Finally moving into our Flat

I have made over 30 trips back and forth to Munich and spent countless days and nights in hotels. Last year, I spent over 120 days and nights in Munich, and the year before, even more than that. So this trip was my last time staying in a hotel. We arrived in Munich on February 23^rd and still had one more week of hotel living before moving into our flat. We had so much luggage for this trip that we needed to take two cars to Logan in order to move everything. Here are some pictures of us heading out the door on the way to the airport.

When we arrived at the airport with all eight suitcases, we unloaded everything at Lufthansa and truly expected a massive bill for the extra luggage. The counter agent was really nice, and Deborah began to chat her up about where she lived, how she liked it, and recommended some other nicer areas where she might consider living. During this whole time, the agent was fidgeting with her payment machine and finally, in a sheepish way, told us it was going to be $870 to ship the 8 cases. She then right away said she would try harder. She went off, fidgeted some more with her machine and said; Okay, now it is going to be $470. Finally, when she delivered the bill to us, it was $270 for shipping the extra luggage. So the lesson being, it is always good to chat up the agent and save yourself $600!

So we arrived in Munich with all this luggage one week before the flat was to be ready. To make matters even more challenging, though, we had to change hotels midway as The Marriott was booked for the latter part of the week. We moved from the Marriott in the Schwabing neighborhood to the Sofitel in the city center. The Sofitel was nice, but boy was it expensive. I went down to breakfast one morning only to find out that the breakfast was 39 euros! Close to $55 for a continental breakfast! Check out the hotel though as it used to be the former post office in Munich.

During the week we were in Munich and waiting for the flat, Deborah spent her time going around and window shopping for all the things we might need. 


Just to backtrack a bit, the rental market here in Munich, especially for furnished apartments is crazy. The economy is so strong that there are huge numbers of ex-patriots living here and the flats might be available one day and gone the next. Most of these are in the Schwabing neighborhood, on the northern side of Munich. When we were in Munich during our previous apartment-hunting trip, several local friends told us that we should look in the Haidhausen neighborhood as it had older homes with bigger flats. So Deb kept asking Sissi (our cute, blond Munich re-location agent) each day if there was anything in Haidhausen. Finally on Thursday, the day before we were to fly back home, she said a place had come open and we could see it.

When we arrived, Deb on Thursday and then both of us again on Friday, the place was completely under renovation. But as they say, it had "great bones" and a very nice landlord. Also, it's in a great neighborhood, in a building that dates to 1898. But when I saw it on that Friday it was totally stripped, had the tub in the middle of the living room, plastic all over the floors, was full of workers, and had nothing in the kitchen or bath except totally bare walls with the plastering not even done. Here are a few pictures of the houses across the street and a view of the street we live on.

On March 1, our move-in date, we had an appointment to meet the landlord, his wife, and Sissi the re-location agent, at our new apartment. But before we could move in,we had to register as Alien residents.We spent the next four hours at the registration bureau. Luckily, the relocation people knew exactly what to do and although it was time consuming it was relatively painless. This was all necessary if we wanted to live and work in Munich.

We then rushed back to the hotel and did the massive packing thing again, calling a porter to load up all the stuff, asking them to get a minivan-taxi to fit it all in, and then loading up the taxi. When the porter asked us why so much luggage we told him we were moving to Munich and the Haidhausen neighborhood. His reaction was all smiles and congratulations for moving into a nice neighborhood with nice restaurants.

I must admit that the Bavarian people seem to be truly friendly towards Americans. The porter was all smiles and congratulated Deb on her accent, commenting that she would be picking up German in no time. He was truly nice, was interested in us, and glad to be able to help out in any way. There is a much stronger sense of self here I think, and people do not seem to need to measure themselves by how much money they make. I think that their social system allows people of all economic classes to thrive and be comfortable with themselves and their role in life. This is very different from how people measure themselves, and others, in America.

Upon arriving at the flat, we unloaded our suitcases and started anew here at 54 Innere Wiener Strasse. Below are some pictures looking first north and then south along Innere Wiener Strasse, In the first shot our building is directly in the center of the picture. Our flat is on the second floor, directly above the Vodaphone store .

We were lucky upon arriving as someone had buzzed the door open and we were able to move all of our bags to inside the hallway.

We sat and waited for a while, unsure whether it would be polite to simply go up the stairs. Sissi had informed us that both Ares and his wife would be there, but where were they? After a few minutes we decided to go up, and sure enough as we got to the top of the stairs Ares was there, opening the door for us and letting us into our new flat. He and his wife, Isabella, had put great effort into that moment. They had fruit in a crystal bowl, fresh flowers, and Champagne all waiting for us. This was a really good start. It was clear that Ares, whose father was an architect and who also seems to have some real interest in architecture, was very proud of the apartment and how it came out. I was truly in awe, having last seen it with plastic strewn across the floors, the bathtub sitting in the middle of the living room, and absolutely nothing in either the kitchen or the bathroom.

The bath was the crowning point of the new tour, and I can see why he was so proud of it, as the entire flat was far beyond my expectations. After our little tour he then asked if we would like some Champagne to toast our new home. What a warm welcome, and a fantastic way to start our life in our new flat. Below are some pictures for you to see for yourself.