Beautiful essay :) I love my apartment - even though I grew up living in houses (I have 7 sibblings :D). The other day I had a conversation with one of our non-German co-workers, who just learned that we have a word for "aimlessly walking around at a slow pace." Unfortunately Germany's pretty much caught up with the "work as much as you can mindset" but it's still "relaxed" compared to US culture (from what I know from friends, I have never worked there but having max. 2 weeks off per year seems crazy to me).