thankful that the only pregnancy symptom I have suffered from so far is fatigue!) but I didn’t want to disappoint Evelyne by telling her I couldn’t go walking anymore. Nevertheless, I was secretly grateful that this would be my last early morning outing. Marlene was so busy talking that I don’t think she realized it was the last time I would see her. I promised Evelyne that I would come over next week sometime to visit her and Oda one more time.
This evening I attended my final jazz class. (I figured it would be pretty tough to get all the way out to Feuerbach next week with only one car between me and John, and we would have plenty of other things on our plate to worry about.) It was the Wednesday class, which was my least favorite of the two, but I had a good time and even mastered most of the combination. Marilena gave me a big hug at the end and wished me well. I can’t emphasize enough what a wonderful experience this has been and how happy I am that I worked up the nerve to take dance classes here. I only wish I had done it sooner. I have vowed to keep some element of dance in my life from now on.