Sunday, September 23, 2012

Der 8te Himmel wird eingeweiht

In den letzten Wochen ging es hier ziemlich stressig zu. Neben der üblichen Arbeit haben wir auch mit dem Umzugsstress zu kämpfen.


Ich hatte gerade erst im Juni meine Wohnung bekommen (hat ja "nur" etwas mehr als ein Jahr gedauert und dann ist es auch nur eine Studentenwohnung...). Einige Wochen später kam meine Mutter und mein Bruder zu Besuch und halfen mir das nötigste zu möblieren. Aber dann hatten Sophie und ich uns im Juli entschieden zusammen zu ziehen. Das hieß, vieles musste komplett neu geplant werden. Ich verkaufte mein Sofa, welches ich seit meiner letzten Unterkunft letzten Juli hatte, und eine Kommode, die ich gerade erst gekauft hatte. Um mehr Platz für all unsere Klamotten zu haben, kauften wir ein Pax von IKEA. Die kann man ja fast beliebig groß bekommen, wir entschieden uns daher für eine der kleinsten Varianten, was immernoch mehr als genug ist. Alles zu kaufen und geliefert zu bekommen dauerte nichtmal einen Tag. Dafür hat das Aufbauen mindestens ein Wochenende gedauert. Dann bekamen wir noch Probleme mit der neuen Couch (wir wollten sie von Michaël kaufen, aber leider hatte er das L auf der falschen Seite :( ... ), daher mussten wir noch ein paar Tage in Sophies Wohnung nächtigen. Am Ende haben wir dann eine neue Couch, natürlich auch von IKEA, gekauft.

Jetzt sieht es aus wie eine IKEA Musterwohnung für Kleinraumlösungen. Mit seinen süßen 28m² (einfach sauber zu halten :D) und im 8ten Stock (oder 8ten Himmel...) haben wir ein fantastisches kleines Liebesnest mit genialer Aussicht und guter Lage, nah an der Uni und Nahverkehr ins Stadtzentrum. Es ist in einem alten Wasserturm, welcher auch Waschraum, Partyraum und Dachterasse, welche am Montag nach über fünfmonatiger Renovierung wiedereröffnet wird :), beherbergt. Wir haben eine anderthalb Raum Wohnung, mit Küche, Wohn-/Schlafzimmer, Bad und unserem "Verließ" (Abstellkammer).
In der Küche hatte ich bereits einen praktischen ausklappbaren Tisch gestellt, der 2 bis 4 Personen Platz bietet. Arbeitsplatte, Ofen, Kühl-Gefrier-Kombo und Vorratsschränke waren schon da. Im Wohnzimmer haben wir jetzt unser neues Bettsofa, ein Bücherregal, den Pax und eine Bank für Aufbewahrung und extra Sitzplätze für Gäste. Um Filme im Kinoerlebnis zu geniesen, kauften wir einen Beamer, welcher über der Couch platziert ist und auf die Freifläche über unserer Bank projeziert, und Lautsprecher - super coooooles Filme zu schauen!!!
Und gestern konnten wir endlich rausfinden, ob all das auch genügend Platz für mehrere Personen bietet - wir hatten unsere Einzugsfeier :). Wir waren zwölf Leute und hatten trotzdem genügend Sitzplätze und Essen sodass sich niemand beschweren musste. Es war fantastisch!

Ende September läuft Sophies Mietvertrag aus. Das wichtigste ist schon hier, aber es sind immernoch Sachen in ihrer Wohnung, die hergebracht oder weggegeben werden müssen. Aber wenn dann endlich alles erledigt ist, können wir uns entspannen und die nächsten großen Abenteuer von unserer kleinen Wolke aus planen...

Saturday, September 22, 2012

The house gets warmed !

The last few weeks were quite stressful. Next to the regular long working days, Sophie also moved in with me :).

After I had just gotten my flat in June I equipped it with furniture with the help of my family, who visited me a few weeks after. But in July I asked Sophie (...), if she wants to move in. So we had to reorganise some stuff. I sold my couch, which I had since last July, and a drawer I just bought. To get enough space for all our cloth we bough a IKEA Pax. These things can become rather gigantic, so we decide to buy almost the smallest version, which is still more then sufficient. Buying and delivering took only a day, but mounting of everything ate up a whole weekend. We run into problems with our new couch (we wanted to buy Michaël's, but he had the L on the wrong side :( ... ), so we had a few days to sleep at Sophie's. But in the end we got a couch brand new from IKEA, of course.

