We have a lead on an apartment! If we believed in anything superstitious, we´d be requesting lots of good karma or some crap like that, but oh what annoyance, it´s out of our control so all we can do is hope. This place is amazing. In contrast to yesterday´s very expensive one, this apartment is charmingly run-down as it is in a house that is probably several hundred years old. The place is full of beautiful old-fashioned dark wood-work and even has a gorgeous brown ceramic wood-burning stove in the kitchen. The family renting it out has not advertised it (we heard by word of mouth) and the father is a theologian/philosopher who knows Ratzinger, among others. They are Middle Eastern, so instead of setting up an appointment to view the apartment, we were invited for coffee and cake. The mother had baked the cake specially! Turns out we have lots in common and finally, ten minutes before we have to leave, we get to see the apartment upstairs, which is still being renovated but is SO PERFECT: there´s even a view of the Marktplatz. There´s plenty of space, more than we need, and again the shower is in the kitchen and the bathroom in the hall, but in a charming/cute way rather than in the unappealing un-cared-for way of the last place. Plus, the room that the bathroom is in is directly adjacent, and also contains the absolutely most stunning old stairway up to the attic. We have no idea what the rent would be, since that is one of the things that didn´t come up, but I suspect manageable, and it would be flexible in relation to our time here (i.e., not having to pretend that we´re planning to stay forever). As B said, if he had less theological backbone, he´d be tempted to say that we were meant to have this apartment. Although perhaps it is just a mirage? We both agreed that we can stick it out for two more weeks where we currently are IF and only if we have the prospect of this place on the horizon.

We´ll hear on Sunday.