Yesterday after I picked up the kids from school we took the bus to our new house in Zehlendorf. I needed to take a closer look at the bedrooms and take some measurements for furniture. I had brought the one meter paper tape measure I took from IKEA and I got to work measuring space for beds and sofas. The kids dashed upstairs to have another look at what would be their rooms, but quickly got bored in the empty house. I suggested they go down the street to the park and play until it got dark and they didn't need me to tell them twice. I hesitated a little to let them go alone, but people keep telling me that Berlin is safe and children are very independent here. I have seen kids no older than 5 or 6 riding the bus alone. And the park is only about 5 houses down a dead end street.
I went back to my measuring, moving from room to room. At some point I noticed that it was starting to get dark, and I was surprised the kids weren't home yet. I went downstairs and was putting on my shoes to walk down and retrieve them from the park when Carter came through the door. He asked if I would come to the park, they wanted to show me something. I told him no, that I wanted to finish what I was doing before it got completely dark, because some of the rooms don't have lights. (Germans take their light fixtures with them when they move. Most rooms in the house had a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling so there was at least something to turn on when you flip the light switch, but a few rooms didn't even have the bulb.) I asked Carter instead to please go get Haley because it was getting dark and I didn't want them in the park after dark. He came back a few minutes later and I said "Carter, where is your sister?" He said "She was on the zipline and I told her that you wanted her to come home." I said "Carter, don't just tell her to come home! Go back to the park and get her and bring her here."
I went back to my task again, but several minutes later Carter was pounding at the door. "Mom, I can't find Haley!" I put my shoes on and we walked briskly to the park. By this time it was mostly dark (darkness comes quickly here) and fog was rolling in. The park was dark and spooky. I called Haley's name loudly. No answer. She must have gone the wrong way; instead of walking up the street, she must have gone down the perpendicular sidewalk and walked to the left or right. We quickly walked in one direction calling her name, then the other. Maybe she didn't know which house was ours and passed it and was further down the street? We walked down our street past the house, calling her name. Nothing. Maybe she slipped by us and is back in the house? I went back in, calling for her. Silence. Now I am starting to get scared. Where could she be? How could she have gotten so far away that she can't hear us calling? Is she hurt? Did someone take her?
I ran back to the park, shouting for her. I went to the places I had looked before, but this time went farther in each direction. I went all the way to the busy street where we came from and went to the bus stop - maybe she had misunderstood and was waiting at the bus stop? No. I ran back past the park and stopped at the first street the sidewalk crossed. Should I run left or right? The street looked deserted. The size of Berlin began to scare me. She could be in any direction, and if she didn't know where she was then all the streets and houses would look alike. How was I going to find her? I needed help. Carter kept asking me to call Dan, but Dan was an hour away by public transit. He wouldn't be able to help. Carter said "Call the police!" I don't know how to call the police! But Carter did - 112 is the emergency number. I briefly considered "how will I communicate with them? what if they tell me it's not their job?" But I knew I needed to do something to get help. "Sprechen zie Englisch?" I asked the person who answered the phone. Nein. I tried to explain in halting German. "Meine Tochter. Sie ist sieben jahre alt. Sie spielt im park." (My daughter. She is 7 years old. She plays in the park.) I don't know how to say "She is lost" or "I can't find her" or "She disappeared" so I burst these things out in English, just as the tears came. The man understood enough to connect me with the police, to whom I repeated the same story. He then asked me where I was and I only knew the name of the street the house was on, not the major streets nearby. He told me to hold on and he was going to find someone who spoke better English. While I was waiting, I asked Carter to go back up the street and continue calling for Haley. A few moments later I heard sobs. She had heard him calling and had come running toward us. When the policeman came on the line I made him understand that I had found her. Haley said that, of course, she hadn't known which way to go when she left the park. She picked the wrong direction, and then got even more lost when she tried to return to the park. (Poor child must have my sense of direction.) It turns out she had gone to the street that parallels ours, had gone all the way to the next block, turned right, and was coming back up our street towards the park when she finally heard Carter calling. It sounds like it was quick, to read it here, but I'm guessing we looked for Haley for at least 15 minutes or more, and it seemed like an eternity.
We have been so careful to keep the kids right next to us in all the busy places we have gone...but I lost Haley on our own quiet street. I'm glad it ended well, and I won't let her go anywhere without me for a long time.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
Step Two
We have chosen a house! We picked the older house on the dead end street with the apple tree in the yard. It's so hard to know what will work the best for us; we just had to make the best decision we can with the information we have. I hope I won't feel isolated in the smallish kitchen. I hope the kids will come to love their attic bedrooms. I hope I won't dread going down into the cramped cellar to do laundry. I hope Dan's commute won't become a nightmare. I hope we will settle in and make it comfortable and love it!
We haven't signed the contract yet, so it isn't a done deal. I checked this morning and the house is still advertised on the rental website, which made me a little nervous. The owner has a very standard contract, so I don't think there will be any issues, but still...
I have been very focused on securing housing, which was of course priority 1. But now that it looks like that is done, I need to move immediately to step 2: furniture! Dan pointed out that we can't move in until we have at least a table and a few chairs and beds! So I am very quickly turning my attention to shopping for furniture. It didn't occur to me earlier that, just like in the US, most furniture needs to be ordered and takes weeks or months to arrive. There's really nothing we could have done about this earlier, not knowing what space we would have in our new house. But now that we have chosen a house I need to go take some measurements and get out there to shop!
IKEA is the place to go when you need fairly inexpensive furniture quickly. I went Saturday to scout out the place. It seems this IKEA is located in an area of town with several furniture stores, so I made the mistake of going in some of the other stores first just to see what else was available. Oops! I saw some beautiful expensive stuff, and we are on an IKEA budget!
I also stepped quickly into the Bauhaus, the German equivalent of Home Depot. Except this place was like 10 of our Home Depot in Missoula. This store definitely doesn't fit the rule of "everything is small in Europe" (and neither did any of the other stores I visited).
Some of my readers will have been to IKEA in the US, but this was my first IKEA visit. Wow. What an enormous place!
The store just kept going on and on and on. It isn't a big warehouse; instead it's divided into small sections and it's like a maze to wind your way through. You just keep following the path and there is something different around every corner. I think I finally discovered that the path takes you in a circle around each floor, and when you get back to the start you can go up or down to get to a whole new level of goods. So much stuff!
This is the "closet planning" space, a room full of computers a help center where you take a number and wait your turn for help.
This is the monstrous cafeteria inside the store, where hordes of people were eating entire hot meals. No snack bar here; apparently people stay shopping at IKEA long enough to need sustenance of a full hot breakfast, lunch and dinner!
I wandered through the store, feeling more and more overwhelmed. It occurred to me that, had I found something I wanted, I had no idea how to go about buying it. I waited in line at one of the service desks and when it was my turn I asked the nice English-speaking man how the store works. I learned that there are order sheets that you carry around with you. When you see something you are interested in, you write the article number and size/color down on the order sheet. When you're ready, you wait in line at one of these service desks and they look up each item in the computer and tell you whether or not the item is in stock and, if in stock, where the item is located in their warehouse. You then proceed to the warehouse on the bottom floor, where you get a flatbed cart and you find the aisle and shelf where the item is located and you literally take the box off the shelf and place it on your cart. You wander about the warehouse picking up your boxes and head to checkout when you have everything. There is also a delivery option, which is likely what we will choose to do!
My brain was exploding with all the choices and I was ready to get out. But I had to continue in the IKEA maze to get to the exit. I swear I kept walking through sheets and towels and dishes and pots and pans and who knows what else for half an hour trying to find the exit after I had decided I was ready to go. On the way I decided to pick up a vase, since Dan had brought me some flowers the other day and I had nothing to put them in except a tall silver thermos that I found in the top cabinet. I clutched my vase and dodged many browsers as I picked up speed, now on a mission to just leave! The next leg of the journey was through the warehouse, so I knew I was close to the finish. I rounded the final corner and then...
This was the checkout scene that awaited me. Each of those lights on the yellow or blue signs represents a checkout line. There must have been 15 or 20 lines, each with 20 15-20 people in them with full carts. Unbelievable! I seriously considered ditching my 1 euro 50 vase, but I decided that I had time to wait. I chose a yellow line, which was "Express", max 15 articles. I don't know how long I waited, 15 or 20 minutes (notice the theme of 15-20...I wonder if that is an intentional design by IKEA???) When I got a little closer to the front I discovered that this was a self-checkout line. There were 4 checkout machines, but it always goes a little slower when people have to scan their own items. Finally I was next in line. I watched intently the lady in front of me to make sure I knew what to do when it was my turn. I saw how she picked up the hand scanner and scanned each item. Then I saw her swipe her payment card through the card reader and I began to glance around wildly looking for a cash option. Not seeing one, I turned around to the man behind me in line and asked "Sprechen zie Englisch?" "yes", he said. "Is this line for cards only?" "yes", he said. Aarghh! I saw something in the sign instructions about cards, but my German isn't good enough to understand that only cards were accepted in this line! (By the way, I have received my Deutsche Bank card in the mail, but am waiting on my PIN - so I can't use the card yet!) "Ugh, I just want to buy this vase!" I exclaimed in frustration. While I was eyeing the other lines, trying to decide if I wanted the vase badly enough to wait in line again, the man asked me "Would you like for me to buy it for you and you can pay me in cash?" "Would you do that?!!" I asked incredulously. He answered yes, and proceeded to do just that. Bless him!! The kindness of strangers warms my heart.
