Out with the old, in with the new May 19, 2010

After a long and at times stressful journey yesterday, I finally arrived in Indiana late last night. I don’t even have the energy to go into describing everything that went wrong, but I was pretty cranky with Frankfurt Intl’ Airport, United Airlines AND Washington Dulles Intl’ Airport by the end of the day. That’s right, you’re all on my poo-poo list now. So watch out.

But I am happy to report that the move back in Germany went smoothly on Friday. I went through some of the kitchen boxes on Sunday to help the Mr. get a little more organized before I left, so now I feel slightly less guilty about abandoning him to the “no kitchen” situation. However, he did write today to tell me about the challenges of eating chicken soup with a knife. Yep, I never managed to find any silverware for him, poor guy.

It took the movers a couple of hours to bring everything inside, and reminded us of exactly how much crap we have. Seriously. We never did the usual “moving purge” of stuff because we didn’t really have the time, plus the moving company did all the packing for us which is when this type of purge would normally happen. I’ve told the Mr. that this doesn’t let us off the hook from still doing a purge as we unpack, however.

The flat was cold the first night, but eventually heated up to a reasonable level. We were a little concerned since it is an old building, but we think it will be okay. The sitting shower is…interesting.

The "sitting shower" prior to its installation

We were relieved to find that the water pressure is nice and strong, and there’s plenty of hot water – whew. But still, it’s a chilly experience to have to turn off the water to suds up given that the room never really gets all that warm. So we definitely have to convert it a regular shower, but the Mr. has nearly two months to do this before I’m back ; )

Then on Saturday we went to Ikea and bought lamps for three rooms, as well as a large gray rug for the lounge. We went on a bit of a buying spree as the Mr. handed Baby Merc back over to the rental car company today, and we’ve decided we’re going to hold off on buying a car for now. Makes me a little sad that we’re going to lose the convenience of hopping into it for bigger shopping trips and the luxury of being able to easily travel around on the weekends, but I know we’ll save heaps of money.

In the meantime, I happily have a car to use here in Indiana. My mom recently bought a new car, so that leaves me her old one to drive while I’m here. I drove up to my brother’s house today where I’ll be staying for the next few days with my mom as she’s taking care of my niece & nephew while my brother and his wife are in Japan. Then I head back to my parents’ house and will begin working on clearing out all the things they’ve been storing for me. The plan is to put together a big yard sale, and hopefully my old will become somebody else’s new.

Fahrvergnügen: Or Germany’s Love Affair with Driving Really, Really Fast March 22, 2010

Germany is a country known for its high quality vehicles and its essentially speed limit-free Autobahns, or motorways. Germans love their cars and love to drive them so much there’s even a term for it: “Fahrvergnügen,” which means “driving enjoyment.” This past weekend I experienced first-hand what German Fahrvergnügen looks like on the autobahn, and luckily survived to tell the tale. I say “luckily” because I think every time we successfully exit an autobahn from now on I am going to be both amazed and thankful that we didn’t die. Every time.

The Mr. and I decided that a few weeks ago that it might make sense to rent a car so we could check out the surrounding villages around Würzburg more efficiently. We did the patriotic thing and rented a compact Mercedes-Benz, and grew very attached to our “Baby Merc.” It certainly made life easier with the Mr.’s commute, grocery shopping, and being able to explore outside the city so on Friday the Mr. rented another Baby Merc, this time for a month. This one is an automatic, but unfortunately I’m not insured to drive it so my Fahrvergnügen will have to be limited to parking lots.

On Saturday, we drove Baby Merc to Iphofen, a little village about a half-hour’s drive from Würzburg. Iphofen is lovely. Unfortunately, I don’t have any of my own photos to share as I stupidly allowed my camera’s connecting cable to go into storage, but this Wikipedia page has some nice photos of the village. The Mr. found Iphofen to be one of the nicest, most “upscale” German medieval villages he’s ever seen. Our guess is that the town has quite a bit of dosh because of the local factory which produces gypsum boards. In addition to numerous little cafes and bakeries, the town also had some very nice-looking hotels and lots of “vinoteks,” or wine-tasting rooms. We went into one and tried a couple local wines. We had the option to either pay for a tasting (which I think would have been a full glass) or receive complimentary small pours, which we did for a couple different wines. We ended up purchasing a slightly sweet Riesling wine that could work well as an aperitif or as a dessert wine. Afterwards we went to a cafe for afternoon cake & coffee and I pushed my lactose intolerance to the limit with a whipped cream-filled chocolate cake concoction. I’m pretty good these days with being able to handle just about any type of dairy product, but I can’t do too much or else I pay the price. This cake reminded me of this fact later that evening…ugh….After cake & coffee, our sat nav system directed us to the nearby autobahn. The Mr. said, “might as well” and we took off for our first autobahn driving experience together.

Firstly, to set the scene, it was dusk and raining a little. So the conditions weren’t horrible but they also weren’t ideal. This doesn’t stop your average joe German driver, however, from thinking it’s still a good idea to drive 110 mph weaving in and out of traffic. While not everyone drives this insanely (we went about 75 to 80 mph most of the time, which is the recommended speed) they were definitely plenty of suicidal idiots who passed us at these speeds. In the rain. At one point, the Mr. decided he wanted to switch a lane over. He looked. Then I looked, too, to be extra safe. I noticed there was a car in that lane, but it was quite some distance back. All of my previous driving experience tells me this ok – he’s way behind us. Only problem is, we’re not calculating that he’s probably going at least 110, maybe 120 mph. So by the time the Mr. is changing lanes over to the left, this idiot has ignored the Mr.’s turn signal and has to do a quick swerve to the left to avoid colliding with us. I’m practically hyperventilating, can’t believe we almost died, but in reality, THIS IS NORMAL. This is how many Germans like to drive, period. I’m sure he/she didn’t even blink.

Anyway, we survived so on Sunday we drove on the autobahn again about an hour to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. I visited Rothenburg nearly fifteen years ago when I went to Germany for the first time on a high school trip. I didn’t remember much about it except the medieval torture museum, which I don’t recall actually touring. Rothenburg is one of Germany’s top tourist destinations as it is a marvelously preserved medieval town and is really quite interesting to explore. On this visit I didn’t check out the medieval torture museum but I did visit the German Christmas Museum, which I very much enjoyed (the Mr. complained that it’s March so I toured alone as I love Christmas at any time of year.) The afternoon cake du jour this time was apple & gooseberry with a meringue topping, which was thoroughly delicious.  We also purchased Rothenburg “schneeballs“, or snowballs,  for later as apparently they are a local specialty.  They look a bit like a ball of yarn dipped in chocolate or sugar, and taste something like a crunchy elephant ear. Very tasty.

Our exploring finished, we hopped on the autobahn and thankfully, it was uneventful. And by that I mean there were still plenty of nuts rushing past us at 120 mph or faster and I was still amazed we survived.