House Hunters International: Foltice Edition Part 1

In case you missed our last post, we have news - we're moving again! This time we're only going 60 kilometers (aka: 37 miles) from Borken to Münster. It is bittersweet leaving Borken because it really is a special town and we've loved living here, but if you've read Bryan's recent "Year of the Schedule" blog post, then you know Bryan isn't home very much and we think quitting basketball and moving closer to Bryan's job will overall be better for our family.

Since we've started searching for a place in Münster, we've learned that there are some MAJOR differences between finding an apartment in America to finding one in Germany. In fact, other than the end result of moving into a new place, every other aspect of searching for an apartment is different.

Let's start with the basics...

Step 1: The Online / Newspaper Search

In America you'd pull up the handy website Apartments.com and type in your city and a massive list of just about every available apartment complex within 100 miles shows up with photos and all the details you'd ever want. Searching for an apartment in the newspaper isn't so hard either, because at least I can read and understand English. See below for what a newspaper ad for an apartment in Germany looks like and tell me if you understand what this says:

MS-Gievenbeck ruhige 3 ZKBB, mit EBK, Grg., NR Whg. 77 m2, ab 1.5., 520 Eur KM + NK Zuschriften unter, WN 6784129 ZGM 48135 Münster

Germany also has it's own version of Apartments.com, but you won't find any apartment complex listings because those don't exist here. Every single apartment unit is individually owned (like a condo), so the results in searches end up being specific flats available in buildings or the top/bottom floors of people houses that have been converted to apartments. They may or may not have photos and important details (like when it's available, do they accept pets, etc), and they are most likely listed by a rental real estate agent whose going to charge you (yes, YOU the renter, not the person who hired them to list their apartment) 2 1/2 times the monthly rent as a fee if you get selected as the renter for this apartment.

How I wish the German equivalents were as informative and organized as this website. 

Step 2: Viewing the Apartment

In America, not only is there a TON of information online, but you can just show up at that apartment complex, walk into the office and someone is there to show you a model and answer all you questions - so easy!

In Germany, you have to make an appointment with the landlord or, more likely, the real estate agent that the landlord has hired to find a tenant. This sounds easy, but as we've mentioned before, we're terrible phone talkers in German. We're so bad that Bryan has asked one of the research assistants at the University to make all the initial phone calls for us on apartments we want to look at because if I did the calling no one would call us back. Think about it - if you were trying to find a renter and someone called and left you a message that sounded like this in a heavily accented broken language, would you call them back?

"Hello. I interesting in apartment you. Have I appointment for seeing can? Please back call mine at 1-234-5678. Thank you."

I'm pretty sure that this is how I sound to a German person when I try to speak German. You probably wouldn't call me back either.

If we're lucky enough to get an appointment, we have no say in when that appointment it. The real estate agent simply says "Saturday at 5:30 pm. Be there." And if you can't be there, then you lose out on the apartment because it's such a sellers/renters market in Münster that real estate agents aren't going to bend over backwards to show one person (nonetheless a foreigner) an apartment at a special time when there are 20 more people willing to do whatever it takes to get there on Saturday at 5:30. For whatever reason (maybe it's a law, I'm not sure), apartments are only shown on Saturdays, which sucks for us because Bryan is in Münster every weekday and can easily slip out to check out a place, but Saturday's are really hard for us. He has basketball games, so if we're going to look at an apartment I have to go by myself (or with Dylan, which would be extra stressful). There are limited busses on Saturdays, so if the appointment is too late in the day (like at 5:30) then I'll miss the last bus home and will either have to take an expensive 2.5 hour train ride with multiple legs or just stay in a hotel an come home on Sunday when even fewer busses run between Borken and Münster. That's a super expensive day to just look at 1 apartment. Trying to explain this to a German real estate agent conjures up zero sympathy. They seem to just shrug their shoulders and say "best of luck."

Step 3: So, What's Included?

Ok, this will blow your mind, Americans. Not every apartment here comes equipped with a kitchen. For real. All those years I spent in advertising and marketing homes and condos means that I know that the kitchen is pretty much the most important room in the house. And about 90% of the apartments on the market here require that you BYOK (bring your own kitchen). When touring a typical apartment, here is what the kitchen looks like:

That's right, it's a big empty room with holes in the wall for appliances and zero cabinets.  So, if we moved into one of these apartments we'd have to scrounge up an extra 4,000-5,000 Euros (or more) to buy and install a fitted kitchen into this space.  Some apartments (about 10%) come with kitchens, but you have to read the fine print because some times it will say "New tenant can purchase this kitchen from current tenants for 2,000 Euros" or "New tenant can rent this kitchen for 200 Euros."  Occasionally the kitchen is just part of the apartment, but there's usually some catch.