At this point I had a splitting headache and was starving, but I knew I needed to press on because one of the other stores I was supposed to scout out was in the same area of town. I had passed it on the bus on the way to IKEA, so I struck out on foot to find it. Hard to believe there is need of another store as enormous as IKEA, yet there it was. (Actually there is not 1 but 3 IKEA stores in Berlin. I am continually amazed at the number of shops/stores/restaurants, etc. here. The city is vast and consists of block after block of shops and businesses. It's mind-boggling to think of the number of people required to work in all those shops, and the number of people required to shop at all those shops in order for them to make money. Of course it is quite a departure from Missoula, but it feels even more huge and commercial than living in Houston and Atlanta. Maybe I've just forgotten since it's been longer since I've lived there.)
The Moebel Kraft store was vast, and unlike IKEA, it was set up like an enormous warehouse on multiple floors, so you could see from the inside how huge it was.
I wandered around looking at stuff, but I knew there was no point in looking if it was going to take months to get something, so I went to the information desk to ask if everything had to be ordered. When I asked if they spoke English, the 2 attendants both shook their heads. They motioned to me to wait and then one of them thumbed through the employee directory and made a call or two. I gathered that they were summoning an English speaker. :) After a few minutes someone appeared who explained to me how to look at the tag and see if an item is in stock or not. If the tag says "abholpreiss", that is literally the "collection price", meaning the item is currently in stock and you take it with you. If the tag says "lieferpreiss" that is the "delivery price" and the item needs to be ordered and delivered. Good to know!
I had been taking dozens of pictures all afternoon of pieces of furniture and their price tags and of whole decorated rooms, so I could show the kids and Dan some options. But towards the end at IKEA my phone showed a dangerously low battery. I had arranged to meet Dan later in the afternoon so I sent him a final text message that I would meet him at the restaurant at 6:00 if he didn't hear from me before then. That way if my phone died completely we would at least have a meeting point. But I couldn't let my phone die because I am ENTIRELY dependent on it for directions. I would NEVER have been a world traveler in another day and time. I can imagine trying to navigate the trains and buses of this huge city with only a paper map and a paper timetable and it's not pretty. I use Google maps every time I try to go anywhere, to tell me which bus or train to take, what time to catch it, how many stops to go, and exactly which direction to walk in once I get off the bus or train. Without this I would be completely adrift. So I HAD to keep enough charge in my battery to get directions to the restaurant. I snuck these 2 pictures of the Kraft store but didn't dare take any more. When it was time to meet Dan for dinner, I got out my notepad and paper so I could jot the directions down quickly after pulling them up in case the screen died. I was a good 40 minutes away from the restaurant so I had a lot of city to cover first by bus, then on a train. I made it!!! Whew!!
We had dinner at, of all things, a Cajun restaurant that Dan had found during his month in Berlin earlier in the fall. I had blackened catfish and he had jambalaya!
Over dinner we discussed furniture, and we have a slightly different take on it. While we both agree that we don't want to go overboard with either price or quantity of furniture, Dan is of the mindset that this is all temporary and we should get a few cheap pieces and make do. After shopping around a little I, on the other hand, would like to buy some things that I actually like and would enjoy having in our home. I went so far as to suggest that perhaps we would like a couple of items well enough to ship them back to the states at the end of this adventure, but that idea didn't go over so well. Ah well, we'll find a compromise. Dan did say that he has enough other things to worry about so that house decoration can be all mine! I am planning to go completely Euro, or at least what I picture as "Euro". Possibly what I think of as "euro" is totally tacky here, and they prefer a more American look. Ha! Well, this is my chance to decorate temporarily - to get stuff that I would never dare to get at home and go for a completely different look. The walls in our house are freshly painted white, so I know I will be using lots of color in the furniture. I love color on the walls, but it's actually kind of fun to do it the other way around for a change because I can choose any color I want for the furniture, and I don't have to worry about getting sick of that orange couch, because I will only have it for a few years! Visitos, prepare for a rainbow world in our house. :)
We haven't signed the contract yet, so it isn't a done deal. I checked this morning and the house is still advertised on the rental website, which made me a little nervous. The owner has a very standard contract, so I don't think there will be any issues, but still...
I have been very focused on securing housing, which was of course priority 1. But now that it looks like that is done, I need to move immediately to step 2: furniture! Dan pointed out that we can't move in until we have at least a table and a few chairs and beds! So I am very quickly turning my attention to shopping for furniture. It didn't occur to me earlier that, just like in the US, most furniture needs to be ordered and takes weeks or months to arrive. There's really nothing we could have done about this earlier, not knowing what space we would have in our new house. But now that we have chosen a house I need to go take some measurements and get out there to shop!
IKEA is the place to go when you need fairly inexpensive furniture quickly. I went Saturday to scout out the place. It seems this IKEA is located in an area of town with several furniture stores, so I made the mistake of going in some of the other stores first just to see what else was available. Oops! I saw some beautiful expensive stuff, and we are on an IKEA budget!
I also stepped quickly into the Bauhaus, the German equivalent of Home Depot. Except this place was like 10 of our Home Depot in Missoula. This store definitely doesn't fit the rule of "everything is small in Europe" (and neither did any of the other stores I visited).
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| This is just one small aisle |
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| They had a whole aisle of decorative toilet seats!!! |
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| This picture definitely doesn't do justice to the enormity of this store! |
I wandered through the store, feeling more and more overwhelmed. It occurred to me that, had I found something I wanted, I had no idea how to go about buying it. I waited in line at one of the service desks and when it was my turn I asked the nice English-speaking man how the store works. I learned that there are order sheets that you carry around with you. When you see something you are interested in, you write the article number and size/color down on the order sheet. When you're ready, you wait in line at one of these service desks and they look up each item in the computer and tell you whether or not the item is in stock and, if in stock, where the item is located in their warehouse. You then proceed to the warehouse on the bottom floor, where you get a flatbed cart and you find the aisle and shelf where the item is located and you literally take the box off the shelf and place it on your cart. You wander about the warehouse picking up your boxes and head to checkout when you have everything. There is also a delivery option, which is likely what we will choose to do!
My brain was exploding with all the choices and I was ready to get out. But I had to continue in the IKEA maze to get to the exit. I swear I kept walking through sheets and towels and dishes and pots and pans and who knows what else for half an hour trying to find the exit after I had decided I was ready to go. On the way I decided to pick up a vase, since Dan had brought me some flowers the other day and I had nothing to put them in except a tall silver thermos that I found in the top cabinet. I clutched my vase and dodged many browsers as I picked up speed, now on a mission to just leave! The next leg of the journey was through the warehouse, so I knew I was close to the finish. I rounded the final corner and then...
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| My hard-fought IKEA vase |
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| View from the Kraft escalator |
I had been taking dozens of pictures all afternoon of pieces of furniture and their price tags and of whole decorated rooms, so I could show the kids and Dan some options. But towards the end at IKEA my phone showed a dangerously low battery. I had arranged to meet Dan later in the afternoon so I sent him a final text message that I would meet him at the restaurant at 6:00 if he didn't hear from me before then. That way if my phone died completely we would at least have a meeting point. But I couldn't let my phone die because I am ENTIRELY dependent on it for directions. I would NEVER have been a world traveler in another day and time. I can imagine trying to navigate the trains and buses of this huge city with only a paper map and a paper timetable and it's not pretty. I use Google maps every time I try to go anywhere, to tell me which bus or train to take, what time to catch it, how many stops to go, and exactly which direction to walk in once I get off the bus or train. Without this I would be completely adrift. So I HAD to keep enough charge in my battery to get directions to the restaurant. I snuck these 2 pictures of the Kraft store but didn't dare take any more. When it was time to meet Dan for dinner, I got out my notepad and paper so I could jot the directions down quickly after pulling them up in case the screen died. I was a good 40 minutes away from the restaurant so I had a lot of city to cover first by bus, then on a train. I made it!!! Whew!!
We had dinner at, of all things, a Cajun restaurant that Dan had found during his month in Berlin earlier in the fall. I had blackened catfish and he had jambalaya!
Over dinner we discussed furniture, and we have a slightly different take on it. While we both agree that we don't want to go overboard with either price or quantity of furniture, Dan is of the mindset that this is all temporary and we should get a few cheap pieces and make do. After shopping around a little I, on the other hand, would like to buy some things that I actually like and would enjoy having in our home. I went so far as to suggest that perhaps we would like a couple of items well enough to ship them back to the states at the end of this adventure, but that idea didn't go over so well. Ah well, we'll find a compromise. Dan did say that he has enough other things to worry about so that house decoration can be all mine! I am planning to go completely Euro, or at least what I picture as "Euro". Possibly what I think of as "euro" is totally tacky here, and they prefer a more American look. Ha! Well, this is my chance to decorate temporarily - to get stuff that I would never dare to get at home and go for a completely different look. The walls in our house are freshly painted white, so I know I will be using lots of color in the furniture. I love color on the walls, but it's actually kind of fun to do it the other way around for a change because I can choose any color I want for the furniture, and I don't have to worry about getting sick of that orange couch, because I will only have it for a few years! Visitos, prepare for a rainbow world in our house. :)
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Three Weeks
Today marks 3 weeks since our arrival in Berlin. Our life in Missoula feels so far away! I miss everyone! It feels kind of like we were scooped up and plopped down in an alternate world. This is just life now, and the other one feels distant.
I have gotten used to many things that were strange or unfamiliar at first.
I have gotten used to many things that were strange or unfamiliar at first.
- I've almost stopped noticing the graffiti everywhere. It just blends into the landscape.
- I still notice the trash and litter but it isn't shocking anymore, it just makes me a little sad.
- I know to show my bus pass to the driver when we step on the bus.
- I know that when I want to get on or off the S-bahn or U-bahn and the doors don't open I need to press the button on the door.
- I know to use a 50 cent or 1 euro coin to unlock the grocery cart at the grocery store.
- I have the right trash bags for trash vs recycling and feel reasonably confident that I'm putting things in the right bins.
