Melanie and I have been enjoying our little summer vacation in Paris, but my new job in Berlin starts on September 19th so several weeks ago we started to look for a new place to live.
Last Sunday we found a beautiful apartment and I submitted a request for more information. The next day the owner, not realizing we were in Paris, asked if we wanted to see the place on Wednesday. Melanie and I researched flights, trains, and hotels and early the next morning we were on a nine hour train trip to Berlin! We are never that spontaneous when it comes to travel, so this was kind of exciting!
After our train crossed the border, we were really impressed by the German countryside. It is breathtaking.
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| This is what the scenery looked like for most of our train trip (I found this picture online) |
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| We loved all the mountain villages (I found this picture online) |
After arriving in Berlin we, of course, had to visit a beer garden. It goes without saying that Paris has an amazing food scene, but we really do enjoy German cuisine, as well. It's so hearty and filling!
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| This meat plate was served with a side of beer gravy (that thing on the left is a pig knuckle!) |
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This is spaetzle, or as I like to call it: German Mac & Cheese
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Before we started looking for a new place to live we made a list of features we hoped to find:
- Furnished
- Elevator (Melanie has a bad knee so stairs are hard)
- 2 bedrooms (so people can come visit)
- Within walking distance of the office
- Balcony that allows me to grill
- Close to shops/restaurants
Here's a quick summary of the apartments we visited during our brief stay in Berlin:
APARTMENT #1
This place was tucked waaay back in the complex. We had to walk a block just to get to the door, and then there was a long hallway after we climbed a bunch of stairs. (The elevator was broken. Yay!) It was a nice apartment, but not really for us.
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| The living room and kitchen |
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| The balcony overlooked the garbage cans... which wasn't ideal |
APARTMENT #2
We liked this one but the street was dead. Many of the little shops we had seen on Google Maps were closed. Not a good sign. This apartment had an elevator and it was working! Unfortunately, it didn't take us all the way to the top so we had to climb three flights of stairs. Ugh. Still, it was our new favorite.
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| This penthouse apartment was beautiful, but really long and narrow |
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| The balcony was spectacular! |
APARTMENT #3
This duplex apartment was awesome, but we were a bit worried about the area. (It made Melanie uncomfortable, though she couldn't quite explain why.) There was a working elevator, but once again we had to climb a flight of stairs to reach the elevator, and then down a flight to get to the apartment. Seriously??? Despite the stair situation, and Mel's concerns about the location, this became our new favorite.
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| This isn't a great picture. The apartment was gorgeous. |
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| Another fantastic balcony! |
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| In Google Maps the entrance looks like this. Fortunately, everything has been painted and fixed. |
APARTMENT #4 -- THE ONE WE PICKED!
Another apartment WITH an elevator... and another apartment with a flight of stairs. WTH Berlin???
It was a bit hard to judge this place because the tenants were still there and it was kind of a mess. We liked the apartment, but we LOVED the nearby river. There's a pedestrian bridge half a block away and Melanie and I found a little bench under the trees where we could sit and watch the water flow by. She said, "I could see myself coming here almost every day." (She LOVES water.)
We liked this place so much that after we got home we submitted a "booking request" and the landlady accepted!
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| The living room is quite spacious |
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| These wooden shelves will be perfect for our travel souvenirs |
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| The dining room has a couch that folds into a bed (which is important because there's only one bedroom) |
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| The kitchen is long and rectangular. We're going to add a full size refrigerator and more storage. |
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| There's a nice bedroom (we wished there were two) |
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| We like that there is extra storage at the end of this hallway |
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| The bathroom has a shower/tub and includes a dual washer/dryer |
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| The balcony isn't huge but the landlady said we could put in a small gas grill! |
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| The river "Spree" is half a block from our apartment |
We've been looking at Google Maps over the past week or so, and within easy walking distance we found:
- One of the best steakhouses in Berlin!
- Three grocery stores (regular, Asian, natural)
- A nice beer garden
- Charter boats
- An amazing soup restaurant
- An Asian street food restaurant (a small bowl of pho is 3.50!)
- A French cheese shop
- A good Indian restaurant
- Several parks
- A cheap Italian restaurant next to the river
- A public swimming pool
- A restaurant on a ship
- A bakery with good reviews
- Multiple cafes and bars
- A couple of small museums
APARTMENT #5
Strangely, every apartment we saw was the nicer than the one before. This was the most beautiful of all, unfortunately I forgot to check on the elevator situation. (It didn't have one.) The whole place was being renovated, and they were adding an elevator, but that meant months of stairs, construction sounds and mess, which just didn't work for us.
Another thing that was kind of strange... the lobby was full of pictures of nude women reclining. It's an old building and I'm wondering if it used to be a brothel... (Prostitution has been legal in Germany since the middle ages.)
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| This apartment looked brand new. It was huge and amazing. |
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| There were two balconies, one off the living room and one off the master bedroom |
