Pictures and Power Outages

We are very excited because a new Irish Pub is going in down the road from us. It is called Waxy's (real Irish huh?) and it is taking over the Hard Rock Cafe that was there. The good thing for us about Waxy's is that all Irish pubs English speaking staff! We were walking by the other night and noticed that they had a Help Wanted sign up. It was in english so we were reading it. At the bottom it says "please drop off a CV (resume) and a recent photograph". I thought this was particularly weird that they could request a picture. Matt laughed and said that he had a conversation with his co-workers the other day that explained it. They were talking over lunch and his boss asked Matt how old he was. Joking, Matt said he could be sued for asking him that. He then had to explain that in the U.S. you can't ask about race/religion/age etc. in the work place or before/during an interview. They laughed and said 'oh, let me guess, you probably don't have to put a picture on your resume either'. They were very serious. They then proceeded to all show Matt their resume's and pictures. Matt said that wouldn't be allowed back home and their response was "but, what if someone is being hired to deal with customers, how would you know if they were ugly." I thought that was hilarious. So, of course a new restaurant would want a picture, they wouldn't want an ugly waitress!!

We also had a power outage today. They are working on the sidewalk in front of our apartment and cut the power. This required them to get into our cellar and get through a locked door. Took awhile for them to do that but before we knew the source of the outage, we called our land lady to see what to do. Now, just a back story before I tell you what she said. When we first moved in to the apartment we were getting used to all of the appliances etc. I was doing some laundry, washing dishes and microwaving something. Now this would normally be fine except that all of these items are in one room on one breaker. So you can imagine that pretty soon, the washer, dryer, dishwasher and microwave were all not working. I had not been shown where the circuit breaker was and so I wasn't sure what the problem was. We called the landlady and she brought over a "worker" to check into the problem. well it was just the fuses that needed to be flipped back on, but I also got a talking too about using to much water and electricity. Ah well. So back to today. When Matt (who was home sick) called the land lady and told her that our power was out her first response was "what did she do". That's a fine how-do-you-do! Luckily we were able to tell her that I in fact had done nothing wrong this time! Around 3:30 here we got power back!

Oh, and I did make it to the pharmacist today! Now that we are both sick I figured it was worth the trip. They are very nice, but everything is behind the counter. So I had to ask for the "extra large" pack of Tylenol which is actual a pack of thirty tablets. And then he showed me how to correctly use the cough medicine! Quite funny to think that at 26 they are explaining it to me, but I guess that is their job!

Tylenol and Gluhwein

Just to start this out, there should be an umlaut over the u in the Gluhwein!

Today started out sunny and cool, a perfect day! But then much like Michigan weather it quickly switched! I was getting ready to go out to do some errands and looked out the balcony to downpouring rain! So the errands got cut short but that is fine. One of the challenges for today was going to be getting some Tylenol as we are out. This sounds simple enough, but to get more medicines (from aspirin to vick's vap-o-rub) you have to go to a pharmacist. You have to explain to them what is wrong with you or whoever you are going for, and they will give you what they is right. Now, most Germans believe they always know what is best or right. So arguing with them is useless! But, given that I wasn't sure how to ask for aspirin nor did I have the energy, I convinced myself that my headache wasn't that bad and that I could go without the Tylenol. Boy, I wish I had gone to the Apotheke (pharmacist)! But as they close early it will have to wait untill Tuesday.
As I went to do my shopping I went to the Ziel, this is the main pedestrian shopping area just south of our apartment. I noticed that they have put up almost all of the outdoor christmas lights and now there are hundreds of vendors out and set up. They are selling everything "holiday" related. Wine, nuts, roasted-salted-sweetened nuts, nutcrackers and lots and lots of odds and ends. This is the beginning of the christmas season! Quite a few of the stands are selling a popular drink called Gluhwein (again pretend the umlaut is above the u). It is a mulled wine which is sold around Germany and seems quite popular. It looked like it was getting ready to downpour again so I left with no gluhwein, but I am going to try some soon and will report back!

Other than that pretty normal day!

Turkey Feathers

Well, it has been awhile since I posted so I will try to get up to date quickly. We received our air shipment so things are feeling much more comfortable here. We have all of our clothes plus additional kitchen and bathroom things. We decided to take a weekend trip to Munich which was alot of fun! We stayed at a nice hotel Le Meridian which was very close to the center of town. We did the typical site seeing on Saturday and then ended at the Hofbrauhaus. The next day we drove down to Schwangau, there are two castles in this town, one of which is supposed to be what the disney castle was based off of. It was really really cold that day and it required a 30 minute walk up the side of a mountain to get to the castle! It was interesting to see and we had quite an interesting tour guide! We then made the 4 hour drive home.

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving and we were lucky enough to be invited over to our friend Mike and Emilie's house for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Emilie was amazing and put out a great spread! It is not easy to find alot of the 'normal' things for T-day meals so she made them from scratch! Very impressive! We were very thankful to be spending the evening with friends!

We recently found our new favorite store. It is the old Walmart's that didn't quite work in Germany due to their lack of unions and Germany's very strong unions. Compared to our local corner store we have been shopping at this place is massive! Two levels, the top being home goods (dvd's, clothes, paper goods, automotive, etc.) the bottom floor being all the food along with the lotto store, pharmacy (which is where you have to get any kind of medicine) watch shop etc. We were able to really load up on groceries and I am hoping not to have to go shopping again for a few days. Interesting thing in Germany, I think I talked about how you have to bring your own bags, well I noticed alot of people not using bags and loading everything back into their cart and then into their car with no bags or boxes. I thought it would be a pretty tedious job once they got home to unload, but anything to save a few cents on buying a bag!

Otherwise things are going well. We are getting more comfortable in the area and are getting excited for our next trip wherever that might be!

Below are a few pictures of our apartment kitchen, foyer and outside!

Our parking lot and entrance to the building. We are the third window up from the door!

Our building from the road (Heinestrasse)

Our street!

The main road Heinestrasse is off of

The back of the building. Our balcony is the one with the satelite on it.

Our kitchen (and laundry room!) from the foyer

Our foyer from our kitchen (bedroom on the left and front door on the right)

View in from the front door

Our "big" fridge and stove

We're back!

We just had a great visit home for our friend's Jake and Renae's wedding! It was a great time home and we were able to see lots of friends and family.
Matt came back on Tuesday to go back to work but I was able to stay until Friday! It was nice to be able to pick up alot of stuff that we forgot the first time! It is cheaper and easier to buy the stuff in the US than in Germany right now so I tried to stock up on things!
Saturday was spent sleeping and trying to readjust to the time change. Sunday was the same way but we also did some driving lessons! We currently have a stick shift and will be getting one permanently pretty soon so I need to learn how to drive! Also, once I learn I will be able to drive Matt's cars when we get home =)
So we went to the Real, which took over the Walmart's here) and practiced in the parking lot. If I do say so myself I did pretty well! Only stalling once! So I am on my way....
We are supposed to be getting our air shipment tomorrow so we will have all of our stuff, including my clothes and shoes!