Dear ,
My first flat in Germany was interesting. It had a great view over the Main River, but it was also on a busy street.
The good thing about the busy street was the different things I saw, for example, the Tuesday night in-line skaters in summer and the anti-bank demonstrators who walked out to the site of the new European Central Bank before it was built (I counted over 100 police vehicles that day!).
The downside to the busy street was the noise. The traffic started around 05:30 each morning and didn't ease up (1) until after 11:00 p.m. Friday evenings were bad as people left for the weekend and Monday mornings were also extra noisy.
With one hospital about 500 m along the street and a couple of others within 3 kms, I also heard ambulance sirens (2) regularly.
Believe it or not, it didn't affect me too much because I was out of the flat for most of each working day. Plus, I 'turn off' to noises when they are 'normal'. Yes, the sound of cars was constant, but my brain switched off to that background noise (most of the time).
That was very different to what I had experienced in Australia. On the farm, we were near the end of a small, gravel (3) road, so there was almost no traffic.
Then the flats I lived in were in quiet streets.
The flat I'm in now is on a busy street. It's not busy like the first street I lived on here, but I can usually hear cars and as well there are buses.
But things have changed. They've blocked off one end of the street because of doing work on the water system for the new housing development. There's no traffic using the street to get to other parts of Frankfurt - the vehicles at the moment mostly belong to people who live here.
And it's strange!! When a level of noise is normal, then when it isn't there, you miss it. Something doesn't seem quite right. The silence is clearly noticeable (4).
Do you live with constant noise, or are you somewhere that is quiet. Have you ever stayed somewhere and felt something was wrong, because it was too noisy or too quiet? Let me know if you know what I'm talking about...
Good bye for now,
Andrea
(1) ease up - become less, reduce
(2) ambulance sirens - the warning sounds of the vehicles which go to accidents etc to pick up sick and hurt people and take them to hospital
(3) gravel - small rocks or pieces of rock. A gravel road - one that isn't covered with asphalt - it's made of loose stones
(4) noticeable - can be noticed or 'seen' or detected
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