Today we divided the contents of our kitchen into three piles: ship, M, and sell-toss. We are shipping back the small, expensive, really useful things, or things with really strong sentimental value. Sell-toss items we sell for a euro or two, and if they don't sell, we can put it on the curb with a "zu verschenken" (free stuff) sign, and it usually goes away. M is the woman who will be taking over our lease, and we're leaving the rest of the stuff for her- a collection of basic useful things we're not bringing back.
At first, I thought we had to keep our moving a secret because of the people beating a path to our door when they heard we are leaving our apartment. Then, as more and more people from Saori's office bailed because of this or that, I began to sweat a bit as we drew closer to our moving time. I'd given our landlord the requisite three months notice, but we were still on the hook until the end of September, and I was imagining the worst case scenario: we pay the rent for september, and we haul down everything in the apartment, which would have been catastrophic.
In the end, however, everything tied together nicely. M, a coworker of Saori's, said she would take the apartment. We met our landlord and M monday evening at our apartment to talk everything over, and both the landlord and M seemed to be competing for who can be most genial and flexible. M had agreed to buy all the furniture from us when we left, which is fantastic. She also offered to pay part of August rent while we were gone, the landlord offered to buy the washing machine from us so she wouldn't have to pay for it, and we wouldn't have to do any repairs or paint walls etc. when we leave. We just drop the keys off on the way out. The landlord didn't even raise the rent.
He told us that he lived a few floors below us when he was younger (his father originally owned the building before giving it to him) and that he really hated the way gentrification pushed people out of neighborhoods. It was a social priority to him to fight to keep the neighborhood affordable, and he was willing to forfeit higher rent for it. I might also add that he took a very dim view of the age and fixtures in the apartment, and was unconvinced and perplexed by my love of the very 1970's yellow-beige tile all over the kitchen and guest bath. He is also a judge, which surprised me.
Actually its a bit too smooth. I'm sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing in Germany happens this easily. When I wanted to get rid of some bulky waste, I had to go to the city website, fill out a form, and list exactly what I was going to be getting rid of. Then they sent me a postcard confirming the pickup date, and I had to hunt around online to figure out that officially, you can only take stuff out the day before although I have seen firsthand people putting stuff out a week in advance.
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