It's a dark & stormy night

We had the first of our insurance-mandated doctor visits today. We have to see both a doctor and a dentist before we can get insurance, and without insurance we can’t stay in the country. So the dentist appt was at 3:00, as a consequence we were both home by 4:30. Had an early dinner and have been sitting on the balcony with a glass of wine, watching the storm come in.

From our perch we could see the leading edge of the storm coming from the west, dark and swirling. It had been a very hot day today, 37 C*, and as the storm started it was very hot and the air dead still. We could see the rain to the south of us, and hear the thunder start up as it got closer. There were darker wisps of cloud below the main storm, much darker and looking like dragons tossed in the wind. Then the wind picked up and the rain started and the temperature dropped. I’m now sitting inside near the balcony as it’s pretty wet outside as the main part of the storm passes overhead. It’s raining hard. I’m enjoying this because it may be the last time I see this perspective because we found an apartment! Yay! It’s in the city, in the neighborhood of Alt Schwabing, a few short blocks to the English Garden and close to all the city stuff. We go tomorrow to sign the contract.

The apartment does not have everything we wished for, but location location location. It has a great kitchen, with a decent size oven and an American- style refrigerator. This is a BIG deal, in both senses of the word. (We’ve seen places where the oven was merely 15 inches wide, and the fridge is what we’d call a ‘dorm fridge’. I even saw one place listed on the rental site that had no oven at all!) And the apt. is beautifully decorated, has big bedrooms. Only one bathroom, so we’ll have to adjust to that. And very little storage. But as Logan just pointed out, it’s bigger than our first house was. It’s on the second floor, no lift, so my legs will really get a workout. Saves me joining a health club.

Wahoo! Thunder blasting and the light just went dark for a second. Maybe I should sign off. More later!

* Celsius *2 -10% + 32 = Fahrenheit degrees.

Post-storm P.S. - all our clothes did finally arrive, Logan got his car registered & got new plates yesterday. I think we may be ready to settle in, after we get back from Rochester (Aug 3rd - 9th). All we need now is the residence permit (turns out we need that to get cell phone service, or 'handy' as they call it here) and the insurances.