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.

First Taste of Aachen

We went to Aachen twice this week to look at apartments. The first apartment we saw was crappy. The second was lovely, but there were about 40 other people at the viewing, so we're not holding our collective breath.

Although apartment-hunting is stressful, we're feeling very excited about Aachen itself. There are lots of beautiful buildings and it seems like a lively town. The restaurant scene seems to be more varied than Bonn's, for which we are very grateful. Aachen is also much older than Bonn. This is the famous cathedral. The middle section ("The Octagon") was built for Charlemagne circa 800 AD.


In this model of the cathedral it's easier to see the shape of silhouette, which is a symbol of Aachen.


Yes, we did go inside the cathedral, and yes, it is extremely cool. Charlemagne's bones are in there (in a big golden box). But we took no pictures of the inside. We're going to save that for another time, when we go on the guided tour and can tell you more about the cathedral's history.

Charlemagne also built Aachen's town hall. The first twenty meters of the tower on the right are from the original 9th-century structure. From peeking through the door I know that the building is beautiful inside, but there's an entrance fee, so we're saving that, too.



Here's another building on the town hall square that I liked. It was built in 1344. It started out as somebody's house; now the ground floor is a bakery.


Aachen has a lot of fountains and statues. I like this one.


There is a creche on this building. It does not otherwise seem to be a religious building.


This is a chunk of the old city wall, dating from the 12th century or so. That actually is Tyler in the archway. I should post a picture of him some time in which you can see his face.


This is a beautiful church we saw on Sunday just a couple of blocks from the apartment we really liked. It's in such a great neighborhood. Oh, how I hope we get it!


We'll be living in Aachen in a few short weeks. We'll soon have an apartment (hopefully) where people can stay with us. So start planning your trips!

P.S. One thing I love about Germany is that there are pieces of playground equipment scattered about the cities. Not full-blown parks, but slides, or climbing structures, or sandboxes set among the churches and sidewalk cafes. We found this slide just up the hill from the cathedral. It's really quite fast. I shall be going back.