Moving

Last Monday, Gwen Wren moved to her 4th residence in her 5 1/2 short months of age. The first two months of her life (July and August), she lived in Austin. She spent the month of September in Chocorua, NH. From October to mid-December she lived in the farmhouse flat in Ashering, Germany. And now she has moved to the town of Starnberg, Germany.

After a lengthy and complicated application process, we were selected (thank you to The Committee) to rent an apartment in the "Max Planck ghetto"--heavily subsidized apartment buildings rented mainly by Institute graduate students and postdocs.

As you can see, it's not really very ghetto-like. The apartment is actually quite nice. It is a "3 room" flat (= 2 bedrooms and a living room; it also has a kitchen and bathroom). Two of the rooms have big glass doors that let in lots of light, and open onto the "garden" (= back yard).

The new abode is much more affordable than the Ashering flat, but the Wren was sad to leave the farmhouse. The owner, Frau Schmaus, was sad to see her go, too. Gwendolyn will miss being called the "kleine Maus" by Frau Schmaus.

We had stored a bunch of free furniture, salvaged from one of the Max Planck Institute's soon-to-be renovated buildings, in my office basement. My labmates, Klemen and Stefan, were kind enough to help us move it to the new flat.

In a smaller act of kindness, they stooped down for this photo--David commented how he must look short next to the two of them (they are both well over 6 ft tall). Gwen Wren, however, still looks pretty short!

We've spent the week settling in. Two trips to Ikea covered most of the basics, but we're discovering that the Germans have a much more hands-on approach to apartment setup than we're used to. We're still learning which hoses to buy for the washing machine, and how wire our overhead lights.

Gwendolyn is really happy with her new surroundings. But in truth, her new surroundings look quite a bit like her old surroundings...