The last few days have been incredibly busy as we have tried to make progress on our two biggest tasks to get settled: finding a place to live and buying a car. Both are arguably two of the most stressful parts of modern living to begin with, but add in the German rules for each, which can be quite different from the U.S., the language barrier, our temporary living situation, and our unfamiliarity with the region, and suddenly every step of each process turns into a new step that requires twice as long as we expected it to.
We actually identified the car we want to buy on Friday (more on that in a later post) but with all the hoops we have to jump through we probably won’t actually take possession until next week sometime. On Sunday we put in an application for a house we would like to rent, but we’re still waiting to hear back from the realtor to find out if we were selected.
Today, we had three more houses to tour since we aren’t sure about the first place yet. We also had several car-related tasks to take care of, so we left work around 0830 and embarked on a long, tiring day of errands, mishaps, wrong turns, and extreme frustration.
Get customs form so we can purchase the car.
The VAT office opened at 0830, so we got there as soon as they opened.
Realize that we need the Customs office, not the VAT office. But since we are at the VAT office anyway, decide to pick up some VAT forms.
45 minutes later (since it was our first time there), finish at the VAT office and start looking for the Customs office on another part of base.
Decide to divide and conquer — Chris will go to the customs office, while I go to the JAG office to make an appointment so we can get something for the car loan notarized.
The JAG office has a big sign that says they will only see you if you have an appointment, and you can only make an appointment through email.
Email the JAG office about an appointment (never hear back).
Realize that I’m close to the USO office, which might allow me to print the forms we need notarized, so detour there to sign into a computer and print the forms.
Pat myself on the back, because our back-up plan was to buy a printer we don’t really want because this is the 4th time we’ve needed to print stuff.
Wander around the very confusing groups of buildings trying to figure out where the Customs office is so I can meet back up with Chris. He had much better luck than me, and got all the forms we needed and an explanation of the long list of next steps.
Back to the apartment to let the dogs out.
Check our messages and realize there are several forms we have to fill out and messages we have to send between our bank in the states and the car guy in Germany.
Leave to check out the first house on our list: fall in love. It was amazing. But we can’t say yes to it because we’re still waiting to hear back on the other place. Sigh heavily.
Realize that my coffee mug had leaked milky coffee all over my purse and side, soaking almost everything in my purse, including a bunch of cash, my temp driver’s license, passports, and important paperwork, including the forms I had printed at the USO.
Try (sort of successfully) not to have a breakdown.
Get back to the apartment to try to clean everything up and start some laundry. Salvage almost everything, but the whole experience was awful.
Realize we can use an online notary service to digitally notarize everything, and spend an hour trying to figure out how to make that work.
Successfully video call someone in Texas and get the documents signed and sent to the bank.
Head to our next house tour, but realize while we’re still waiting that this is not the place for us.
It was right downtown with almost no green space for the dogs.
The apartment was nice and very well soundproofed, but we much preferred the other two places on our short list.
Back to the apartment again to let the dogs out again, change out the laundry, and work on more paperwork for the car.
Head out again to the third house tour and arrive only 5 minutes early because there are apparently two places with the same street and number in the area, and the Nav system was sending us to the wrong one. (We prefer to arrive 20 minutes early so we can wander the neighborhood a bit.)
Realize almost immediately that this was not the right area for us. No greenery on the streets and really narrow sidewalks, which would make walking our very reactive dogs a nightmare.
Wonder where the realtor since it was after 4.
Check my messages and realize the appointment was at 4:20, not 4.
Wander the area a bit, which just confirms our initial opinion.
Tour the house, which was quite nice inside and would have otherwise met our needs, but say no.
Realize that our initial plan to grab dinner in the area wouldn’t work since most of the places that looked promising on the map were either take-out or not open.
Drive back towards the apartment (after at least 3 more wrong turns) and realize we were near the first restaurant we ate at in Wiesbaden — decide to go for it.
Several narrow streets and a couple of U-turns later, park near the restaurant.
Have a beer. Eat.
Head home, with one more adventure doing a 15 point turn to get turned around on a closed, one-way street.
Get to the apartment, pour a beer, and collapse.
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