Okay, we are officially excited. And by we I mean my dear wife Mascha and myself - and the kids probably, too, in a limited way ;-) Why? Well because after terminating our current lease two months ago and then starting to look for a new place and not finding anything suitable we have as of now a new apartment.

Woohoo to that, I say... It did feel increasingly uncomfortable not having a new place and the day of leaving the current one coming closer and closer, so the relief is noticeable!

Josh and Mascha more or less adore the new place. We made a downpayment to the realtor right then and there (and that was pretty much the only way of standing any chance of getting it...)

The market has become quite unfavorable for families during the past two years. Apartments in the two to three room category outnumber the ones in the four to five room category pretty much ten to one in Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg. And unless you're willing and able to spend EUR 1200 or more per month on rent alone you're pretty much in a pinch. So we learned...

So in a way we were prepared to have to make some sort of a compromise either way. Just as they say in computing "Fast, cheap, reliable - pick any two." in Berlin it's "Big, affordable, nice, good location, quiet - pick any four". Actually, most we've seen so far had only three out of five and we left pretty quickly... And since big and affordable were non-negotiable it pretty much came down to "nice, good location, quiet - pick any two".

Well, we definitely got nice and good location! It's a huge (155 square meters), bright, newly renovated four room apartment, with a balcony and wooden floors - right on Schönhauser Allee with a hightrain and a tram and four lanes of traffic outside our window! All windows are brandnew, however, and soundproof. The kita is just 200 meters away, my new office (that's a whole other story, by the way!) is within walking distance; we've got a bio-supermarket next door (and a 'normal' one across the street). From the balcony I can see my bank, a cinema, a tram-, U- and S-Bahn station and a shopping-mall. The bedroom is out to the back and dead-quiet (Thank God for that!), just like the brandnew playground in the large backyard.

I'm still anxious about the noise situation, but all in all I'm happy and excited, too. And one problem less to worry about is one problem less to worry about...