Widenhof Palace – Moving out! If you remember we moved into the Wiedenhof Place in Speicher back in December of 2013. Now 3 months later we have finally moved out and into our ‘German’ home for the next 3 years. I said that I’d update about moving out and what our stay was like so I’m going to do just that 🙂
Our Stay
Truthfully while the apartment was small and quarters were a bit cramped overall we had a great experience during our 3 month stay. The elevator was loud the first week, but after that I really didn’t notice it anymore. The staff there was wonderful as well and we never had any issues.
The last few weeks were great for Bea because she had a friend who lived a floor up and they were able to meet and hang out in the common area on our floor after school every day. She’s greatly going to miss that!
Laundry was both good and bad. It was great because if the washers were open you could do up to 3 loads of laundry at a time (there are 4 washers but we didn’t use the one on the end because it never worked right and held your clothes hostage!) which made getting lots laundry done a much easier process and we didn’t have to do laundry every day. The worst part was all the other Americans who jacked with your laundry! I had a timer set to go back down when ours was done and I may have been 2 – 3 mins after it finished and it would already be moved! One time someone even put our stuff in the dryer, and it included stuff that we do NOT dry, ugh.
The Internet was hit or miss. We used both the free (public) which you get for 3 devices and the paid (one ticket is 19,95€/month for up to 3 devices) and we had issues with both working, not working, working, not working, ect. We were able to stream video, use MagicJack, and FaceTime on BOTH the free and paid one. So if you don’t need more than 3 devices hooked up I would say start with the free one and see if it works for you. Also we could NOT get the xbox’s hooked up and connected online, everyone I’ve asked hasn’t been able to either. For you ’techies’ out there there the speeds were about 6 mb for both the free & paid Internet.
Moving Out
You have to schedule an appointment for the final out inspection where they go over the inventory that you filled out when you moved it. It’s VERY detailed, literally down to each fork, spoon, towels, pictures, ect in the apartment! Luckily we only came up missing 1 spoon and was charged 1,50€ for it.
Another great thing about checking out is that since you have to pay a cleaning fee you are not required to clean the apartment, yippee! You just have to make sure everything is out, including the trash. This was great because we were already having to spend hours cleaning the new house, it was great not having to worry about cleaning the apartment.
The check out inspection took about 10 mins and then we got the 150€ deposit back, minus the 1,50€ for the spoon 😉
What I’ll Miss
I’m going to miss being able to do 3 loads of laundry at one time! Now I’m going to have to do laundry more often.
I’m going to miss having a small living space to clean, our new house is HUGE!
I’m going to miss the Italian restaurant that we ordered from and they called us in our room when it was ready to pick up.
I’m going to miss Bea being able to play with her friend, hoping she’ll find some new ones close in our new village.
What I Will Not Miss
I will not miss having to take Mac down 3 floors and across the parking lot to go out to the bathroom!
I will not miss the 5 of us being crammed into the 3 bedroom apartment and not having our ‘stuff’ here yet.
I will not miss the spotty Internet!
I will not miss having to drive the kids to and from the bus stop each day! At our new house it is now a short walk for them.
That post was exactly what I needed my husband got the orders few months ago and I really needed to read something more realistic from someone who’s moved from USA to exactly that part of the world. Thank you so much for sharing!
Hi there! So glad you found it helpful!