- I'm able to use the appliances in our apartment.
- I've settled into a "3 walks a day" routine with Diablo and while it's annoying to walk him first thing in the morning and last thing before bed, it's just what we do.
- I know where all the grocery stores are and am starting to be able to navigate them a little more quickly.
There are some things that are going to take a lot more time though.
- I still don't have the hang of the money. The 1 and 2 euro coins are easy to spot, but the rest of them I have to pull out individually and look at the numbers on them. I also need to get a better wallet so my money isn't all crammed into a single compartment.
- Not speaking the language is super difficult. My only tools are "hello", "I'm sorry", "please" and "thank you". Of course I know many more German words but I don't really need to say "He has red flowers" or "The man wakes the boy up" on a daily basis. I can't say anything that I really need to say. It's actually extremely lonely to not be able to communicate with people. Yesterday there were two incidents just on the stairs in my apartment building. The first was when Haley and I were taking the elevator up after grocery shopping. The door opened and there was a lady standing there holding a little boy. We got out and Haley bounded down the half flight of stairs to get to our door, but the lady said "You need to go up." I said "No, it's okay, we live there" and pointed to the door where Haley was. She said "No, but I..." and then her English failed her and she waved her hand to indicate "never mind". I struggled for a moment to figure out what she was trying to tell me, and then I realized that we were on the wrong floor; she had pressed the elevator button to stop it on the third floor so we had gotten out a floor early. I had no way to say this in German so I floundered through it in English and we both laughed. Probably she didn't understand anything I said but saw us go on upstairs so she guessed we had figured it out. Then late last night after 10 I was heading down the stairs to take Diablo out. We were bounding down the stairs very quickly and as we rounded the final corner we almost ran right into a man on crutches coming up the stairs. My first impulse on being surprised like that was of course to speak in English, so I said something like "Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there." Then I remembered I was in Germany and so I defaulted to "Entschuldigung", which is like "Excuse me". It felt inadequate.
The kids have both had a cold this week and I am catching it now. It's another grey day. Missoula has many grey days in fall/winter but at least I could see mountains through the grey...Maybe I will curl up on our uncomfortable rental couch and read my book for a while...
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
The Search For Housing
No posts for several days! I have a queue of things to write about but have been too busy to sit at the computer. Today I will write about our search for housing, since hopefully this will be the one of the last days that our housing will be in question!
Our ideas for what kind of house we will live in keep changing. When we first thought of moving to Germany, we thought we would be in a small euro apartment: very sleek, modern, and sparse. Then we discovered that if we lived in the southwest part of town we could have a townhome or small actual house with a small yard for the kids and Diablo (they call that a garden here). But the homes in the southwest of town are much older and not modern or "euro" at all. So we adjusted to picturing ourselves in an older house with a tiny yard. And then we found some houses that were large and open and spacious and have large yards! So now we see what is possible and it makes us think that if we just keep looking we will find it all! But of course the perfect house doesn't exist...
When we came to visit in June we saw a small house that we dubbed "the shoe box house", which had a postage stamp-sized yard with an apple tree in the middle of it and we were thrilled to find it.
We didn't rent the house because at the time we didn't have a timeline for when we would be moving to Germany, and someone else snapped up the house. Then Dan came for the month of September and tried to find us housing at the same time he was starting his new job. That proved to be too time-consuming and difficult for him to do both at once, and the relocation service that was hired by his company to help us find a place to live did a very poor job. Dan visited several places, none of which were very interesting. Just before he came home to help us move he found one that we decided to apply for, even though it was far from ideal. We didn't get chosen to live there, and thank goodness! Dan's company hired a new relocation service that is much better, and if we had had this company from the beginning we would surely be living in a nice home by now. Oh well.
Our new relocation agent has found us several nice places. Last Thursday I went to see four or five of them in different parts of town. Looking for a home here is no different than looking for a home anywhere else, in that each house has its pros and cons and it is impossible to find everything in one house. Everything I saw on Thursday had a major drawback: too small, not ready to live in yet, too far from public transportation, etc. The agents that show the houses seem to use the "bait and switch" technique a lot. We arrived at one new development and were viewing the very nice showroom home. We walked around for at least 10 minutes with me taking pictures of the unit before the agent told us"0h by the way this one is not available but I will show you one that is." Of course the one that was actually available was too small for us and we had driven all the way out to Teltow before learning that this place wasn't even an option. Another place we went to look at was under construction. We had thought that it was going to be done January 1 and ready for move-in, but when we got there it was far from complete and the agent told us it would not be ready until February. Of course construction is often behind schedule so there's no telling if that place might not be ready until March or even later. Finally at the end of the day we walked into a house and for the first time I thought "we could live here!" It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but it had plenty of space inside, a nice sitting room, and a pretty large backyard that even had have a small pool! I pictured us out in the yard splashing around in the summertime, or Dan and me lazily reading a book in the living room looking out the big glass windows at the kids playing in the yard.
The house had a "winter garden" like some German homes do, to fill with plants and flowers. The downsides to the house were a very small closed kitchen, an old and probably expensive heating system, and a very small and cramped bathroom. My agent, Karla, was hopeful and told me that the best houses were yet to come.
And she was right. Friday night she called us and asked if we could meet on Saturday morning at a home that belongs to a diplomat who is currently living in Belgium. This house isn't listed on the general market and was only advertised in a diplomatic magazine. The house isn't fancy at all but is in a very central location that would make it easy for Dan to get to work. Plusses are the large kitchen, a more modern and energy efficient design, and the master suite on the top floor with its own bathroom. That would allow the kids to have their own bathroom on their floor and Dan and I could have our own bathroom on the top floor. That's unusual - most floor plans have one bathroom for all the bedrooms, and then a small guest bathroom on the main floor. Downsides here are a small yard with no privacy from the neighbors and thin ugly carpet in some of the rooms instead of the beautiful old hardwood that is in many of the homes, The house's location is both a plus and a minus: being closer to the city center allows us to live more of a city life, but....it also forces us to live more of a city life! Noisier, more densely populated, etc. Back in September we would have jumped at the chance to live in this house. But now, having seen more options, we are struggling with the problem of more than one choice!
Because yesterday I saw two houses that were both wonderful. One was a beautiful old house with dark wood flooring and a gorgeous back yard with a cherry tree, an apple tree, and a walnut tree in the neighbor's yard that would drop nuts in our yard. It had a lot of character, lots of windows and light, and was on a dead end street that ends in a playground/park. Really neat attic rooms on the top floor for the kids. Downsides are we would all have to share one bathroom (there is a very small guest bathroom on the ground level, but the kids would have to come down two flights of stairs to use it), small closed kitchen, and distance from public transportation.
The other house was in a quiet suburb (Nikolassee) close to forests and lakes. It also had a nice yard (although no fruit trees). Its layout was more traditional with living room and kitchen on the main floor and all 4 bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Again we would all have to share the bathroom, and this one is smaller than the one in the other house. But it has a larger living room and larger kitchen, and the floor plan is less choppy than the other house. The question mark at this house is around the renovations that are going on. They are ripping out the floor in the main level, which should be finished in about 2 weeks, but they also want to update the kitchen. It would be great to have a brand new kitchen, but if it delays our move-in by a month or two then this house would be a no-go. Information like that is very hard to pull out of the rental agents.
Today I saw the last two places. One was a townhome, also in Nikolassee. It was nice but expensive and not a contender, I think. The other is an interesting dark horse. It's a flat, not a detached house. We would live in the bottom floor of a 3 story building. The obvious downside here is having people tromping around above us, but there are some upsides that I didn't think about at first: 1) It's all on one level, so there are no stairs to go up and down. This wouldn't be good for a family with older children where everyone wants their space, but for us it would work well to have us all spread out on the same level, where I could be in the kitchen, Dan in the study and the kids playing in a play area without feeling like we're so far away from each other. 2) It has a shared yard area. I saw this as a downside at first, and it isn't ideal that I couldn't let Diablo into the yard by himself to use the bathroom. But it's also a positive because the landlord manages all the yard space (no leaf raking, grass mowing, weeding, etc). They have playground equipment, soccer goals, a sandbox and a trampoline that all the kids in the building use. That means the kids would always be able to find someone to play with. It's very American to want our own space and to prefer our own private yard, but it's more communal to think about meeting neighbors and playmates in a common yard. This place is very close to the kids' school and is cheaper than the suburban houses. And it's very pretty, has lots of character. It's from the 1920's and has ceiling decorations, big tall French doors, large bathrooms (all on one floor!) and plenty of space. More downsides: near a busy street so there is traffic noise if you open the windows (pretty well muffled when they are closed), and much darker than the other homes (although we did visit on a very grey day).
So, what is more important to us? To live closer to town and all the things that Berlin has to offer, but sacrifice privacy and peace and quiet and level of furnishings? Or live farther from town where we can have a bit of our own space, further from work and school but closer to lakes and forests? Should we live in the city with the hustle and bustle and pay more for it, or live in the suburbs where your money goes further but you commute? Should we share our home and garden and save money and use it to travel, eat and play? These are the same questions every househunter in the US has to answer!
Tomorrow we've arranged to go back to the 2 suburban homes and the dark horse so that Dan and the kids can see them (the kids are out of school the next 3 days). Hopefully we will feel strongly pulled to one of them and our application will be accepted!!!
Our ideas for what kind of house we will live in keep changing. When we first thought of moving to Germany, we thought we would be in a small euro apartment: very sleek, modern, and sparse. Then we discovered that if we lived in the southwest part of town we could have a townhome or small actual house with a small yard for the kids and Diablo (they call that a garden here). But the homes in the southwest of town are much older and not modern or "euro" at all. So we adjusted to picturing ourselves in an older house with a tiny yard. And then we found some houses that were large and open and spacious and have large yards! So now we see what is possible and it makes us think that if we just keep looking we will find it all! But of course the perfect house doesn't exist...
