The "Haus" of the Meldrumhaus

After our crazy day of moving between cities, we started settling into our apartment in Aachen. While we really like the apartment (now, anyway) and the location, we experienced firsthand the consequences of an unfortunate German tradition: when they move, they take everything. I mean everything. We knew that they typically take their kitchens with them, so we specifically rented an apartment with a kitchen. We weren't totally anticipating the loss of curtains or interior lighting; I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that the previous tenant(s) forgot the light bulb in the hood over the stove--I think we cooked by that for a meal or two. Who takes their curtains and curtain rods when they move?

Anyway, despite the lack of privacy and lighting, we managed to sleep off most of the move on Thursday in preparation for the IKEA trip on Friday. We got to IKEA in the Netherlands at about 10:40 am, and after 6 hours staring at lego-furniture, managed to make a trip back to the apartment, thanks to two very generous labmates of mine who provided a car and legal permission to drive one with a trailer. That, and untold pain and suffering bring our furniture up the five stories to our apartment. Eva and Jochen, we will name our firstborns after you. Or make you cookies. Probably just cookies, actually.

Upon arrival in the apartment with the furniture, it was getting dark (cf. lack of lights), and I was having a problem, as you can see in this movie we made.



Now that you've seen this circus, I want to take a moment to show what a strong, useful, manly, virile man I am:















That's right, I built all of that. All of it. (With a little help from IKEA.) As of Monday evening, our furniture was built and the clothes were put away, leaving nothing to do but clean the kitchen and bathroom and to install lights. And yes, I, Tyler, having no training in electrical engineering (other than watching my dad finish the basements of two houses), installed three, nay, FOUR light fixtures in our apartment. Also, I learned how to install wall anchors to hold up our new curtain.

The keen observer will note that these pictures really only show the furniture and not the apartment as a whole. This is because we're still missing some things (like a bed frame), and I didn't want to take the time to clean it up enough for posting on the internet; that is, I couldn't be bothered to make the bed, er, air mattress. Once we have either a bed or a tidied-up room, we'll give a more full apartment experience. Regardless, not only is our apartment quite pleasant now, but I'm feeling pretty dang pleased with myself. Now I just need these blisters to go away from my thumbs.