Confessions of a German Hausfrau July 19, 2010

It’s been a little more than a week since I arrived back in Germany, and I’ve officially begun my new job as a German Hausfrau.  Hausfrau, or housewife, might not sound like a very glamorous or rewarding new position, but I have to admit that I’m rather enjoying it so far. It has a lot of perks. I get to sleep in every day, watch movies in the middle of the day if I want, and go shopping for food while everyone else is slaving away in the office.  The only downsides are tasks like scrubbing the toilet and removing limescale, but my mother has introduced me to the wonders of vinegar so I can cope.  The real challenge at the moment is trying to “keep up” a residence with no kitchen and boxes (i.e. mess) everywhere. But I think I’m maintaining some semblance of order vacuuming like a madwoman and washing dishes in the bathroom sink. Yes, the bathroom sink. I used to think doing all our dishes by hand at the kitchen sink was time-consuming, but that was positively dreamy compared to washing them individually in a bathroom sink. Still, it works and it means I’ll appreciate a kitchen even more once we have one. And a dishwasher – gasp – now that would really tickle me pink.

I thought I’d share a few photos of the domestic domain I now rule. I know many people are dumb-founded when I describe the “no kitchen” situation, so I thought it might help to include a couple of photos showing what our current set-up looks like:

Table, microwave and kettle....

And fridge. And that's all, folks!

With the fridge, the kettle and the microwave we’re getting by. I’m not a great cook, anyway, so it’s not as if we’re used to having fancy-pants meals every night, but it will be nice to have a stove and an oven and a kitchen sink again at some point. And I do have ambitions that my new role as a Hausfrau will inspire me to want to cook more. Honestly!

Bathroom sink, AKA "dishwashing zone"

The bathroom sink above is where I do the dishes. Yeah, it sounds kind of gross but keep in mind that our toilet is separate from our bathroom, so it’s not too bad.

And I know many of you are curious what our “sitting shower” looks like:

The "sitting shower," in all its glory

Thankfully, the Mr. managed to buy the equipment to make it into a “real” shower and it works great. The floor gets a little wet so we’re debating whether to get some sort of barrier around the side facing the sink so it’s more contained, but mopping up afterward also works pretty well.

I also had my first communal task to complete for the house. As is usually the case in Germany, all parties in the house have to share tasks such as sweeping the walkways, taking out the garbage, and in the wintertime, clearing away snow and ice. My job this past week was to sweep the walkway to the door, as well as the back pavement behind the house. It was a relatively cool day, but it still took me more than an hour to clear away all the dead leaves and pine needles and it made me kind of sweaty and gross, to be honest. It was really the pine needles that made the job so arduous as we have very large pine trees that seem to shed copious amounts of needles. I always thought evergreen trees were less hassle than deciduous ones because they don’t lose their needles in the same way. Silly me.

In addition to upkeep both inside and out, I’m also familiarizing myself with the new neighborhood grocery store I shall be visiting on a regular basis. It’s fairly well-stocked, and I took my handy Ikea shopping trolley there a few days ago and bought quite a few things.

Oh, Ikea, how I love thee

At the grocery store, I was proud of myself for understanding that the cashier wanted to know if I had a Euro so she’d have to make less change. Ah, it’s the little things that bring joy….The good news is that although I’ll miss our shopping trips to Toom with the car, I think this smaller store will cover all the bases until opportunities arise when we’ve either rented a car or have signed-up for car-sharing and can go to a bigger supermarket. And they still have a pretty awesome chocolate section despite the limited size, which is most important of all. I’ve also discovered a new favorite treat:

A little bit of heaven in a plastic cup

You can choose between, 40, 60 or 75% cocoa content. I went for the 75%, and it was de-lish. The higher the cocoa content, usually the safer it is around the Mr., too. He prefers milk chocolate, so I cleverly purchase things he won’t like. Does that make me an evil German Hausfrau?

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.

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind May 11, 2010

We signed the lease on Friday for the art nouveau flat, and the movers will deliver our things on Friday at noon. It’s a relief to finally have a place of our own, and to know that we’ll soon be reunited with all of our cherished (and now probably dusty) belongings. I am slightly worried about a couple of things, however, which puts a bit of a damper on the move-in joy:

1. We saw the newly installed tub\shower combo on Friday. I don’t think I mentioned this before, but one of the drawbacks to this flat and what would have resulted in an instantaneous veto from me had the Mr. said we couldn’t change it is the “sitting shower” in the bathroom. On our first viewing, the agent explained that a combination bathtub\sitting shower (basically a tub with a seat moulded into the back) would be installed. “Sitting shower?” I asked the Mr. with trepidation. He whispered that it wouldn’t be a problem to change it if we took the place. In the days following, the Mr.’s attitude shifted slightly from “we can change it, no problem” to “I think we can change it.” In the end, I decided just to trust his initial inclination and we agreed to take the place. He’s not as concerned about it as I am, but says he will do his best to try to fix it to a more normal shower setup. (I mean, what idiot came up with the idea of a “sitting shower,” anyway, in any other setting apart from a nursing home?) Then on Friday, we saw the shower nozzle for the “sitting shower” for the first time and entirely new fears (shared by both of us) have surfaced. It’s really, really small. I mean, we’re wondering how much water can actually come out of this thing since it’s so small. And because they chose an incredibly small nozzle, maybe that means there’s no good water pressure and we’re going to have a warm trickle of water with which to bathe every day? We’re probably just being paranoid, but I fear we may need to learn how to love being dirty.

2. The kitchen situation. I feel really, really badly abandoning the super-busy Mr. to a flat with absolutely no kitchen for 1 1/2 months. The poor guy won’t even have a freakin’ kitchen sink. He says he’s not concerned about it only because he has a million other things on his plate right now and having no kitchen is the least of his worries. This doesn’t exactly alleviate my guilt. On Saturday, we actually found a range from Ikea that we both like:

Ikea's Abstrakt kitchen range in gray

The problem, however, is that the Mr. says he just doesn’t have the energy to delve into planning a kitchen right now, which is fair enough given his work. After much discussion we’ve decided that although it’s inconvenient for him, it makes sense for me to go now and to wait on planning and ordering the kitchen until July when I’m back. Alternatively, kitchen-planning faeries might show up and take care of everything for us, but I guess I won’t hold my breath waiting for them.