I Have a Wine Cellar

So after an extremely stressful couple weeks, we are finally scheduled to move into our new place this Friday, June 2nd. After everything that has happened to us up to this point, I will not be surprised at all if something comes up that prevents that but for now I'm thinking positive. It'll probably be another few weeks before we get a phone line and internet installed so it'll be a while before I post pictures.

As I mentioned earlier, the place we are moving into is a dream come true. It's 200 square meters over two floors in a 400 year old converted house right in the heart of the Heidelberg Altstadt. The Altstadt (Old Town) is the historic part of Heidelberg, complete with a medieval castle overlooking it from high on a hill. We fell in love with it at first glance but we had to wait for the landlord to finally agree to rent to us (he didn't want to rent to Americans). It's on the third and fourth floor, but there is an elevator that opens right up to our front door. There's more storage room than we know what to do with. There's a balcony on the bottom (3rd) floor that comes off the living room and a huge terrace on the top (4th) floor, half of which is covered with glass. All the rooms are huge. The master bedroom actually has a walk in closet, very rare in Germany. Parking in the Altstadt is virtually non-existent but I have a reserved parking space in the underground garage adjacent to our building.

Now, the best part. After I had signed the contract, it occured to me that the listing mentioned a "keller" (cellar), which wasn't shown to us when we viewed the place. So when I dropped off the security deposit a few days ago I asked Frau Klinge (the landlord's daughter) about it. "Oh yes" she replied, "Come, I get the key and show it to you". I thought we were fortunate because a cellar to store junk in would be an added bonus for us. So we descended down the long stairway to a cool, dusty medieval looking cellar where Frau Klinge showed us our cellar. To my astonishment, it's a converted wine cellar! My eyes got ten sizes wide as Frau Klinge explained that the building was built 380 years ago and it was probably originally intended as a wine cellar. I had been worried about where to store my prized wine collection and was even considering investing in a cooler storage unit. So seeing that cellar was nothing short of a miracle.

"Fairy tales can come true...it can happen to you..."