Country of residence

My business trip to US (palo alto) is the first one after I relocated to Germany. For the first time I wrote the name of a country other than India for 'country of residence'... It was a strange feeling. My country of residence is Germany My country of citizenship is India City that issues the visa is Chennai City I am visiting is Palo Alto, CA. phew! The agent at the rental car station wanted my 'home' address. For a minute I had to ask myself, "which home?" - Germany/ India? I gave her the address of my Germany 'home.'

The House Hunt

Having a relocation agent from systematic movement is definitely very helpful for house hunting. The quota is 10 houses - having been through the experience, I feel this is less.
Picky as I am, I saw 7 houses with the agent (several others on my own using the portal postings) and none made the mark. I was really getting frantic about this as I was just 3 houses away from filling up the quota.
The relocation agent too was getting baffled to why I wasnt deciding with any one. I spent most of my day in office looking up the portal, immobilienscout24.de, calling up people, emailing people...

Then finally, the '8th' house was the one I picked.
1/3 Hauselacker, Wiesloch.

It was a classic 'being in the right place at the right time' case. The landlady had trouble with the previous occupants and I happened to be looking...


The areas is really nice - almost everything is in walking distance. Zentrum, The Palatin, Toom Markt, Flora Park, my bank, post office...
I like it :) The only thing im missing is having a bicycle.

First address in Germany

My first address in Germany as a 'resident' was 39 Falltorstrasse, Bad Schonborn.
While the guest house isnt the most modern or aesthetic, I have to say Mrs Fug made my stay very comfortable.
The house had somewhat of an old world charm, had an old radio, TV...reminded me of stuff we had in our house many years ago.
Both Mr and Mrs Fug are very friendly, kind. Mr Fug didnt speak English, but I could converse with my limited knowledge of German. Mrs Fug however speaks good English.
I one thing I really missed was internet connection in the guest house. I really think SAP employees living in temporary accomodation should always be provided with internet connection. There were days when I had to leave the guest house at 7 am to take calls with my team in Palo Alto - breakfast was just getting laid out in the BAC building at that time.