When we came to visit in June we saw a small house that we dubbed "the shoe box house", which had a postage stamp-sized yard with an apple tree in the middle of it and we were thrilled to find it.
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| Apple tree in tiny yard |
Our new relocation agent has found us several nice places. Last Thursday I went to see four or five of them in different parts of town. Looking for a home here is no different than looking for a home anywhere else, in that each house has its pros and cons and it is impossible to find everything in one house. Everything I saw on Thursday had a major drawback: too small, not ready to live in yet, too far from public transportation, etc. The agents that show the houses seem to use the "bait and switch" technique a lot. We arrived at one new development and were viewing the very nice showroom home. We walked around for at least 10 minutes with me taking pictures of the unit before the agent told us"0h by the way this one is not available but I will show you one that is." Of course the one that was actually available was too small for us and we had driven all the way out to Teltow before learning that this place wasn't even an option. Another place we went to look at was under construction. We had thought that it was going to be done January 1 and ready for move-in, but when we got there it was far from complete and the agent told us it would not be ready until February. Of course construction is often behind schedule so there's no telling if that place might not be ready until March or even later. Finally at the end of the day we walked into a house and for the first time I thought "we could live here!" It wasn't much to look at from the outside, but it had plenty of space inside, a nice sitting room, and a pretty large backyard that even had have a small pool! I pictured us out in the yard splashing around in the summertime, or Dan and me lazily reading a book in the living room looking out the big glass windows at the kids playing in the yard.
And she was right. Friday night she called us and asked if we could meet on Saturday morning at a home that belongs to a diplomat who is currently living in Belgium. This house isn't listed on the general market and was only advertised in a diplomatic magazine. The house isn't fancy at all but is in a very central location that would make it easy for Dan to get to work. Plusses are the large kitchen, a more modern and energy efficient design, and the master suite on the top floor with its own bathroom. That would allow the kids to have their own bathroom on their floor and Dan and I could have our own bathroom on the top floor. That's unusual - most floor plans have one bathroom for all the bedrooms, and then a small guest bathroom on the main floor. Downsides here are a small yard with no privacy from the neighbors and thin ugly carpet in some of the rooms instead of the beautiful old hardwood that is in many of the homes, The house's location is both a plus and a minus: being closer to the city center allows us to live more of a city life, but....it also forces us to live more of a city life! Noisier, more densely populated, etc. Back in September we would have jumped at the chance to live in this house. But now, having seen more options, we are struggling with the problem of more than one choice!
Because yesterday I saw two houses that were both wonderful. One was a beautiful old house with dark wood flooring and a gorgeous back yard with a cherry tree, an apple tree, and a walnut tree in the neighbor's yard that would drop nuts in our yard. It had a lot of character, lots of windows and light, and was on a dead end street that ends in a playground/park. Really neat attic rooms on the top floor for the kids. Downsides are we would all have to share one bathroom (there is a very small guest bathroom on the ground level, but the kids would have to come down two flights of stairs to use it), small closed kitchen, and distance from public transportation.
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| A bit choppy, but beautiful wood and lots of light |
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| Cool loft bedroom with wooden beams for climbing |
Today I saw the last two places. One was a townhome, also in Nikolassee. It was nice but expensive and not a contender, I think. The other is an interesting dark horse. It's a flat, not a detached house. We would live in the bottom floor of a 3 story building. The obvious downside here is having people tromping around above us, but there are some upsides that I didn't think about at first: 1) It's all on one level, so there are no stairs to go up and down. This wouldn't be good for a family with older children where everyone wants their space, but for us it would work well to have us all spread out on the same level, where I could be in the kitchen, Dan in the study and the kids playing in a play area without feeling like we're so far away from each other. 2) It has a shared yard area. I saw this as a downside at first, and it isn't ideal that I couldn't let Diablo into the yard by himself to use the bathroom. But it's also a positive because the landlord manages all the yard space (no leaf raking, grass mowing, weeding, etc). They have playground equipment, soccer goals, a sandbox and a trampoline that all the kids in the building use. That means the kids would always be able to find someone to play with. It's very American to want our own space and to prefer our own private yard, but it's more communal to think about meeting neighbors and playmates in a common yard. This place is very close to the kids' school and is cheaper than the suburban houses. And it's very pretty, has lots of character. It's from the 1920's and has ceiling decorations, big tall French doors, large bathrooms (all on one floor!) and plenty of space. More downsides: near a busy street so there is traffic noise if you open the windows (pretty well muffled when they are closed), and much darker than the other homes (although we did visit on a very grey day).
So, what is more important to us? To live closer to town and all the things that Berlin has to offer, but sacrifice privacy and peace and quiet and level of furnishings? Or live farther from town where we can have a bit of our own space, further from work and school but closer to lakes and forests? Should we live in the city with the hustle and bustle and pay more for it, or live in the suburbs where your money goes further but you commute? Should we share our home and garden and save money and use it to travel, eat and play? These are the same questions every househunter in the US has to answer!
Tomorrow we've arranged to go back to the 2 suburban homes and the dark horse so that Dan and the kids can see them (the kids are out of school the next 3 days). Hopefully we will feel strongly pulled to one of them and our application will be accepted!!!
Friday, November 14, 2014
A domestic adventure a day
I have to chuckle to myself because it seems like since I'm living abroad I should be writing about museums or tourist attractions or trips to Paris, but instead my "adventures" so far are about food and laundry and shopping. The kids are out of school for several days next week so I hope we'll do a little actual adventuring. But today I'm going to write about cake and a pool and a department store.
I feel like I am starting to get a grasp on the types of products that are sold in the grocery stores here, but with every recipe for which I go out in search of ingredients there are a few things that I just can't find. Wednesday it was chicken broth, canned pumpkin and corn meal. I wanted to make a soup with a chicken broth base, and some yummy pumpkin muffins from the Scramble to go with it. (Well, I can't actually make muffins because there's no muffin tin in our apartment. I was going to pour it into a casserole dish. But today I broke down and bought a muffin pan at the grocery store (and a vegetable peeler) because realistically it looks like we'll be here in this apartment at least another month and can we really go that long without muffins? I don't think we can.) As is typical I went to a couple of different stores searching but wasn't able to find these things.
Back at home I did what I often do, which is google "do they have 'x' in germany?" 9 times out of 10 I will find someone else who has already asked this question and a post discussing it. Often these food questions are brought up on a site called toytowngermany.com. So here I learned that:
I feel like I am starting to get a grasp on the types of products that are sold in the grocery stores here, but with every recipe for which I go out in search of ingredients there are a few things that I just can't find. Wednesday it was chicken broth, canned pumpkin and corn meal. I wanted to make a soup with a chicken broth base, and some yummy pumpkin muffins from the Scramble to go with it. (Well, I can't actually make muffins because there's no muffin tin in our apartment. I was going to pour it into a casserole dish. But today I broke down and bought a muffin pan at the grocery store (and a vegetable peeler) because realistically it looks like we'll be here in this apartment at least another month and can we really go that long without muffins? I don't think we can.) As is typical I went to a couple of different stores searching but wasn't able to find these things.
Back at home I did what I often do, which is google "do they have 'x' in germany?" 9 times out of 10 I will find someone else who has already asked this question and a post discussing it. Often these food questions are brought up on a site called toytowngermany.com. So here I learned that:
- There is no canned pumpkin in Germany! Ugh. That makes pumpkin desserts so much more time-consuming to make. What a bummer. And it's heavy, so it isn't really something I can stock up on and bring here.
- This was a bit unclear but I think there's no liquid broth or stock here, only bouillon. Once I discovered this, I did find that bouillon is plentiful but many brands are loaded with salt and MSG (same as in the US). I found a "bio" veggie broth that I bought. I can't really read the ingredients, but I do recognize the names of some vegetables, so hopefully it's not poison.
- There's no such thing as "corn meal" here, like you would buy to make corn bread. There's something like corn flour which I'm not sure what to do with, and something they call polenta which looks kind of like a course corn meal. That's what I bought so we'll see if it works out.
After shopping I met Gani (the wife of the former CTO of Kaufda) for a walk and coffee. I brought Diablo and she brought her sweet little 6 month old boy in a stroller. We strolled for a while and ended up at a cake shop that she had told me about, what a fantastic place to end up! They had so many wonderful sounding choices but I couldn't pass up the apple torte and it was heavenly. We sat outside and chatted and enjoyed our cake and coffee, so pleasant.
Then she showed me that there's a neighborhood market on Wednesdays and Saturdays and we strolled through the market. Cheese, meat, veggies, bread, even dog treats for sale. How fun! I bought a small pumpkin to roast this weekend and puree for my pumpkin muffins.
Finally she took me to a small Turkish market where she likes to get produce. I had asked her where to find hummus, because that's one of our staples at home but I haven't been able to find it here. I bought some hummus and also some yummy Mediterranean spread.
I headed home to put the groceries away and take care of a thing or two, and then headed back out. My first stop was Karstadt, a German department store. They also sell groceries and I had read that they carry a lot of American products, so I went to check it out. It was actually a full-blown grocery store, as big as many others I have been in. It was very high end and well-stocked. It was more expensive than other stores, but not outrageously so. While I was there I decided to do a little price comparison shopping. I found the women's clothing on the 2nd story and was able to confirm my earlier belief that clothes would be expensive in Europe! Seeing workout tops for 70 euros and sports bras for 35 makes it hard to believe that I found what I really thought was pretty good quality stuff at TK Maxx for a fraction of that. Stay tuned as I visit other stores...
