A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I made our first ever trip to Wiesbaden to check out the area and look for a new place to live.  On that trip, we visited two houses.  One was too small.  The other wasn’t too small, but was in a neighborhood that I had a feeling would drive me nuts.  Also, the layout of the house was a bit odd.  The “odd” house was quickly snatched by someone else, while the too small house is still up for grabs.

The week after we took our trip, a few more ads showed up on Bookoo.  Two of the three that interested me had no pictures associated with them, but they sounded like they might be a good fit for Bill and me.  We also found a house on AHRN that looked somewhat promising and was priced fairly reasonably.  We decided to go up to Wiesbaden again for more house hunting.  Originally, we were going to do it last weekend, but decided not to, because I was having trouble finding pet friendly lodging.  I managed to book three nights at GL Suites for these past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.  I definitely need to write about GL Suites, especially for those who need self catering accommodations.  More on that in a forthcoming post.

We arrived home a couple of hours ago.  I think we might have found our place, but I won’t know for certain until the potential new landlords agree.  Bill has been pacing and deliberating for the past couple of hours because the new place is going to be a whole lot more expensive than what we’re paying now.  Whether or not we take the house we saw today, our rent is about to skyrocket.  I thought Stuttgart and its environs was expensive.  Wiesbaden has Stuttgart beat.  Fortunately, Bill does get a slight bump in his housing allowance, I’ve paid off my credit cards, and my student loans are a thing of the past.

So… with that established, here’s my trip report starting with Thursday.  

Bill had requested to work a half day so we could get up to Wiesbaden.  We had three appointments scheduled before we left and a fourth was scheduled as we sat in a traffic jam near Heidelberg.  We set our fifth appointment yesterday, after I looked at yet another new ad on Bookoo.

Bill was late getting getting home, thanks to a massive accident that occurred in the Schönbuchtunnel  on Thursday morning involving an overturned asphalt truck.  It actually happened in the wee hours of the day and was backing up traffic even when Bill was on his way to work at about 6:00am.  By 11:30am, when Bill left Kelley Barracks, it still hadn’t been completely cleaned up.  Consequently, it took him three hours to get home.  I started to worry when he still hadn’t arrived by 1:00pm, because I wasn’t sure how we were going to access our apartment at GL Suites.  Also, I somehow didn’t get their welcome email, so I had to email them twice.  The lady who responded sent it in the Booking.com messenger app, which helped.

I’m going to miss this view near our current home sooooo much.  We will have nothing like it where we’re going.  There are a lot more houses near Wiesbaden.

I occupied the extra time waiting by getting everything together and cleaning the nasty carpeting in our house.  I recently discovered a wonder drug for cleaning, mixing Dawn dish detergent with hydrogen peroxide.  I don’t know how, but it cleans the hell out of carpet stains.  Also, I managed to descale the lime off of the taps in the bathrooms.  I never claimed to be a great housekeeper, but when I get in the mood to clean, I tend to be pretty thorough.  This is a good thing, especially since our search for a deep PCS cleaner continues.

Bill finally got home at a little after two o’clock.  He took a raging piss that lasted several minutes, thanks to his high blood pressure meds.  Then, while he changed out of his work clothes, I loaded up the trusty RAV 4 and got the dogs situated.  We were soon on our way and were making good progress until we reached Heidelberg.  Just a few cars ahead of us, there was a pretty bad accident.  I think a car was trying to merge onto the Autobahn and a truck didn’t want to yield.  The car got clipped and spun out, shutting down traffic for about a half an hour.  I amused myself by taking the following photos.

We were sitting in traffic and I noticed the familiar helicopter…

Then I saw this guy peeking out of the top of his parents’ SUV…  They had plates from the Netherlands.

He remained standing like this as the car coasted forward.  I wish Bill would let me do that.

I looked to my right and noticed a comically irate German guy getting out of his car.  He had brown hair that curled under gently, giving him kind of a 70s look.  He was cussing loudly enough to be heard, despite the 80s era adult contemporary music blaring in our car.  I heard him say “Sheisse” at least twice, watched him stamp his feet angrily, then he apparently decided to use his time wisely by removing the floor mat from the driver’s side of his car and shaking it out on the pavement.  Other guys decided to take the opportunity to relieve themselves.  Yes… there’s never a dull moment on the Autobahn, even in a Stau.

The helicopter approaches with the doctor, dropped him off, then they speedily got the accident victims out of the way.  I’d say we were delayed about 30 minutes, during which time an American property manager called us.  We used our time wisely, too.

I had been planning to arrive at GL Suites between four and five o’clock, but the traffic jams conspired to fuck up our plans.  Fortunately, to enter GL Suites, all you have to do is use the electronic codes.  There’s no staff, so you can come and go as you please.  The building is also monitored by cameras, which I’m sure helps the staff to know whether or not people leave when they’re supposed to.  More on GL Suites in the next post.