October 3, 2007--letter from Education Authorities

We got another letter from the Schulamt (Local Education Authorities) last week, but not one to worry about! This was about registering our third child for school, as he will be six before the 31st of August next year, so should start school next August. There were two possible dates for registering him, and we can't go on either, so yesterday my husband called and talked to our dear old acquaintance, Frau P. (Check the archives from, oh, September 2004 to about April 2005 to decide how to take that "dear"...) Either she didn't recognize our name (which is a VERY common last name in Germany, along the lines of "Smith" or "Brown") or was just in a good mood, but anyway, when my husband told her that we're leaving for South Africa in January and don't know when or if we'll be living in Germany again, but don't expect Lukas to be attending school in this city next year, she said that we should just send her a letter telling her that. She will then notify the school and the health office, and that's that!

In the meantime, we took photos today of the floor plans of our apartment (we don't have a scanner) and when the weather is nicer and the lawn has been mown, we're going to take photos of the outside. Once that's done, we're putting the apartment up for sale. We've also written a letter to the other families in this building (eight of them, all nine of us the original buyers six years ago when this building was built) telling them that we're moving, and asking if any of their friends or acquaintances have ever said, "If an apartment in your building is ever free, let us know..." Also, although the market isn't supposedly a seller's market at the moment, two families we know with similar apartments in similar areas of this city sold their apartments recently, fairly quickly and for the price they wanted, so we're hopeful that we won't lose too much.