On the 3rd floor was kitchen stuff and I briefly browsed there. 5 euros for a washcloth, 12 for a handtowel, 15 euros for a piece of bakeware, etc. Probably nearly comparable to home. 4th floor was electrical appliances. These we will have to buy, since we weren't able to bring anything electric because the voltage isn't compatible. I was kind of shocked at the prices: 40 euros for a small hand mixer? 35 euros for a hairdryer? I don't need anything fancy, just functional. I'm going to try to visit some flea markets once we get a house and see if I can pick up some of these things used. I mentioned yesterday to our relocation specialist that I had found the prices high at Karstadt and asked her if they are known to be expensive, and she told me that I shouldn't buy electronics there I should buy them at Saturn. I said "Oh good, because I couldn't believe I would need to spend 35 euros for a hairdryer." And she said "Oh - 35 euros? Actually that's about right." Yikes. Incidentally, it seems that hairdryers are the exception to the rule that everything is small here. Look at the size of this hairdryer, and they were all this size except for the travel ones!
I spent too long browsing in the store and didn't leave myself enough time to run an errand that Dan asked me to run! He really wants to swim and asked me to check out a pool that we thought was nearby. I had thought it was close to the department store, but it was actually about an 11 minute walk. When I finally got there I asked hopefully "Sprechen zie Englisch?" but unfortunately the response was head shaking, "Nein". How am I supposed to ask "How many lap lanes are there? When is the pool the least crowded? Is there a Masters program here?" They handed me a pamphlet (in German) and pointed to the opening hours. I reached into my bag and pulled out my pocket dictionary and managed the word "crowded". I took her response to mean either that you can't predict when it will be crowded and when it won't, or that it is always crowded (or maybe never crowded?) Then I threw out the word "coach"? And "Swim group for adults?" I got head shaking, so I think that means there's no Masters program but it could also mean that she didn't understand me. Whew, that was tough.
Then I had to RACE to the U-bahn to take the train to get the kids. I had to get off and change to a different train line after a few stops. Each train station is different and I wasn't familiar with this one. I only had a minute or two to make my connection so I quickly tried to follow the signs to the correct train line. The sign pointed up and there was a packed escalator of people riding up, and a completely open set of stairs to the left of them. I darted to the stairs and began to take them two at a time, but I felt something move beneath me and I wasn't getting anywhere. Oh no, I was running up the down escalator! I seriously don't think it was moving until I got on it. They sometimes have these energy saving escalators here that shut off until they are occupied. Or maybe it was moving but it was dark and I didn't notice? I felt like an idiot as, cheeks burning, I bounded up the stairs as fast as I could, while the escalator tried its best to erase my progress. Thankfully it was a short escalator and I beat it. I got to the right platform just as the train was pulling up.
Space Issues
Yesterday we have been here 2 weeks and our tiny apartment is starting to wear on us. We are all feeling cramped because in the kitchen, bathroom or hallway there is only space for one person, so if someone is already there you have to wait or gently push them aside. In the mornings Diablo comes into the bathroom to greet me when I first wake up and he has to back out because there isn't room for him to turn around. When I try to cook in the kitchen I am constantly having to move something before I can set something else down. A couple of nights ago I was trying to wash that enormous wood cutting board in the sink because I didn't feel like taking it into the bathtub and I accidentally knocked a wine bottle onto the tile floor and shattered it. Thankfully it was an empty bottle awaiting recycling.
And let's talk frankly about the smell. There are only 5 rooms in the apartment, so pretty much what can be smelled in one room can be smelled throughout. Cooking fish for dinner the other night has proved to be a huge mistake. When you enter the apartment there is a smell of rotting fish that I JUST CAN'T GET RID OF. I have washed all dishes, we have eaten all leftovers, I have taken out all trash and I can't find the source of the smell. Fortunately I get used to it after about a minute, but it knocks me out each time I enter the apartment. And of course the litter box is in the bathroom which is directly opposite the front door. I scoop it daily, but it's a lot of trouble to trek down the stairs and next door and back up the stairs to put the used litter in the trash, so I typically do that every other day. I bought a reed diffuser for the bathroom but best I can tell it is doing nothing. It was a grocery store cheapie (relatively speaking) so maybe I need to spend more money. I thought for a while the smell may have been from our enormous pile of dirty laundry, but since I washed and washed non-stop earlier in the week I have reduced the pile considerably.
Today our landlady is supposed to come with a new vacuum cleaner. I can't wait to go around the apartment and suck up all the hair. I have banned the kids from siting or lying on the floor (Carter is fond of rolling around on the floor) until we can get a proper vacuum, because Diablo is shedding his summer coat and anything that touches the floor comes up the color of his reddish blond coat.
I know I'm making everyone want to come visit us!
The kids have been going stir crazy too. If we dash out of school and run to the bus stop we can catch the 3:20 bus, which gets us home about 3:50. That leaves us with about 4 1/2 hours before bedtime. And the kids have literally NOTHING to do. None of their toys or books are here. There's no yard or trampoline. No friends to play with. I am cursing that little stack of activity books I had staged for Haley's carry-on bag that Dan accidentally packed into storage. We really mis-planned this portion of our time in Germany. I didn't think about these weeks that we would be without anything for the kids to do. They take turns doing their German lessons on Rosetta stone, and then they play SIMS on the Ipad more or less cooperatively for a while. But right about the time I need to go to the kitchen and start dinner they start to get bored and restless. This typically results in Carter getting too rough and Haley crying. Yesterday it resulted in an ill-advised pillow fight that tore a hole in the paper lampshade by Haley's bed.
Yesterday I took Haley to a park to play after school but by 4:30 it is dark so that doesn't leave much time for play. I told the kids I would buy them a thing or two this weekend if they can think of something that would entertain them. They can use their euros Gramma gave them (thanks Gramma!) And special thanks to Terry for the Squarrels game - that has been our only diversion.
Yesterday I spent all day looking at housing. I will write about it in another post, but prayers for us to find a home to settle in would be much appreciated!
And let's talk frankly about the smell. There are only 5 rooms in the apartment, so pretty much what can be smelled in one room can be smelled throughout. Cooking fish for dinner the other night has proved to be a huge mistake. When you enter the apartment there is a smell of rotting fish that I JUST CAN'T GET RID OF. I have washed all dishes, we have eaten all leftovers, I have taken out all trash and I can't find the source of the smell. Fortunately I get used to it after about a minute, but it knocks me out each time I enter the apartment. And of course the litter box is in the bathroom which is directly opposite the front door. I scoop it daily, but it's a lot of trouble to trek down the stairs and next door and back up the stairs to put the used litter in the trash, so I typically do that every other day. I bought a reed diffuser for the bathroom but best I can tell it is doing nothing. It was a grocery store cheapie (relatively speaking) so maybe I need to spend more money. I thought for a while the smell may have been from our enormous pile of dirty laundry, but since I washed and washed non-stop earlier in the week I have reduced the pile considerably.
Today our landlady is supposed to come with a new vacuum cleaner. I can't wait to go around the apartment and suck up all the hair. I have banned the kids from siting or lying on the floor (Carter is fond of rolling around on the floor) until we can get a proper vacuum, because Diablo is shedding his summer coat and anything that touches the floor comes up the color of his reddish blond coat.
I know I'm making everyone want to come visit us!
The kids have been going stir crazy too. If we dash out of school and run to the bus stop we can catch the 3:20 bus, which gets us home about 3:50. That leaves us with about 4 1/2 hours before bedtime. And the kids have literally NOTHING to do. None of their toys or books are here. There's no yard or trampoline. No friends to play with. I am cursing that little stack of activity books I had staged for Haley's carry-on bag that Dan accidentally packed into storage. We really mis-planned this portion of our time in Germany. I didn't think about these weeks that we would be without anything for the kids to do. They take turns doing their German lessons on Rosetta stone, and then they play SIMS on the Ipad more or less cooperatively for a while. But right about the time I need to go to the kitchen and start dinner they start to get bored and restless. This typically results in Carter getting too rough and Haley crying. Yesterday it resulted in an ill-advised pillow fight that tore a hole in the paper lampshade by Haley's bed.
Yesterday I took Haley to a park to play after school but by 4:30 it is dark so that doesn't leave much time for play. I told the kids I would buy them a thing or two this weekend if they can think of something that would entertain them. They can use their euros Gramma gave them (thanks Gramma!) And special thanks to Terry for the Squarrels game - that has been our only diversion.
Yesterday I spent all day looking at housing. I will write about it in another post, but prayers for us to find a home to settle in would be much appreciated!
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Small food, big appetites
It may seem that I'm obsessed with grocery shopping, but since that is about 70% of my world right now I hope you'll excuse me. I want to say a few words about the size of the packages here. Of course I've already mentioned the small frig, oven and washing machine. While I was writing this blog earlier I drank about 6 sips of coffee from a tiny cappucino cup. But what I have to adjust to each time I go to the grocery store is the tiny portion size in the packaging. "Buying in bulk" could not be a more foreign concept here. Everything comes in such small amounts. The tortillas are in a package of 4. Deli meats are sold in 100g (3 1/2 oz) packages. Milk and juice come in 1 liter bottles (a little over a quart). Granola bars come 6 to a 120g package. They are literally light as a feather and of questionable value as a snack. Of course all this makes it easier to carry food home from the store and store food in your tiny frig and dearth of cabinet space. But it also means we are constantly using things up and having to add them back to the grocery list. It seems to be a never-ending cycle. It's also an awful lot of packaging to recycle (thank goodness we don't have to throw it out). Wouldn't there be less waste and less work for us shoppers if there was just a little more in each package??
The small package size also makes the food deceptively expensive. 1 euro 75 for a package of meat? Sounds cheap, but what if I bought 3/4 pound like I usually do at home in the US? That's almost 8 euros which is nearly $10. 1 euro 29 for a liter of milk is more than $6/gallon.
