Our First German Apartment

We were going to have to wait anywhere from six months to a year for quarters (military housing) so we rented an apartment in the nearby town. Our first apartment in Gelnhausen Germany was half way in the basement. When we opened our windows--they swung to the inside and the window was level with the ground. We didn't have any hot water, we had to heat it on the stove and carry it to the tub. Needless to say we didn't use very deep bathwater. There was a hot water heater in there but you had to build a fire in it to heat the water.

We had two large rooms, one was a bedroom and the other was a kitchen/living room combo. The closets over there were large pieces of furniture. There was a place to hang your clothes and shelves for the folded things. The refrigerators were about the size as the ones we have in our motels, and our stoves were more like hot plates with a small oven.

I liked to sit in the large window sill and just watch whatever was going on. You could see these little German ladies walk past with an empty bag on their way to a little corner market, and shortly after that they would come back by with it full.

This is something my grandchildren will think is funny.There were a couple teenage boys that lived across the street, and when they would see me sitting in the windowsill, they would call out to me "Ich Liebe Dich" (sounds like Eesh Lee Buh Deesh). It means "I love you". They were flirting with me, afterall we were near the same age. It was flattering, but mostly it was funny.