puzumaki

On Thursday, February 7, about 10:45 p.m. here in Germany, we heard the cries of a new born baby girl over a speaker phone. Earlier that evening we stopped by to pick people up for Trivia Night (with a chance to win a trip to Paris!) to find out that my brother Oz’s girlfriend was in labor. I was torn about leaving, but my other brother stayed behind so we went for some trivia goodness. We were unsuccessful in winning the trip, but it was a lot of fun. We returned just in time. At the hospital back in the States, everyone had been cleared out of the room and the head was visible.

I wish I could be there to give our support. It’s very hard to be so incapable of doing anything right now. No Internet so no phone or instant messaging. Just unanswered emails. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more cut off and useless. Despite my own hardships, my new neice is in perfect health with all toes and fingers accounted for. I wish I could have been there.

Please help me welcome R.L. to the family!

We had a hard time deciding what to do for our first anniversary. On Friday, we moved into our new place. Our first shipment arrived, undamaged, in boxes. Herr was able to set up our air mattress and install light fixtures I had to buy while I worked very hard on cleaning the kitchen to put away some of our dishes.

The other major issue around our anniversary was a lack of money. I was supposed to receive an advance to pay the rent and make the move more seamless. I still have not received that advance, and so my rent and the deposit (which is an additional two months’ rent) still go unpaid as I wait for payroll to do their job.

We had picked out several beautiful places to go for our brief weekend anniversary. We were lucky to have a Saturday for our first anniversary to plan this. Some ideas we had were Stockholm with its many islands and bridges, Dublin, Leipzig (Bach’s museum), Fusson (a bed and breakfast with the Alps and Neuschweinstein castle in the background), and Salzburg (Mozart’s home town that was running a Mozart Festival).

Here’s what we actually did. We unpacked a bit before we joined my brother and Tamtam on a trip up to Ramstein. We had a large lunch at Chilis (the only one in Germany) and went to Landstuhl to shop at a large air force base for furniture. We saw a lot of nice pieces, and in the end I picked up two large rugs to cover some of the hardwood floors. In commemoration of our anniversary, one rug is green and the other is orange. Our wedding colors. Fitting them in a BMW with four people took some strategic planning.

We watched Groundhog Day while trying Caramel Sutra (it’s a Ben and Jerry’s flavor that is hard to come by) and tried out our new bath before crashing. The baths here are very deep, which is so much better. We’ll have to try the sauna soon too.

What we decided was to postpone the actual celebration of our anniversary like we did with our honeymoon. Once we’ve settled and the paperwork is taken care of, we’ll consider a place to visit to truly celebrate.

Here are some of the observations I have made, and some other little miscellaneous items.

Shutters
In the U.S., most housing requires residents to purchase blinds or curtains. In Germany, shutters are very common. Not American shutters, though. These shutters are almost like blinds (or garage doors), except they are on the outside of the window and are controlled with either a lever or canvas rope on the inside. Ours are made of wood, which last longer than the metal/plastic alternatives. You can roll them down and leave the slats separated (so space still exists between each) or for total darkness you can continue unrolling to push all the slats together. Kind of like boarding up the windows.

Bells
I mentioned the bells a few times. Church bells begin at 6 a.m. and ring every quarter hour. Typically they can be heard from anywhere in the city (I’m not sure about the bases though). At :15 it rings once, :30 twice, and :45 three times, with lots of bell happiness on the hours. This lasts until 10 or so in the evening, and actually isn’t annoying.

Water
The water here is very hard. So hard that if you don’t take precautionary measures on sinks, toilets, and showers/baths, they’ll stop working after a few months. shower heads here have a rubber spray mask rather than metal like is typical in the States. This is to allow the person to break off the carbon left behind by the water. Dropping denture solutions in toilets was recommended at our housing briefing.

Autobahn speed
Despite most perceptions, the autobahn has speed restrictions. If no signs are posted, the minimum speed is 60 kph and maximum speed is 100 kph. Sound fast? Let’s do some math. A rough estimate of kph to mph is to multiply the kph by six and drop the last number. So: 60*6=360. Drop the zero, and the min speed limit is about 36 mph. The unposted speed limit is 100*6=600, drop the zero, and it is 60 mph. So, average speed with good weather is betwen 36 and 60 mph. However, once out of city areas, you find several “unrestricted” areas. Once you see this sign, you can drive however fast you want as long as it is within reason of weather and visibility. You only pass on the left (it’s a federal offense to pass on the right).

Hertz
We are still learning how to deal with the power difference here. Herr was setting up a transformer to pump up our temporary bed, and it began humming. At this, he had an “ah ha!” moment. Apparently the hum was an A flat pitch, where in the States a hum is a B flat. The A flat means it runs at a lower frequency, hence in Germany it is 50 Hz, and in the States it is 60 Hz.

Not so yummy food
I mentioned foods I like, but did not mention foods we tried that I did not agree with. This list includes schnitzel (thin breaded meat), sauerkraut, buttered pretzels (Germans actually enjoy cutting pretzels in half and slathering butter on them), mineral water (this is carbonated water without any flavor), and boiled wurst (I don’t mind it grilled or cooked, bratwurst or any other kind so far). We’re still learning.