Apartment update and other tidbits

Hello, Its been  a few days as we have been extremely busy.  I am not even sure where I left off but I'll do my best.   We looked at 4 apartments Thurs- Sat.  The first apartment was my favorite just by the online pictures.  We applied to look at 14 apartments but since we were from so far away I think it scared many and they just were not interested in us.  So we only had 4 to start.  Out of the 4 the first 2 were our favorites.  In a perfect world, if we had more time and  more interest we would have really liked to see more.  As you can seen from my last email, beggars can't be choosers in Germany.  The last two apartments were very far away from Kevin's work and he wanted to leave the 30 minute commute behind when we left CO.  Also, we just didn't get the right feeling from either of them.  One was on the first floor facing a busy road and very run down.  The other, was just all wrong and I'll leave it at that.  It was nice, but it wouldn't have worked for us.   The two we did like.  Were actually the first 2 we saw. The first one is not to far from the hotel, 10 min walk.  It was residential and Kevin would have preferred a more city like atmosphere but I was ok with it.  It was a 9 min bus ride to his school/work and a 25-30 min walk to town.  There are restaurants, a butcher, 2 bakeries', and Ice cream shop, clothing shops, and our bank with in a short walk.  The grocery store would be the same as the one we shop at now and it was a little further.  If we get bikes that would be the best way to go or just a long walk up the hill each way.  The second apartment was very nice , very big, and we loved the landlord.  She was English speaking ( german native)   but it was her dad's apartment and he apparently passed away.  She was emotional about that as it had only been a year.  She is such a sweet kind person and we hope to be friends with her.  She is going to meet up with us at the end of the week and introduce us to some locals.  The negatives for this apartment were that it was like living in a high rise in the US and lacked character, it was 30 min to Kevin's school/work, it was at least 30 min from town.  We could walk to the zoo but the nearest shopping grocery and all was a huge mall.  So it lacked the experience we hoped to get.  On top of that we only saw senior citizens walking in and out of the building.  Honestly, if it were closer to town or his school we would have been sold. Its not often you get a landlord like that.  Sunday, we had a nice day.  I had a wonderful mother's day.  We went to brunch, thank goodness the rain stopped just in time for lunch.  We went to this wonderful place in the town square.  We started outside but when Kevin took Ivy in to the bathroom the wind picked up I did my best to catch his beer glass, my wine glass, Ivy's hat and crackers.  The server asked me if I wanted to move inside ( not in English but I figured out what she was asking) and we went inside and had a lovely lunch.  So Monday we finally opened an account at a bank.  Today was the big day, we signed a lease on an apartment.  Drum roll please!!! If you tried to guess it was apartment 4.   Just kidding it was the first one.   After much discussion we chose that one.  Honestly, its very nice just more then we need or were planning on.  With the  lack of interest in showing us apartments it was what we feel is the best.  It has a living room, dining area, kitchen , 2 downstairs bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths.and a balcony.  Up these steep stairs there is a hobby room (which we will use as a study and for extra storage etc) and another bedroom.   When certain guests come we will go up the stairs and give up our bed.  We have a keller ( or cellar storage space and a place to put a washing machine). We misunderstood and thought there was a washer in the basement, but  Germans don't like to share much. So there are 2 washers down there but they are not communal . We have an empty space for a washer if we want one.  Kevin has a friend from the University who helped translate the lease for us today.  He said you can find really cheap washers in the classifieds that are practically brand new.  Also the kitchen has a dishwasher that is ours if we want it but when we leave we either have to get rid of it or give it to the next tenants.   As for the move date. They told us today we could move in on the 20th.  It sounds great but we have to figure out if we can get things like internet and such set up by then and if we can go to Ikea and at least get a futon to sleep on until our bed arrives. The futon would likely go up to the extra bedroom.    So I will let you know what we decide when we figure it out.  It would be nice to have bought furniture and be some what settled before Kevin gets to work. Although I emailed today to figure out where our stuff is and it hasn't yet made port in Los Angeles yet. So who knows when we will get that.  Probably July.  Makes me wonder why we shipped kitchen items and so forth. Now we have to wait for them.  In Ivy crazy news today.  There was an itty bity bug crawling along the wall today and she was so excited about it.  She was so excited she had to show dada. The next thing we noticed was she bent down to apparently kiss the bug and we tried to stop her but we were too late.  Never saw the bug after and to this moment are still thinking or wondering if she swallowed him up which is very likely.  Seems like Saarbrucken is giving us great Ivy stories. Well its getting late and I am very tired and this ended up being a book.  I will update you as soon as I can on what is going on here.  Talk to you all soon!!!!