A brief hiatus

Some of you may have noticed I have been MIA over the past few weeks. Highland Nomad has been very busy moving house and is now installed in the suburbs of Heidelberg (something I swore I would never, ever do) – in an exciting place called Walldorf. You have all heard of Walldorf, right?! Just in case you haven’t, Walldorf is famous for headquartering the world’s fourth largest software company, and is also the birthplace of John Jacob Astor, creator of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and the Waldorf salad. It seems a very quiet and civilized little community, although it is hard to tell as it’s been snowing and very cold since moving here and most Germans tend to hibernate during the winter months anyway.

Speaking of hibernation, I went round to say goodbye to our next door neighbours in Heidelberg  the other day and they said how they had been meaning to invite us over and return our invitation (they came over for drinks two years ago), had “somehow” not got round to doing so (yes, yes, whatever), but that we should organise something for the summer. What is wrong with winter? Kaffee and Kuchen anyone? My guess is we’ll never see them again. It reminded me of other German “friends” of ours, who came over for our daughter’s birthday in January. Upon leaving, they said “see you next year then!” It’s a concept of friendship that I will never understand.  

Back to moving house. Moving house is stressful at the best of times, wherever you live and whatever your circumstances. It becomes even more stressful at 8 months pregnant with a tantrum-throwing-two-year-old-Tochter.  Anyway, the week of our move kicked off with the arrival of two bills. The first one: a yearly tax bill for 700 Euros. It turns out that no matter at which point during the year you sell your flat in Germany, be it January or December, you are still liable for paying the property tax and then claiming this back from the new owners (if you can be bothered with the hassle and probably ensuing court-case battle, that is). Luckily, in our case, this only meant paying one extra month, so Highland Nomad remained calm. The second: a bill for 100 Euros from the Hausverwaltung (house management company) for the role they played in in selling our property. Come again? I did phone up to query what they actually did, but apparently, as always, this is documented somewhere in some contract in the tiniest, tiniest of prints. Highland Nomad huffed a bit and reluctantly paid.  

Next, a phone call from our removal company to say that they could not move us in as planned on Friday, because of the Christmas markets and Walldorf town council would not permit trucks to park in the main street. Our stuff was then loaded on Friday, kept in storage for the weekend, and unloaded on Monday. Picture the coldest weekend of the year so far, with snow, and us “camping” in our new flat over the weekend. It turned out we could have stayed in the old flat over the weekend, because our buyers “forgot” to transfer a third of the money. Not to worry, we thought, this is why we paid an estate agent and a notary thousands of Euros to step in and help us out. No, silly me, once the sale has gone through, the estate agent has no further interest in you or your property. The notary was also unwilling to act on our behalf, so it was up to us to summon our most polite, but to-the-point German and phone the buyers and deal with the bank and interest payments resulting in the late payment. In the meantime, we were dealing with a handover for our new rental accommodation in Walldorf. The family left rubbish in the cellar and even lost one of the front door keys.

Things could definitely only get better. So, once our belongings arrived on Monday and we handed over our old flat on Tuesday, Highland Nomad could finally put her feet up with a cup of tea (wishing it was something a LOT stronger) to celebrate her relief that it was all over (apart from the unpacking), at no longer being a homeowner in Germany and revel in the prospect of never having to attend another Eigentümerversammlung (homeowner’s annual meeting) again in her life.