Blythe Spirit

These are the people in my neighborhood

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Ice skaters

Yesterday we took a long walk around Fürth. We really didn’t want to live here. We wanted to live in Nürnberg, near the old city where we could walk into the medieval center and up to the castle and feel like we were living In Europe. But apparently we arrived at the height of the Great Nürnberg Apartment Drought of 2005, because we couldn’t find anything that worked for us. And we got really frustrated, and our relocation agent got really frustrated, and we were beginning to see the same real estate agents over and over again and they were tired of looking at us.

So we found a great place we liked, and the nice landlord said he would build us a wall so that we could have an extra bedroom and our many relatives and friends could visit us. (Did I mention that no relatives or friends have visited us yet? Hint.) So we rented it and we really liked it. Except we just weren’t that jazzed about living in Fürth. It’s about fifteen minutes by subway to the center of Nürnberg, which isn’t bad, but it’s just not he same as looking out the window and seeing a castle. Here’s a map of the area if you want to see what I mean. When we tell people where we live they say, “Oh, you know, you’ll probably really like it there, it’s not so bad. I hear it’s an up-and-coming suburb.” Not to mention that it has been so cold here that all the umbrella tables that might make the cute village square up the street from our place look festive are frozen shut and covered with snow.

But yesterday the temperature rose above freezing and I could go outside without feeling like my eyelashes were going to snap off. We spent a couple of hours walking around our new home, and we figured out that it’s kind of nice. Pretty, even, with a big park and a pond where people ice skate. Lots of people, in fact! So that’s where everyone goes on Sunday when it seems like everyone else in Bavaria has been invited to a party and we didn’t get an invitation. Or maybe we just couldn’t read the invitation because it was in German.

So check out the photos of our new home. I hear it’s not so bad.