We can not really believe how lucky we are. By some amazing stroke of luck we found an apartment in one of the prettiest spots in Essen - and let me tell you, there are some very not-so-pretty places just around the corner. However, you will possibly not find us on Google-Streetview next month, as the Germans are still deciding whether or not to permit Google to put their Wohnungen on the Internet - currently 400,000 homes have asked in writing NOT to be on GSV in just one week.
You've heard already we live in a VERY purple house - but now we know the full story. One of our neighbours protested about the construction of an external glass lift to the rear of our house. So naturally in silent protest the owner of this building quietly had the entire place painted in a very LOUD purple!
Our suburb is called Ruttenscheid (first known record of this suburb was in 970AD) and our street is called Hans-Luther-Allee (named after a famous judge and politician from Essen). We have a very pretty little park directly across the road. So we have been able to watch the changing seasons - currently the trees have golden and red leaves - they look as though they'll last a week or two more. Every week the council workers sweep up the leaves and 2 days later you'd never know. In summer we can not see our neighbours on the other side of the park. However, the glow of their warm living rooms is peeping through a bit now.
About 500m down our street and along the bike path is the Gruga. This is an enormous park including botanical gardens, bird avaries, animal nursery, zillions of sculptures, an adventure playground, mini train tracks, open amphi-theatres etc etc. There are family activities every weekend.
Naturally we have half a dozen bakeries within 500m of our home, several churches, a restaurant strip, a weekly fresh fruit and veg market (plus sausage grill or course) and train or sub-way access (a train comes every 4 min to our station). Apart from these 'standard' amenities we also have a few peculiar sites nearby.....
There's a quaint little yellow church on Ruttenscheider Strasser, which was built for Essen's lepers. Ruttenscheid was outside Essen's city walls at the time of its construction.
And literally 100m from the girl's primary school is a remand centre/prison. It is positioned behind the law courts, for 'convenience'. One morning a large man stopped us on the way to school to ask directions to the prison. After orientating him, he thanked us and said he'd left his bag of clothes behind. Obviously he was more familiar with the interior of the prison!!!!!
Hubertus' University Clinic is in the other direction. He can leave for work 85 min after the girls leave for school and still get there before 9 am! Apart from the convenience, I think the highlight for him are two subsidized cafeterias. Today for lunch he consumed half a plate of mayonnaise with a few potatoes, a whole fried flounder, side salad and a yoghurt fruit desert for a total of 3.60 euro! On a hungry day I have been seen down there too.
Our neighbours are somewhat manic. We are positively laid-back and relaxed by comparison. They are mad BVB football fans and travel to all away games, whether they be in Uzbekistan, Paris or Seville. More than 3 nights-in per week probably amounts to social failure. However, this restlessness is somewhat cultural, as their work ethic is so ingrained, a leisurely night at home in front of the TV or reading a book, feels like laziness and a failure to make the most of every second. But they are lovely, culturally switched on, obviously full of energy, fluent in English (which German isn't) and very generous. They have a 5 yo daughter called Katinka, who takes charge of all play activities despite any language barriers. The girls have an enthusiastic playmate just 20+ steps away - what a dream!
Rubbish collection in Germany probably deserves its own Blog Entry - but I'll try and summarise. We have 3 bins for paper, plastics and general waste (there are no green-waste bins). They are all emptied on different days and either weekly, fortnightly or monthly. I am totally confused so just copy the neighbours. Glass is deposited in the bins at the end of the road (green, white and brown). Then at random times a truck roams the neighbourhood sounding a lot like an Aussie ice-cream van - but this one is for electrical and scrap metal waste. Plastic bottles receive 25 cent refund which you can get at the supermarket or the bottle shop. But what really epitomizes waste collection was an incident we experienced in our first fortnight here - someone rang our doorbell at 7 am - we staggered to the video screen and heard our local garbo telling us we'd forgotten to put out our bin and that he'd wait if we wanted!!! WOW!!! How civilised.
I hope it now feels like you're right here with us! xxx