Incidentally, we are all ravenous all the time here. I walk miles each day and climb up and down from the fourth floor multiple times. We are all using our brains extra hard to learn and understand, which I'm positive must burn tons of calories. So I feel like the kids are constantly eating and I need at least one daily snack. Thank goodness lunch is provided for them at school, because between breakfast, a morning snack at school, a snack/mini meal when they get home from school, and dinner we are plowing through tons of food.
It's hard to know what to feed everyone in between meals. Sometimes I got weary with providing snacks even in the US, but I had a list of 10 or so snacks we could rotate between. Here the food is so different that snacks are a bit of an enigma. Plus, the kids' school is completely nut free, so that eliminates MANY possible snacks. If I send them with one of the tiny granola bars it doesn't even make a dent in their hunger. Fruit is a staple for us and the kids like it, but we shipped all our small tupperwares that are snack-sized so there's nothing to put cut fruit in. I need to break down and buy some small plastic bins but haven't gotten around to that yet. The kids love yogurt but I haven't yet found a brand here that they will eat. I have cheese and deli meat but also haven't found any crackers they will eat. Maybe I could make some homemade banana bread or muffins for snack? Nope, no baking supplies in our rental. I found a tiny bag of Goldfish in one store that is quite out of my way, so maybe I'll trek there tomorrow. Suggestions welcome for snack ideas! I asked Haley's teacher for ideas of what the other kids are bringing but she wasn't entirely helpful.
The small package size also makes the food deceptively expensive. 1 euro 75 for a package of meat? Sounds cheap, but what if I bought 3/4 pound like I usually do at home in the US? That's almost 8 euros which is nearly $10. 1 euro 29 for a liter of milk is more than $6/gallon.
Incidentally, we are all ravenous all the time here. I walk miles each day and climb up and down from the fourth floor multiple times. We are all using our brains extra hard to learn and understand, which I'm positive must burn tons of calories. So I feel like the kids are constantly eating and I need at least one daily snack. Thank goodness lunch is provided for them at school, because between breakfast, a morning snack at school, a snack/mini meal when they get home from school, and dinner we are plowing through tons of food.
It's hard to know what to feed everyone in between meals. Sometimes I got weary with providing snacks even in the US, but I had a list of 10 or so snacks we could rotate between. Here the food is so different that snacks are a bit of an enigma. Plus, the kids' school is completely nut free, so that eliminates MANY possible snacks. If I send them with one of the tiny granola bars it doesn't even make a dent in their hunger. Fruit is a staple for us and the kids like it, but we shipped all our small tupperwares that are snack-sized so there's nothing to put cut fruit in. I need to break down and buy some small plastic bins but haven't gotten around to that yet. The kids love yogurt but I haven't yet found a brand here that they will eat. I have cheese and deli meat but also haven't found any crackers they will eat. Maybe I could make some homemade banana bread or muffins for snack? Nope, no baking supplies in our rental. I found a tiny bag of Goldfish in one store that is quite out of my way, so maybe I'll trek there tomorrow. Suggestions welcome for snack ideas! I asked Haley's teacher for ideas of what the other kids are bringing but she wasn't entirely helpful.
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| World's smallest and most worthless granola bar |
Homemaker
The things I have to do seem simple: keep us fed; keep the house reasonably tidy; care for the dog and cat. Taking care of a house and home is a huge job in the US because of all the many peripheral responsibilities that established families have to handle: kid activities, mail, bills, volunteering in classrooms, church projects, and the myriad of other responsibilities that we take on. But here in our new home, I haven't had a chance to take on any extra responsibilities. I have nearly no appointments, social engagements, volunteer obligations, etc. The kids don't even have any activities yet for me to take them to! So what the heck do I do all day long??
Well, yesterday I spent pretty much the ENTIRE DAY grocery shopping. Without a list of "Easy things to cook for your first few weeks in Germany", I decided to dive right in and try to cook meals from TheScramble.com, which is the menu service I use in the US. (Plug: I love it and have been a subscriber for several years. If anyone likes to cook but wants to simplify menu planning, I highly recommend it. Mention my email and I get free months. :) ) Two meals on this week's menu are Pecan-crusted Trout with Orange Rosemary Sauce and Spanish Chorizo Quesadillas. I made my grocery list, translated it to German and headed out optimistically after escorting the kids to school.
I knew I was going to be buying a lot of groceries because our pantry was bare, so I studied the map to try to find the nicest grocery store with the shortest walk. Our apartment is pretty close to the S-bahn, so even if I had to take the train several stops away it would be easier to hop back on the train and walk home from the train station than to just walk from our apartment to a grocery store. Sadly, I didn't find anything that was a reasonable commute. So I walked to the store, maybe 1/2 mile? 3/4? It wasn't open yet (stores aren't open at all hours here for your convenience. You actually have to plan ahead! Most grocery stores open at 9 a.m., although some open a bit earlier.) So I decided to start my shopping trip in one of the discount chains of grocery stores. I knew they wouldn't have everything I needed but I figured I could pick up some staples there. A half hour later, I popped in next door at the drug store to get the German version of Clorox wipes and some trash bags. I was a bit apprehensive because my backpack was already getting heavy.
Next stop was the "nicer" grocery store. I was in there FOREVER. It was a large store and I still haven't figured out the German layout of products. Where are the spices? (I had to leave my super well-stocked spice cabinet in Montana - boo hoo!!) Where are the granola bars? Where would I find tortillas? How about juice boxes? Whew, and buying fish was a time-consuming endeavor! I had come prepared with the German translation for tilapia, flounder and trout and was prepared to buy any of those fish. But of course they didn't have those. So I went back and forth from the fish counter to my little hiding spot an aisle away where I could look up each fish. If I stood at the counter for the whole process I was afraid they would come over and talk to me in German! Finally I settled on cod (Kabeljau). I used hand motions and grunts to indicate whether to keep putting pieces of fish on my paper or stop. Ridiculous, huh?
I told the fish lady that was all I needed, but shortly I realized that the Spanish chorizo was also probably behind the meat counter. "Haben zie....xxxxx" (Do you have...?) is a useful way to prevent having to search all over the place for something, although I have to be prepared for people to answer this question in German. Ja or Nein I can handle, but anything more complicated than that will produce a blank stare. In this case, "Haben zie chorizo?" led me directly to the chorizo behind the counter, but when she asked me how much, I had no German to answer and had no idea how many grams of chorizo I wanted. (mental note: next time put the metric conversions on my shopping list). Luckily the clerk understood my English response: "A big stack." Again she asked me if that was all, and I said yes.
Shortly I realized that I also needed cheese that was behind the meat counter. Sigh. This is no time to worry about looking dumb, so I went back again to the same lady and said "Haben zie manchego?" I didn't understand her German response but I took it to mean that she had something similar, so I took what she handed me.
Next I went hunting for pecans. Nuts seem to be in many different places in the store - some are with the produce, some with the baking stuff, some in a different and seemingly random location. I guess it's the same in the US. I found hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts, cashews and various candied nuts but no pecans. Eventually I found some whole pecans near the produce and there was a nice display of nutcrackers beside them. I thought about buying the nuts and a nutcracker but I decided I didn't want to spend 7 euros and then spend my time cracking nuts, and I thought surely I would find pecans somewhere. So I passed it up and thought I would try a different store afterwards since I knew there was a bio market in the same shopping complex.
This store didn't carry green beans or cilantro, which were also on my list. It's so weird to go to a large grocery store and have them simply not have things in stock. (Incidentally I tried to go shopping Saturday evening to buy a few staples since stores are closed on Sundays. I tried the local discount store and found many of the shelves completely bare. Seriously. There was NO milk in the store. There was virtually NO produce in the store. Bread was gone.) I also couldn't find the smoked paprika I was looking for. I knew that one would be iffy.
After checking out my bags were so full and heavy! Things like a bunch of bananas, a bag of clementines and a bag of pears are really bulky. I had brought my backpack plus 2 large plastic bags (one for each hand) and I was completely weighed down. I headed towards the bio market but ran into a Mediterranean store on the way so I stopped in there. They had cilantro and feta cheese, so I bought those but that was the limit of what I could carry. So I headed for home. I had to stop a whole bunch of times to put the bags down and rest!
I was home long enough to eat lunch and put the groceries away, and then I headed out again. I took the train to the bank to drop off the paper that will authorize me to get a debit card, and then walked to the closest post office. I successfully bought some envelopes there and mailed a letter that Haley wrote at least a week ago to a friend. Then I got on the U-bahn to head over to get the kids from school. I had a little extra time so when I spotted a grocery store in a different part of town I hopped off to see if I could find my last few items. I was excited to successfully find a small package of green beans, but still no luck on the pecans. (mental note: bring pecans from US) This store did have the whole pecans but no nutcrackers! So I bought walnuts.
I worked on my blog for an hour after the kids got home from school, and then it was time to cook the meal I had worked so hard to purchase. Man, I can't wait to have my own stuff in my kitchen. The knives here are understandably not very nice and the kitchen is completely bare bones. I couldn't even find a peeler to peel the sweet potatoes so I had to scrape the skin off with a knife, which took forever. I swear it took me almost 2 hours to prepare this meal that was supposed to take about 40 minutes just because the kitchen is so small I was knocking things around and I didn't have the tools or the pans that would make the job easy. I panicked initially because I didn't think there was a baking sheet, but then I remembered that there had been a new baking sheet in the oven when we first got here. I had taken it out because it was still wrapped in plastic. So I had to wash that before using it. Etc. Etc. But I'm happy to report that at the end of it all we had a nice dinner of "Walnut-Crusted Cod with Orange Rosemary Sauce". :)
After dinner I spent the evening washing fishy dishes in our tiny sink.
