Housing

The end result of our search for housing before arrival in Luneburg is that we are going to be staying in a vacation home for a month and, during that month, looking for housing in person.  It was too difficult for us to conduct business over the internet, especially with the 6 hour time difference.  There was also the difficulty of landlords who may have been reluctant to rent, or negotiate rent, to people they couldn't meet in person.

On the positive side, we will have someplace to settle in immediately upon arrival.  We won't have to worry about finding any kind of furnishing or household goods or setting up the utilities.  We'll get a feel for the neighborhoods and public transportation as well; the school and the University are some distance apart, meaning either the girls or Tom will have a commute by public bus: there are no school buses.  Oh, and they will wash our linens each week!

On the other side is the fact that we can only partly settle and will have another repacking.  I am going to have to rethink some of my packing strategy here at home so that we can access what we will likely need in that first month and leave the rest in our luggage.  I may be able to pack a few of the duffels for immediate unpacking and keep the others untouched.

Our arrival plans at this point:  Landing in Hamburg late morning Saturday.  We will be met by a shuttle (I hope it is big enough!) to drive us directly to our vacation house in Luneburg, less than an hour from Hamburg.  We will make a point to get outdoors and do plenty of walking to help our bodies adjust to to the time zone.

Our first mission will be food: stores in Germany are not open on Sunday, so we will need to buy food for the first couple days.  Fortunately, we have already been invited to our "host" professor's home for breakfast Sunday and restaurants are open for lunch and dinner Sunday, so we will mostly need to shop for breakfast and snacks.  I find food shopping in foreign countries to be a fun adventure: comparing differences in packaging and flavors of familiar foods and using our budding German to read the labels.  Grocery store shopping (as opposed to farmers market shopping or ordering in a restaurant) doesn't require a great deal of communication with people who may not speak English, so the language barrier won't be too overwhelming.  Since food is often the quickest way to win over my kids, especially the older two, this will be a fun introduction to Germany.  A little chocolate can go a long way!