| Here I have been living from November 1998 to May 2006
My room was a rented one and could be accessed through the backdoor to the garden, seperated from the house. Two couples were living there (one of them my landlords) and a single elder lady besides from me.
The house is located in Mainz Kastel next to the Rhine river.
I am always asked again: "What do you have to pay in Germany?" The price was 360 EUR warm (including water and heating, but withouth electricity) for 32 sqm. Kitchen and washing machine were included and a room for drying clothes in the basement. Rents are relatively high in Mainz, not as high as in Munich, but higher than for example in Nordrhein Westfalia in the Rhine-Ruhr region (Cologe, Essen, Düsseldorf, Dortmund ...) where most of the Germans are living and where I was born.
Details and impressions:
The entrance way was also the way where the car was parked in front of the garage of the couple living under the roof. You can look from the garden door towards the Rhine river:
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| From the garden you look towards my house door. From spring to autumn it was very nice that you could dry the clothes outside in the garden. |
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| Here a sketch of the area of the appartment. 16 sqm of the 32 were one big room (Zimmer) which I was used to use for sleeping, eating and working. Windows and doors are marked in blue. Diele = hall, Bad = bathroom, Küche = kitchen. |
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| Windows were towards the East. This means the sun stayed until about 12 o'clock at noon and there was shade in the late afternoon. The rooms were a bit dark, but in summer it also did not become so hot.
The next two photos shows the front-door and the little hall.
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| Here is the big room with my computer place, the closet for the clothes (some call it cabinet) and a book shelf with many of my CDs and tapes. I have a lot of classic music. |
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From the computer I could look out of the window into the garden. The room was rather high, about 2.80 m. So I used the space towards the ceiling and had a big loft bed in it. 200 x 160 cm ... so called king size bed. It was convenient for reading to keep the journals or papers up there, but less convenient for phone calls. :-)
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| I had also a big table in the room and was used to eat there. The last two years I had a so called "flat rate", monthly paid broadban connection to the Internet. I was used to work half of the time at home and to look out to the garden like here: |
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| The bathroom was a bit small but included behind the door a big closet. There was a shower at the end, just as wide as the room. Usually we have a shower wall or door or a curtain in front of the shower but I had a bit problems with humidity and funghi and removed it. |
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| The furniture in the kitchen belonged to the appartment and was rented with it (besides from small things like microwave). Everything in the big room however belonged to me and I took it with me to the new appartment. |
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A very convenient thing were the washing machines in the celler. One of them belonged to my appartment and was rented with it. I had also a small celler room of about 1.5 x 3 m (without photo) where I could store my things. I had also a freezer there.
Furthermore (below) there was a nice room for drying clothes in winter. I don't have this anymore in the new appartment and we might have a bit problems with it in winter. We will see ... |
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| However, to the celler I had to walk around the house through the garden. This was not always nice, when I needed something from the freezer or wanted to do a washing machine and it was raining. Fortunately we have only a few days of snow in Mainz. So this is not really a problem. |
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The flat was between the cities of Wiesbaden (capital of Hessen) and Mainz (capital of Rhenia-Palatinate) at the Rhine, but much closer to Mainz then to Wiesbaden. You just needed to cross the Rhine bridge shown on the map and you came to the center of Mainz. 10 mins by bike to the shopping area and 15 mins by bus to the main station of Mainz. Buses go regulary, every 10 mins in the week. It was 3 mins walk to the bus station.