Today I have no errands to run so it is a purely domestic day. I am losing the battle of the laundry. The tiny washing machine only fits about 7 or 8 items at a time and takes 2 1/2-3 hours to run. Clean laundry takes 1-2 days to dry. With 4 of us wearing about 4 items each day, you can do the math and see that I will never catch up. Dan and I are trying to wear things multiple times, but the kids aren't really doing that. I'm not sure how the natives do it here. One thing I learned from my relocation specialist is that you use different detergent for colors versus whites. Apparently the white detergent has a bit of bleach or something in it. Which explains why after I accidentally put a pair of navy socks in with the white laundry everything came out blue. Thankfully it wasn't anything too precious. I also have no idea how much laundry detergent to use. The cartons don't come with a scooper! I asked 2 different people at the kids' school, thinking I would solve the problem. But Haley's teacher uses liquid detergent while I have powder. And the person she recruited to help answer my question uses some special kind and didn't know about standard detergent. For now I'm using a handful, and who knows if the clothes are clean or not but at least we can pretend.
I put a load of laundry in and got set to vacuum but the hose is broken. We tried to tape it together with duct tape last week and have used it twice in that condition, but it's really not working. I spent about 20 minutes trying to maneuver it without pulling the hose off but the suction wasn't working well and I got fed up. I took out the vacuum bag and figured out how to replace it, but now the suction is worse and it's making an ear piercing sound. So it seems I have done something wrong but I can't figure out what. Ugh! Nothing is easy. I had to email the landlord and ask her to replace it. We can't be living here with 2 animals and a non-operative vacuum cleaner!
I picked up the bathroom rug to shake it out but then realized that I have a problem. We are on the 4th floor of our building and there is a lot below us. Other people's balconies. People walking on the street. An Italian cafe next door with outdoor seating. If I shake the rug out from this height the hair and dirt is likely to travel a bit as it floats down. Who knows if I will end up dumping it on the people at the cafe or the balcony of someone below me?? I stood outside for several moments but there was continually someone or another walking directly below me. Finally there was a break in pedestrian traffic and I shook the rug just enough to make some of the tracked out cat litter fall to the sidewalk below. Hmmmm....Maybe I just need to vacuum the rugs once I get the new vacuum cleaner!
The next task was to take out the garbage. Seems easy enough but here in Germany the trash is complicated business. I won't rewrite what has been written by others so if you're interested you can follow this link: http://www.howtogermany.com/pages/recycling.html. Suffice it to say for now that in our tiny kitchen we are trying to separate out bio trash (compost), recyclables (almost all packaging here is recyclable: plastic, foil, paper, etc.), glass and regular trash. Usually the kids and I have trekked down the 4 flights of stairs, each of us carrying a type of trash, and made our way next door into the locked courtyard where the bins for our building are. But today I gathered it all up and took it down myself since I needed to get the stinky fish packaging and used cat litter OUT!
Next I will eat lunch and then take Diablo for a long walk. Then it will be time to get the kids from school. And this is the exciting world of homemaking in Berlin! Feel free to use this post as ammunition for sleep tonight.
Well, yesterday I spent pretty much the ENTIRE DAY grocery shopping. Without a list of "Easy things to cook for your first few weeks in Germany", I decided to dive right in and try to cook meals from TheScramble.com, which is the menu service I use in the US. (Plug: I love it and have been a subscriber for several years. If anyone likes to cook but wants to simplify menu planning, I highly recommend it. Mention my email and I get free months. :) ) Two meals on this week's menu are Pecan-crusted Trout with Orange Rosemary Sauce and Spanish Chorizo Quesadillas. I made my grocery list, translated it to German and headed out optimistically after escorting the kids to school.
I knew I was going to be buying a lot of groceries because our pantry was bare, so I studied the map to try to find the nicest grocery store with the shortest walk. Our apartment is pretty close to the S-bahn, so even if I had to take the train several stops away it would be easier to hop back on the train and walk home from the train station than to just walk from our apartment to a grocery store. Sadly, I didn't find anything that was a reasonable commute. So I walked to the store, maybe 1/2 mile? 3/4? It wasn't open yet (stores aren't open at all hours here for your convenience. You actually have to plan ahead! Most grocery stores open at 9 a.m., although some open a bit earlier.) So I decided to start my shopping trip in one of the discount chains of grocery stores. I knew they wouldn't have everything I needed but I figured I could pick up some staples there. A half hour later, I popped in next door at the drug store to get the German version of Clorox wipes and some trash bags. I was a bit apprehensive because my backpack was already getting heavy.
Next stop was the "nicer" grocery store. I was in there FOREVER. It was a large store and I still haven't figured out the German layout of products. Where are the spices? (I had to leave my super well-stocked spice cabinet in Montana - boo hoo!!) Where are the granola bars? Where would I find tortillas? How about juice boxes? Whew, and buying fish was a time-consuming endeavor! I had come prepared with the German translation for tilapia, flounder and trout and was prepared to buy any of those fish. But of course they didn't have those. So I went back and forth from the fish counter to my little hiding spot an aisle away where I could look up each fish. If I stood at the counter for the whole process I was afraid they would come over and talk to me in German! Finally I settled on cod (Kabeljau). I used hand motions and grunts to indicate whether to keep putting pieces of fish on my paper or stop. Ridiculous, huh?
I told the fish lady that was all I needed, but shortly I realized that the Spanish chorizo was also probably behind the meat counter. "Haben zie....xxxxx" (Do you have...?) is a useful way to prevent having to search all over the place for something, although I have to be prepared for people to answer this question in German. Ja or Nein I can handle, but anything more complicated than that will produce a blank stare. In this case, "Haben zie chorizo?" led me directly to the chorizo behind the counter, but when she asked me how much, I had no German to answer and had no idea how many grams of chorizo I wanted. (mental note: next time put the metric conversions on my shopping list). Luckily the clerk understood my English response: "A big stack." Again she asked me if that was all, and I said yes.
Shortly I realized that I also needed cheese that was behind the meat counter. Sigh. This is no time to worry about looking dumb, so I went back again to the same lady and said "Haben zie manchego?" I didn't understand her German response but I took it to mean that she had something similar, so I took what she handed me.
Next I went hunting for pecans. Nuts seem to be in many different places in the store - some are with the produce, some with the baking stuff, some in a different and seemingly random location. I guess it's the same in the US. I found hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts, cashews and various candied nuts but no pecans. Eventually I found some whole pecans near the produce and there was a nice display of nutcrackers beside them. I thought about buying the nuts and a nutcracker but I decided I didn't want to spend 7 euros and then spend my time cracking nuts, and I thought surely I would find pecans somewhere. So I passed it up and thought I would try a different store afterwards since I knew there was a bio market in the same shopping complex.
This store didn't carry green beans or cilantro, which were also on my list. It's so weird to go to a large grocery store and have them simply not have things in stock. (Incidentally I tried to go shopping Saturday evening to buy a few staples since stores are closed on Sundays. I tried the local discount store and found many of the shelves completely bare. Seriously. There was NO milk in the store. There was virtually NO produce in the store. Bread was gone.) I also couldn't find the smoked paprika I was looking for. I knew that one would be iffy.
After checking out my bags were so full and heavy! Things like a bunch of bananas, a bag of clementines and a bag of pears are really bulky. I had brought my backpack plus 2 large plastic bags (one for each hand) and I was completely weighed down. I headed towards the bio market but ran into a Mediterranean store on the way so I stopped in there. They had cilantro and feta cheese, so I bought those but that was the limit of what I could carry. So I headed for home. I had to stop a whole bunch of times to put the bags down and rest!
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| Isn't this the cutest little head of romaine lettuce you've ever seen? |
I worked on my blog for an hour after the kids got home from school, and then it was time to cook the meal I had worked so hard to purchase. Man, I can't wait to have my own stuff in my kitchen. The knives here are understandably not very nice and the kitchen is completely bare bones. I couldn't even find a peeler to peel the sweet potatoes so I had to scrape the skin off with a knife, which took forever. I swear it took me almost 2 hours to prepare this meal that was supposed to take about 40 minutes just because the kitchen is so small I was knocking things around and I didn't have the tools or the pans that would make the job easy. I panicked initially because I didn't think there was a baking sheet, but then I remembered that there had been a new baking sheet in the oven when we first got here. I had taken it out because it was still wrapped in plastic. So I had to wash that before using it. Etc. Etc. But I'm happy to report that at the end of it all we had a nice dinner of "Walnut-Crusted Cod with Orange Rosemary Sauce". :)
After dinner I spent the evening washing fishy dishes in our tiny sink.
Today I have no errands to run so it is a purely domestic day. I am losing the battle of the laundry. The tiny washing machine only fits about 7 or 8 items at a time and takes 2 1/2-3 hours to run. Clean laundry takes 1-2 days to dry. With 4 of us wearing about 4 items each day, you can do the math and see that I will never catch up. Dan and I are trying to wear things multiple times, but the kids aren't really doing that. I'm not sure how the natives do it here. One thing I learned from my relocation specialist is that you use different detergent for colors versus whites. Apparently the white detergent has a bit of bleach or something in it. Which explains why after I accidentally put a pair of navy socks in with the white laundry everything came out blue. Thankfully it wasn't anything too precious. I also have no idea how much laundry detergent to use. The cartons don't come with a scooper! I asked 2 different people at the kids' school, thinking I would solve the problem. But Haley's teacher uses liquid detergent while I have powder. And the person she recruited to help answer my question uses some special kind and didn't know about standard detergent. For now I'm using a handful, and who knows if the clothes are clean or not but at least we can pretend.