 So now our apartment looks like a model from an IKEA catalogue for little space solutions. With our sweet 28m² (extremely easy to clean :D), located on the 8th floor (or cloud 8, as we call it), we have a great little love nest with a fantastic view and a great location very close to work and with good connections into town. The building includes laundry room, party room and a roof terrace, which will be reopened on Monday after renovation for over 5 month.
We have a single room with kitchen and living/sleeping area, a bathroom and a "dungeon".
The kitchen I furnished already with a foldable table for 2 to 4 people (counter, oven, fridge and storage were already there). The living room got our new bedsofa, bookshelf, Pax and a bench for more seats. To have some cinema experience we bought a projector and speakers (super coooool !!!).
And yesterday we found out, if couch, bench and kitchen chairs are enough for a large group of people - We had our housewarming party :). We were up to twelve people and still had enough space, seats and food for everyone. It was fantastic!

End of September Sophie will finish her contract for her flat. Everything important is here, but there is still some small things to do, but soon we will be done and we can plan other things within our little cloud number 8....

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Best day of the year...

 I mentioned, that I celebrated this year with my family in Germany. But even before and after my birth-day, a bunch of surprises awaited me. This year my birthday was literally on a Sunday, but already Friday Sophie invited me for a lovely lunch on the canal with fresh food from Feskekörka, our local fish market in church style. What a nice idea for the last day of work just before leaving for Germany the next morning...
...which was, when the first present came along: flip-flops with a bottle-opener integrated in the sole. We discovered them on Michaëls feet a while ago and since I had no flip-flops yet, Sophie brought them all the way from Washington :-). They are a nice eye-catcher and still quite useful.

The celebration in my family was quite usual from my point of few. This time my presents where mostly meant to fight the horrendously high prices for alcohol in Sweden, which is always welcome. Sophie surprised me again with a cook book for typical Québéc food, which, of course, also came all the way from Canada :*. It includes a recipe, which her mom made for us and which she brought back. It's a delicious sweet which is simply .... mmhhhh. I'll try to make it soon myself and post results here.

Back in Sweden, the following Saturday, I had a birthday party with a few good friends. We prepared it in style of a potluck, everyone brought some self-made food. It worked fabulous. We had everything from Swedish fish pie to Indian Gulab Jamun, from main course to dessert. We prepared some cake and lasagna muffins, which I discovered a few month earlier.
And I got more surprises: nicely wrapped in black paper where a bunch of nice things. Utensils like a herb scissor, magnetic picture frames, Settlers of Catan 5+6 player extension (yeah!!!) and another cool game called Bohnanza (obviously about beans ;).

I had a great time that week, I guess especially because I spend it with friends and family - thanks everybody again :) !

Monday, September 3, 2012

Square 1 - Alles auf Anfang

Last week I went back to Dresden to celebrate my birthday with Sophie and my family. As it is the place, where everything begun for me, I take it as a good starting point for my blog...

Leaving Göteborg in the early morning to arrive at 12 in Dresden is always a good choice, because you get time, for example to go shopping. We went to Globetrotter to buy lead climbing gear, which will be our activity to learn for the autumn and winter.
After a nice trip home to the village of Hinterhermsdorf, I was happy to show Sophie the beauty of this part of the nationalpark. The weather was perfect in the next days, so every walking, hiking or view was amazing. Very nice was the boat / gondola trip on the Obere Schleuse (a reservoir of a small creek), which we enjoyed after the celebrations on Sunday.
Monday we meat Éoui and I could show both Québécoises the old town of Dresden - Altmarkt, Frauenkirche, Brühlsche Terrasse, Schloss und Schlosskirche, Fürstenzug, Theaterplatz with Semperoper and Zwinger. Éoui mentioned something interesting: the origin of Frauenkirche, Church of our lady and Notre dame is the same - I never made this connection!
Afterwards we headed for the University buildings and took a car tour along Gläserne Manufaktur (Transparent factory) of VW, Großer Garten (city park) and along the Elbe river to get a good view on the palaces and terrace gardens on the other shoreline.

After Sophie left for work in Sweden again :(, I still had some nice days with my family. A beautiful highlight was an evening spend with my sister, cousin and his girlfriend on the Elbe shore with a brilliant view on the illuminated silhouette of Dresden old town.

After all a really nice week in a very lovely place ;)