Urachstrasse 29

 Our new home is in Wiehre, a leafy neighborhood in Freiburg. We occupy the second floor of a once grand 150 year old house, which was built by the grandfather of our landlord. After Schwarzer Freitag in 1929, the family was forced to divide up the house. The original structure was split in half and now houses six tenants: one per floor per side. Above us is an older woman and below us is a lovely family with three children. The middle boy is the same age as James.

The house! You can see how it has been maintained differently on each side. We are on the left side. 

The balcony you see is off of the playroom. There is a wonderful apple tree in the front yard almost ready for picking.

This is facing the street, which gets tons of sun. The owner said I could plant ANYTHING I WANT. 

A little herb garden that the owner planted.

Directly ahead is the "garage" where we store our bikes. Beside the garage is the back yard. The front door is directly to your right.

View of our apartment door from half a flight up.

This window in our entry hall used to be a service window. There is a bell nearby.

The entry hallway. The door to our apartment is to your right. The door on the left (you can only see the molding) is Buck and my bedroom. Behind you is the kitchen and bathroom. Straight ahead is the playroom; to the right is the boys' room; to the left is the living room and sunroom. There is a balcony off the playroom and off of the master bedroom. 

The writing desk you see directly in front of you belonged to the owner's father as a schoolboy. It is adjustable to various heights - the original stand-up desk!

Door to the bathroom. There is another "bathroom" that has a shower but no toilet. 

Moving down the hallway to the first door on the right - the boys' room. When we first moved in the bed was against the other wall and there was no dresser. The boys sleep horizontally on the bed and seem to really like it so far. I'd like to add a small desk for James.

Looking out into the hallway from the boys' room.

Back in the hallway and moving along to the first door on your left - our bedroom. The space is enormous and features a four-poster king-size bed. As I'm sure many of you are wondering, there are two mattresses and so far I've been able to tolerate sleeping next to my husband. 

I stood on the balcony to take this picture.

This balcony is covered and overlooks the back yard. It's also where we will hang most of our washing.

The "garage" in the backyard that stores our bikes. 

The backyard. Our first full day in the house the family below decided to demolish the old child's play house in the back yard to make way for a house for their bunnies. James and Eddie joined them with their tools (given to them by Pille, Maja's father) and got to work pulling off roof shingles. The small gravel patch in the upper right corner was where the playhouse was. The big tree is a walnut tree, and we should be able to harvest the nuts in September.

The shower that is connected to our bedroom.

Ok you're finally done snooping in our bedroom and are back in the hallway. Directly ahead is the playroom.

There was a giant foosball table that took up half the room, but I made quick work of that. Half of it is in the attic and half is under our bed :) 

 

Throughout the ceilings are 15 feet high. I had two non-negotiable when looking for a place: high ceilings and hardwood floors.

Standing on the balcony. 

Through the trees is the Black Forest. 

Because I do what I want, we are going to skip the living room and sunroom today. Maja is here and is using those spaces as her bedroom at the moment. 

You turned around and marched right back down the hallway towards the kitchen. The owner is a Sommelier and an excellent cook so the kitchen is stocked with lots of fancy equipment. (When was the last time you tried to spell Sommelier? Just now my best guess was auto-corrected to Somalian. For a brief moment even google could not figure out what I was trying to spell.) 

The pantry. 

My god you're nosy! 

Today I dropped off the paperwork for my student visa. We have an appointment on the 25th to register the apartment in our name, which is an important step in Germany. We will use that registration to open a bank account and confirm our German insurance. 

There are testing stations scattered throughout the city, and they offer PCR or Rapid tests for free. We went out to dinner last night, and because James is the only human in our household over the age of 6 and unvaccinated, we had to get him a Rapid test in order to go to the restaurant. All four of us will need to present fresh negative tests at our registration appointment as well.