Another thing that you have to ask about is lighting.  When someone moves out of an apartment they take all of their lighting fixtures (as in, those affixed to the ceiling) with them, leaving either no lighting at all or a bare bulb hanging down from the ceiling on a cord.  Sometimes all they leave is just a cord with no bulb at all.  It's just another expense to moving here that is easy to forget and can be quite costly in the end, unless you're OK living in a dark home.

Step 4: Getting The Apartment
So if somehow we manage to find an apartment in our budget, with a kitchen, that is available starting June 1, our next step is filling out the paperwork and hoping we get selected.  This doesn't sound too different than an American experience, but just wait.  Unless you're acting as landlord, you have an agency handling all the details (like more places here).  The difference is that in America the agency vets the applicants, makes a selection and gets it all set up and the owner doesn't have to deal with it (because that's what the owner is paying for).  But here, the agency brings the applications to the owner and lets them decide.  This is bad news for us because the agent is surely going to tell the owner that we're the Americans and we've been warned that we'll be prejudiced against as future tenants because people don't want foreigners renting their homes.  We've experienced this a little bit so far and expect more of it.  There is apparently no such thing as "Equal Housing Opportunity" here.

I've never had so much respect for this little logo found in every real estate ad and marketing piece in America.

So, wish us luck and send us prayers in findings the right place in Münster over the next few months.  We'll keep you updated on how the search goes and will hopefully have some photos of the actual apartment candidates a'la House Hunters International.

2012: The Year of the Schedule

The news is official: I will not be playing basketball in Borken next season and we will be moving to Münster on the 1st of June.  Dana and I are both sad and excited.  Sad because we will miss the people here in Borken and because basketball will be over.  Excited because, well, it's Münster. Also excited because we will (hopefully) get our schedules/priorities back in order.

Over our Christmas break, I had to reassess my overly hectic and unsustainable schedule.  The last 4 months had been brutal.  A 70-80 hour week (counting work, basketball, and commute time) is ok if done once in a while.  I get this adrenaline rush from the stress and nonstop running around.  I actually like it and feel that I do some of my best work on this schedule.  Doing this type of demanding schedule, however, for 14 weeks in a row without a break leading up to Christmas is a recipe for disaster. A lesson that I have learned first hand.

Remarkably, the adrenaline thing worked for about 11-12 weeks throughout the months of September, October, and November.  The 'take it one day at a time until you get to Christmas' mentality worked quite well.  Sure, there were good days and bad.  But overall I was somehow making it work.

That is until I hit the wall.  I understand now that the term 'hitting the wall' is extremely accurate, as it felt in the somewhere in the first week of December that I had literally ran into a wall, both mentally and physically.  I remember a Thursday night basketball practice that week, where I literally felt that I my body might shut down and I would collapse to the ground.

For the next two weeks, I would often get dizzy and light headed while sitting at my desk at work or while playing basketball.  I was so ill one night that I couldn't play in a game.   The week leading up to Christmas, it took all of the energy I had to do even the simplest task.  I was totally overwhelmed and totally out of gas.  Not a feeling I ever want to have again.

I am failing to mention Dana and Dylan up to this point.  As much I as I have tried to do date nights and spend Saturday and Sunday's (at least the time before my games) with Dylan, family time was clearly lacking and Dana needed a break at Christmas just as much as I did.

Christmas break could not have come fast enough.  A couple weeks of rest was precisely what I needed.  The light headed/dizziness is gone. I have as much energy as a 31 year old could possibly have.

To avoid 'hitting the wall' in 2012, I am bound and determined to keep my schedule under control.  I track my hours every week in an attempt to keep everything (work+commute+basketball) under 60 hours per week.  Up to this point, I have been successful about 50% of the time this year.

Eliminating basketball from the schedule will free up 15-20 hours per week.  Additionally, moving anywhere remotely close to Münster will cut down immensely on travel time.  I am currently averaging 13.5 hours per week of travel time alone.  Combine the two and I will have nearly an entire additional work week of newly found free time in June.

Münster, here we come!

Interview for ExpatInfoDesk.com

A few weeks ago I was able to take part in an interview with an Expat website, ExpatInfoDesk.com, a really useful website for people living abroad. I love going to the website and reading the other interviews with expats to learn about life in their chosen countries, so it was a cool honor to be selected as well!

Click on this link here to read the whole interview.

DIY - New Chairs! Neue Stühle!

