We visited the area about 5 months before moving but at the time we didn't know we would be moving. We stayed in Mainz, a beautiful old town on the Rhine River, when we visited.  We thought it would be a good place for us but the apartment hunting proved to be a bit of a challenge.   Most of the apartments were tiny with no closets and a spare room just big enough for the cat.

Our daily routine consisted of waking up to have breakfast in our room, going to get a newspaper, using Google translator to translate the descriptions of the apartments in the paper and on various real estate sites.  For two weeks did nothing but process paperwork to start our new jobs and look for a place to live.

Fisher was growing tired of the hotel.  It wasn't so much the hotel he didn't like but the maid who came in with the ridiculously scary vacuum every day.  In the picture above he is waiting patiently for his daddy to find a house.

We decided to shift our focus to Wiesbaden.  It is a slightly larger city near Mainz.  But, we had a little trouble here too.  For example, these pink houses just would not do....

We found one apartment that was just perfect, overlooking the Market Square in the center of Wiesbaden but the day we were to sign the lease, the owner decided he wanted to lease it to a German man.  Feeling defeated, we were running out of time.  We went to see one more apartment downtown.  We had no expectations.  By now, Germany had taught us that expectations only led to disappointment.

We set out in the morning to meet the real estate agent.  We loved the location.  We loved the rickety old elevator that took us up to the penthouse and opened right up into the apartment.  Once inside, we discovered that we loved just about everything about the place.  It was too good to be true.  Then the real estate agent told us that the owner would not agree to a lease with an American.  This was our last hope for a decent apartment in the city.  Ryan asked for the agent to double check and refused to let me be disappointed just yet.  By the time we had walked back to our car, the agent called and said the owner would agree!  The apartment would be ours!  We were elated, relieved and a bit disbelieving.  Was this this end of our endless search?  It was!


This is our new apartment-