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The Adventure Begins

July 1989

We're here! The flight was fine – the stewardesses loved the cat.

Now that we're in a hotel our previous luck has returned – they're excavating the adjacent courtyard (jackhammers at 7 A.M.), the elevator was broken when we needed to carry our 7 bags up 6 flights, and we're in the middle of a heat wave – it was 90 on Friday! Of course there is no air conditioning, and when you open the windows for ventilation the mosquitoes come in to feast!

On the other hand, the food and drink is great and reasonably priced, the sidewalk cafes remind me of Paris, and the hotel is just around the corner from the office.

We just started looking for a place to live, and the first one we saw looks great. It's in the prestigious, we learned, Westend, about a ten minute walk from the Alte Oper (Old Opera). Originally constructed in 1880, it was mostly destroyed by bombing, as was most of Frankfurt, during World War II, and was only rebuilt in 1981. The significance of the travel time is that my office is just across the square.

The apartment has huge rooms (although not as many as we'd hoped for – it looks like visitors will have to settle for a fold-out sofa), 13' ceilings (it survived the war – one can walk down the street and notice that although roof heights may be the same, the prewar apartment buildings have three stories compared to newer ones with four), marble floors, a fireplace, and a sizable garden in the back. I think I've seen some rooms like this in Versailles!

It also includes a completely-furnished kitchen, a huge closet and several "Schranks" (armoires), light fixtures and drapes for the 10' windows – all things not normally included here. The only problem is the cost! The housing market has really heated up here lately – the supply has always been tight, but the costs have recently really escalated. Unfortunately, we have nothing to compare it against, and we have to decide fast or it'll be gone! (We soon learned that we were eligible for an increase in our housing allowance that alleviated financial concerns.)

People in the office are great, and we even managed to arrive just in time for a party they were having for someone who was leaving after ten years, so we got to meet all the spouses. In fact, Friday was the site leader's birthday, so he brought in wine to celebrate – just like back home, eh?


We later found out that it's German custom for people to arrange their own parties – at the end of our stay we gave ourselves a going-away party.

© Copyright 2000 Jack Ludwick - All Rights Reserved

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