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By cosmoravian, 11/09/2011 4:31 pm

For more Silent Sunday posts, click on through …

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By cosmoravian, 21/04/2011 8:57 pm

I’m not made for living offline!

Well, I have my iPhone of course, my trusty little companion, with all my friends living behind its handy touchscreen. Love having my friends in my pocket. (Yeah, I’m one of those weird my-friends-live-in-my-computer people!)
But then my iPhone can’t do everything. <- Not true, but I don't have the patience to do everything on a tiny little screen! So I'm selective: always Twitter, always The Other Place [cryptic, cryptic], bit of news, some Facebooking. The whole Social Media Thing. Oh and exciting stuff like checking out prices for laminate on eBay

But blogging and uploading/posting pictures ... not so much. It's a bit of a drag doing that on an iPhone after a long day at work. A long "it's early days" day at work. If you remember the frantic feeling of being new and clueless at work, that's me these days.

Right now, though, I got my grabby fingers on the hosts' family computer! Life is good, work is good, I love that we've found our new home - we signed the rent contract this Monday - and I'm mostly okay with the wait until we can move in. Sweet delayed gratification. We may get in earlier than assumed. Still June, though, just not mid-June.

And so that this isn't just a dull "state of the Tatjana" post I'll leave you with some photos!

If I weren’t back home, this would make me homesick. Now I just get homesick looking at photos of Amsterdam – expat’s lot, I guess!

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By cosmoravian, 18/04/2011 8:06 pm

We signed the rent contract tonight!!

B looked at another place today (awful), called last week’s place to say we’d drop out if we didn’t hear today (they didn’t react) – so we met up with the funny, quirky, warm landlady of the flat we viewed on Saturday and signed the contract!!

Current tenant is leaving around 9 June, so slightly earlier. 7 weeks and a bit, we’ll manage somehow …

Yaaaay, not homeless any more!!!

ETA: Certainly the oldest house we’ve lived in. I am ah-mazed B likes the flat!

First floor. The four windows with outside blinds! Entrance is at the back of the house, through that wrought-iron gate

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By cosmoravian, 09/04/2011 10:58 am

Mainz does!

But also hurried online banking in public places … Ugh. If I’d realised how restricting it would be to have a netbook as my main computer I’d never have bought one Our hosts have a wired Internet connection, my netbook can only go online with WiFi.
Compared to the Czech Republic where it seems like almost every cafe offers free WiFi, it’s difficult to find a place that does here. I was finally successful today – even if I had to show my ID card and sign for the access. VERY different experience in D after CZ!

But it’s working, and I finally got to access my Czech bank account and empty it into my new German one. Relief!! [Only the one personal computer on which a security certificate had been installed can access online banking with my bank in CZ, so I was in a terrible double bind what with my netbook being the only computer having access but needing WiFi which I had no access to ...]

The first week went by in a haze of sleep deprivation (those air mattresses!) and manic clueless first days at work. Work is fun, I have very nice coworkers, Thursday and Friday I’ve started feeling decidedly less clueless, I got nice feedback, Mainz is lovely, spring is lovely, communicating with people is lovely – I’m having so many random old-lady chats. Just because I can. Makes me grin like a fool

Three flats viewed this week so far, none of them were any good/worked out. I do like my kitchen to have daylight and no, I don’t want to live in a dingy area directly next to the train tracks … Two more this afternoon, and they sound like really good options on paper. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

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By cosmoravian, 02/04/2011 7:07 pm

A lot has been happening, and I kinda lost my blogging voice. Our stay in the Czech Republic came to an unexpected and abrupt end, and it took a lot of planning and overcoming impossible-looking issues to find our way out of the mess.

But here we are now, in yet another new chapter in our lives! We have moved back to Germany after five years abroad, back to my old home town of Mainz in fact! We’re “rexpats” now or something
Currently crashing with very kind and generous family friends, finding a new home is our Top Priority. So if anyone has a 1-bed place to let in Mainz …
On the other priorities: amazingly I already have a new job!! A couple of applications, one interview, a job offer before we even moved! I start Monday! B is still looking, so for those of you needing an aerospace human factors engineer – gimme a shout!

I’m looking forward to get blogging again! Even though it’s iPhone-blogging for now as I don’t have reliable Internet access yet. So, what are you all up to?!