I put a load of laundry in and got set to vacuum but the hose is broken. We tried to tape it together with duct tape last week and have used it twice in that condition, but it's really not working. I spent about 20 minutes trying to maneuver it without pulling the hose off but the suction wasn't working well and I got fed up. I took out the vacuum bag and figured out how to replace it, but now the suction is worse and it's making an ear piercing sound. So it seems I have done something wrong but I can't figure out what. Ugh! Nothing is easy. I had to email the landlord and ask her to replace it. We can't be living here with 2 animals and a non-operative vacuum cleaner!
I picked up the bathroom rug to shake it out but then realized that I have a problem. We are on the 4th floor of our building and there is a lot below us. Other people's balconies. People walking on the street. An Italian cafe next door with outdoor seating. If I shake the rug out from this height the hair and dirt is likely to travel a bit as it floats down. Who knows if I will end up dumping it on the people at the cafe or the balcony of someone below me?? I stood outside for several moments but there was continually someone or another walking directly below me. Finally there was a break in pedestrian traffic and I shook the rug just enough to make some of the tracked out cat litter fall to the sidewalk below. Hmmmm....Maybe I just need to vacuum the rugs once I get the new vacuum cleaner!
The next task was to take out the garbage. Seems easy enough but here in Germany the trash is complicated business. I won't rewrite what has been written by others so if you're interested you can follow this link: http://www.howtogermany.com/pages/recycling.html. Suffice it to say for now that in our tiny kitchen we are trying to separate out bio trash (compost), recyclables (almost all packaging here is recyclable: plastic, foil, paper, etc.), glass and regular trash. Usually the kids and I have trekked down the 4 flights of stairs, each of us carrying a type of trash, and made our way next door into the locked courtyard where the bins for our building are. But today I gathered it all up and took it down myself since I needed to get the stinky fish packaging and used cat litter OUT!
Next I will eat lunch and then take Diablo for a long walk. Then it will be time to get the kids from school. And this is the exciting world of homemaking in Berlin! Feel free to use this post as ammunition for sleep tonight.
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| Color coded trash bins: blue for paper, green for glass, yellow for recyclables, black for trash. And some extra colors thrown in to confuse people. |
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| Compost |
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| Apparently in this bin you can recycle ducks, watering cans pots |
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| This is for regular trash |
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| Bonus photo: Two trees frame the steeple of a former church and the big moon on my walk home from school this morning. |
Monday, November 10, 2014
The Universal Church
The 2 Sundays that we have been here we have gone to the American Church in Berlin. It's the Protestant English speaking church in town. I find it really nice to have a place where I'm not concentrating on the language and am able to just understand what is happening without extra effort. They have a Sunday School for the kids and various social and mission programs that we are starting to learn about. The kids tried out Sunday school last week and it turns out that Carter's teacher is the primary school counselor at their school! And Haley's teacher we think is affiliated with the Cub Scout group that Carter is joining. So it seems that the American community runs in a fairly tight circle. Believe it or not, that first week we met a guy who was born and raised in Helena, used to live in Missoula, then moved to New York City and is now living in Berlin. And the pastor's wife is from Whitehall, MT!
Yesterday we went to their new afternoon Praise service since it worked out better with the Wall festivities. We felt right at home when 10,000 Reasons popped up on the screen for us to sing. A big shout out to all the folks at FPC!!
Yesterday we went to their new afternoon Praise service since it worked out better with the Wall festivities. We felt right at home when 10,000 Reasons popped up on the screen for us to sing. A big shout out to all the folks at FPC!!
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
The kids were invited to draw on the wall, and there were some "food for thought" questions posted regarding the graffiti on the wall.
Each class had a special period for Wall activities.
Then Saturday we headed over to Checkpoint Charlie to see some of the special displays. Checkpoint Charlie was one of the US crossings where identification was checked (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc.) There were white lighted balloons lining a portion of the route of the wall and special display boards telling 100 Wall Stories.
Gabriel sang "We can be heroes". At 7:15 the balloons were due to be released and we watched the clock (and the children asked over and over) as the time approached. A German government guy took the stage and made a speech during which I heard the word "balloon" several times, so I knew it was about to happen. The kids of course couldn't see the stage since they were half as tall as the adults, so Dan and I had been taking turns hoisting them up in our arms or on our backs so they could see. At this moment I bent down to put Carter on my back so he could see the balloons go up, and when I stood up they were already loose! All that waiting and I missed it! I had to laugh. Dan said I didn't miss anything, that it was a bit anticlimactic.
Next the Berlin Philharmonic took the stage to perform Beethoven's 9th Symphony. We had promised the kids we would leave after the balloons were released because we had made them stand in the street for hours, but I was disappointed to leave and not hear one of the world's most famous orchestras. Even as we walked away we were able to hear the swell of the singing and it was beautiful. And from afar as we walked to the train station with hordes of people we heard the fireworks and were able to see them from a distance.
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| Balloons at Potsdamer Platz |
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| Pieces of the wall juxtapose with glitzy Berlin Mitte |
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| This guy was posing as a Russian soldier for pictures if you tossed a few Euros in his hat. |
Friday, November 7, 2014
TK Maxx
I decided to try the TK Maxx today instead of the department store, since TK Maxx opens an hour earlier. I wonder what's wrong with "J" in Germany?
This store was huge, 2 floors. I have never seen such a huge collection of coats (I may go back tomorrow and look at those since I've been wearing a thin ratty beige fleece pretty much all the time.) But today I was looking for shirts. I somehow managed to bring myself only a few short sleeve shirts and only 1 long sleeve shirt, plus 3 or 4 turtlenecks that I wasn't planning to wear until much later in the winter.
I was under the impression that clothes in Europe were expensive so I was really surprised at the low prices in this store. Of course it's a discounter, but even so I had expected much higher prices. I was also surprised at the quality of the clothes. The fabrics were super soft and cushy. When you buy something on the cheaper end in the US it can feel scratchy or thin, but these fabrics felt luxurious. I bought several shirts for 13-17 euros each, some really nice soft workout/lounge pants for 19 euros and some very cool running tights for 19 euros. I think I would have spent a lot more in the US for these things. I always admire the workout pants in the Athleta magazines and those sell for about $80. Maybe we will rethink our plan to buy the kids' clothes in the US when we visit in the summers...to be determined as I do more shopping.
I managed relatively well in this store since clothes are much more self-explanatory than groceries! And I know my numbers in German, so when I went to the dressing room (multiple times) I was able to tell the attendant the number of items I was carrying.
They had these cool containers with an extendable handle that everyone wheels around with them to hold their stuff. When you want to go in the dressing room, there are some shelves to park your bin on so that you don't have to bring things into the dressing room that you know you're going to buy. What a great idea!
This place was super popular, even on a Friday morning. Maybe visiting on the weekend isn't such a great idea... The checkout line was lengthy but they had about 8 cashiers. Once again my numbers came in handy, because there was an automated announcement that would tell you which cashier to proceed to when you were at the front of the line. "Kasse sieben", mine said.
I have been using exclusively cash since we got here since many many stores and restaurants don't take anything else. That is a huge change in our habits - at home we use credit for everything. But large stores like this will take credit so I was able to use my Visa card (thank goodness because I had compiled quite a basket-full!)
After shopping I went for a run with Diablo wearing my new running shorts (I also didn't pack any of those, just shipped some, so I wore Dan's on the one other run I have been on!) TK Maxx had literally 1 pair of running shorts so I bought them, regardless of what they looked like. I really was quite the fashion queen in my running outfit.
After my run I had to race to the bus stop to go get the kids, because there is early dismissal at 1:40 on Friday. I had just enough time to pop into one of the ubiquitous bread/coffee/sandwich stores to grab a bite to eat for lunch. I was standing in front of the counter deciding what to get and I noticed that each selection had a handle so you could lift up the hinged covering and take what you wanted from inside. There were to-go bags in little bins in front of the counter. Even though I hadn't been to this kind of "serve yourself" bakery before, I thought I knew what to do so I raised the lid on the "pretzel with cucumbers, salami and lettuce" (sounds like an odd combination but it was actually quite tasty) and reached in and grabbed the bottom sandwich and put it in my bag. As my hand was reaching into the food zone I had the thought that this didn't feel quite right. Even though each sandwich was on a different shelf and I could easily get mine without touching any other sandwiches, it still seemed like I was too close to other people's food. As I stepped away from the counter to put my sandwich in the bag I saw the girl next to me look searchingly from left to right and then take a few steps to another counter and retrieve a pair of TONGS from a holder (which was empty at the counter I had taken my sandwich from). She then proceeded to use the TONGS to grab her sandwich from the bin. Oops! At least I only have to make each mistake once. (I also drank from the intinction cup at communion at church on Sunday. Oops!!)
Today I ran out of money. Completely ran out. As I said, I've been using cash for everything, so the money slowly (or quickly) dwindles each time I go to a store. I used a little bit this morning to buy some laundry detergent and kids shampoo, and a tiny bit to buy my sandwich. I counted what was left on the bus on the way to the kids' school, and I had about 30 euros left. I had planned to take the kids for gelato after school to celebrate finishing their first week of school, and then go to the grocery store to get something to make for dinner. But I had forgotten that there was a book fair today at school and I had promised the kids they could get books. We literally stood in the school library counting pennies to see if we had enough to get the books they wanted. We did, but that left only 1 euro 50 cents left over, and that only buys one small gelato. Boo! Dan has the only ATM card so I have no way to withdraw money. I applied for mine at the bank earlier this week but I haven't yet gone back to turn in the paperwork, and after I do it's still going to be 2 weeks to receive the card. So I am completely dependent on Dan for money. How weird! We weren't able to afford gelato, and of course I couldn't go to the grocery store so there is nothing to cook for dinner and we'll have to go out. I think college is the last time I have had no money and no way of getting more!
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