About 9 months ago, Bryan came home from work with a huge cache of furniture he picked up on the side of the road, also known as Sperrmüle. Several times a year here each neighborhood of the city has a Sperrmüle day where everyone is allowed to toss their old furniture and large household items (old TVs, computers, broken vacuums, etc.) on the side of the road and over the next day or two different official departments will come and pick it up.  Some trucks come through and only take appliances, others only take metal, wood, or plastic, etc.  But, usually the night before the official collectors come there, there is a frenzy of activity in these neighborhoods where thrifty people sort through everything and find treasures to bring back to their homes.  Until each neighborhood's Sperrmüle day, everyone is required to keep their old furniture in their house and it is absolutely not permitted to try to toss this stuff out with the regular garbage.

This one day, Bryan came home with several items - 4 dinner chairs, 2 night stands, and a small dresser.  Since we know eventually we will move out of this apartment and need to furnish our own apartment, we have slowly been collecting things and taking advantage of Sperrmüle whenever we can.  It always seems like Sperrmüle in our neighborhood falls on a super rainy day, and they're nothing worse than going through other people's trash, I mean Sperrmüle, in the rain.

These chairs that Bryan brought home were in good condition structurally, but they were really ugly.  The white paint was all scuffed up and the seat cushions looked like someone has systematically spilled a glass of apple juice on each one.  Realizing that I spend a ridiculous amount of my down time zoning out to other people's DIY blogs, I thought surely I can put some of this knowledge to use and improve on some of this stuff that Bryan brought home.  So, I focused my attention on the chairs.

Here is the before:

They were just really dingy and in need of a refresh.  So gave them a fresh coat of white paint and recovered the seat cushions and voila!  New chairs!

They're not perfect, but it was a good first effort at recovering a seat cushion and using spray paint.  My next project is to give this little bookshelf a new paint job.  Any color suggestions?

First Interview's in German

Since I was 15, I have done somewhere between 200 and 300 interviews, mostly with the newspaper, but quite a few also for TV and radio.  My best quote to date happened as a freshmen in high school when I said (talking about a really bad game I had played earlier in the season), 'I did everything wrong that game but pee my pants.'  I received a package of Depends Men's diapers from a friend after making that remark.

Last weekend, I did something new in an interview: I spoke in a foreign language.  (Actually, I tried to do a newspaper interview in Spanish down in Mexico after a basketball game a few years ago, but answered the reporters question about the game with an answer about how beautiful the city of San Cristobal was. My translator stepped in and did his job after that.)

Anyways, last Sunday evening after a tough loss to Recklinghausen, I sat down and spoke my friend Jan, who is a radio reporter for Radio WMW here in Borken.  He started the first question in English and I answered in (very poorly spoken) German.  We continued our dialogue in German for the next 10-15 minutes.  Halfway through I even though to myself, 'which language are we speaking? Oh right, we are doing this in German and I am actually totally following along!'  Well, not totally, but enough to keep going.  I needed clarification (in English) on a couple of the questions, but overall it was conducted in German.  

My embarrassment is for your pleasure.  Poor Jan had to edit our 10-15 minute conversation down to 20 seconds of coherent sound bites. Here is the link of the interview if you want to hear it for yourself. It's only two minutes long. 


22.01. Einem US-Basketballer gefällts im Kreis by user9198427

I followed up that interview the next morning with a short newspaper interview in German (ok, I needed some help with clarifying a couple questions there as well.)   The article is attached here.

Since we are on the subject of basketball (something that isn't talked about on the blog too much.)  Here is a quick update and a couple of pictures from the  season.

The team that I play for, RC Borken, is currently 3-8.  We had to forfeit the first game that we won because one of our players wasn't registered properly.  Only in Germany can a clerical error cost a team a game.  So instead of being 4-7, we are down at the bottom of the standings, trying to stay in the league.  Remember: the last two teams in each division at the end of the season go down a league.  If you win the championship, you move up a league.  If this were the case in American football, the Detroit Lions would be playing at the High School Junior Varsity football level.

Hopefully, we can win a few more games the second time around (we have played each time once) in the new year.

The team that I coach is currently 7-4 halfway through the season and is tied for third place.  We have been playing well at home, but our away games have been generally tough.  We need to keep winning these next few games in order to have a shot at the Championship towards the end of the season.

Here are some photos from this season so far:

Bed head and unshaven.  Sorry ladies, this guy's taken

Christmas Game with Saint Nikolas

I will pretend to say that this shot was not blocked by the guy with arms two feet longer than mine.  

Fadeaway.  I need to tuck the elbow in more. 

Recklinghausen Game

Dortmund Game

Actually going to not shoot it for once.