The famous Russian Orthodox Church, which is a 10-15 minute walk from the house.
We’ve been in our new apartment for a little over two weeks now and I’m glad this is the place we chose. For a recap: after looking at 15 places and putting in offers on 2 of them, which weren’t accepted, we were finally debating between three places or considering trying to hold out for something else.
Each of the three options we were considering had pluses and minuses, but the pluses for this place outweighed the one major fault: a shared yard with a family that had at least one other dog. When we initially toured the apartment we really liked it, but then we watched a brown lab and some sort of doodle come running up to the patio windows, which would have driven our dogs crazy, and was enough of a deal breaker that we didn’t think we could take it. However, after other deals fell through and the market continued to only have mediocre options, we decided to visit again.
On the second visit we met the American who was moving out, and he explained that the brown lab belonged to the neighbors on the third floor (the doodle had been visiting) but it was never really a problem and they just worked it out so his German Shepherd and their lab could be outside at different times. With that reassurance, we said yes to the apartment and signed a contract. Since the apartment wasn’t available immediately, we spent several more weeks at our temp apartment in Schierstein, but finally moved in and had our household goods delivered on 1 August.
So how did we do with our requirements and house wish list? Honestly, not too bad. It’s a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, single-level, ground floor apartment on the hill north of downtown Wiesbaden. The building has 4 apartments, one on each floor, and a large, fenced, well-maintained yard, which is completely taken care of by a groundskeeper. It also has an underground parking garage that while a little tight, has enough space to maneuver our car around in, plus there is space around the edges of the parking area to park our bicycle and store stuff. There is also a small (tiny) storage closet in the apartment and some more storage space in the small laundry space.
The two full bathrooms are huge - both showers are decent sized, but the guest shower is really big.
Like most German apartments there aren’t any closets for clothes in the bedrooms, but since the bedrooms are all a good size we can set up wardrobes without any problems. The living/dining/kitchen area is one big open space with floor to ceiling windows and patio doors along one side with electric rolladens we can lower, crack, or raise depending on how warm it is outside and how much light we want inside. The kitchen is pretty small, but it’s functional and is way more user friendly than any of the kitchens we’ve been dealing with in temp apartments — our biggest wish list for the kitchen would be more counter space and a bigger fridge and freezer, but we will eventually purchase a few things that should help stretch the space better.
For the things we really wanted, but weren’t dealbreakers we still did okay. It technically doesn’t have a washer and dryer in the actual unit, but each of the four apartments has a small laundry room on the ground floor, and our laundry room is two steps away from our front door, so it’s practically in the apartment. The house also doesn’t have AC, but it’s built into the side of the hill with large windows and sliding doors all along the Southern exposure, and smaller windows on the East and West. Between the insulation of the hill, the thick walls, and rolladens to keep the sun out, it gets warm on the hottest days, but is still pretty decent with fans running.
You can see downtown Wiesbaden (Mitte) in the distance. It looks really far away, but it’s not that far to walk.
As for the location, it’s about a 15-20 minute drive to work depending on traffic, and a 15 minute downhill walk to get to the city center and a short bus or Uber ride back up the hill. While the North and South of the apartment includes a pretty steep hill to climb, it’s relatively flat if you walk East and West, and there is a forest with popular Wiesbaden sites like the Russian Orthodox Church and hiking trails about a 10 minute walk to the West or North, which is a nice morning dog walk. There is also a small grocery store about a 5 minute walk to the East, which is good for last minute dinner plans. In addition, the apartment building has a decently sized, fenced yard, and since we’re on the ground floor we have access to some grassy yard right off of our large patio, which makes it super convenient to take the dogs out at night, especially for multiple emergency potty breaks between midnight and 4 am. (We don’t know what Ghost got into, but it was a rough night for all of us.)
The girlies adjusting to the space. That tub is long enough for Chris to stretch his legs out while he’s sitting in it.
The one final thing we’ve been waiting on at this point is internet access. We get decent cell coverage on the patio, but once we go inside we lose service pretty much immediately. We signed up for cable internet service within a day or two, but after three trips to the store and multiple rounds of trying to use google translate to trouble shoot the issues, they finally told us that a technician has to install the type of modem they gave us, so now we’re waiting for that appointment.
All in all, I think we’re going to be comfortable here and even though our clothes are still mostly piled around the edges of the bedroom since we don’t have any dressers or wardrobes yet, it’s really nice to have our stuff again in a space that has everything we needed and a whole lot of what we wanted.
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