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Sonntag, 12. Juli 2015
Paulaner, Gripes and Webcams
durhamfamily, 22:31h
This was a great week! On Friday, Elizabeth and I went to dinner with the Seegers. The Seegers are German and they lived in Florence KY when I started work at ZFLS. Stefan is a large reason why I've been successful at work. We spent the evening discussing the advantages and difficulties involved in living abroad. Hanging out with them makes everything normal... just for a little while.
It was the first time Elizabeth has eaten at Paulaner Wirtshaus. Paulaner serves typical Bavarian food - so lots of meats and gravies and breads. We sat outside in the Marktplatz... which means that you can see it in the Schwäbisch Gmünd website!:
http://www.schwaebisch-gmuend.de/353-Webcam_Schwaebisch_Gmuend_Marktplatz_I.html
We were at the end, in front of the 3rd building on the left. And guess what I just discovered! You can see where we live on a different webcam:
http://www.schwaebisch-gmuend.de/3601-Webcam_Schwaebisch_Gmuend_Tunnel_Ost.html
Do you see the tower with a clock on it in the middle of the picture? That's exactly where we live! Pretty neat, right? (You might need to be patient and wait for the camera to pan all of the way to the left)
Back to the story: after dinner we enjoyed some enormous bowls spaghetti ice cream (vanilla with strawberry sauce and whipped cream). It was very good, but I think I'll stick with regular ice cream. Even though I always regret my flavor decision, I like being able to pick my flavors.
Afterwards, they came back to our apartment and took ALL of our cardboard for us! Over the past month, buying all new furniture, we had collected a serious amount of cardboard. We are unbelievably fortunate to have the Seegers here to take care of us.
In order to not give anyone the wrong impression, I'll spend the remainder of this blog talking about the negative experiences that we've had so far in Germany. You've already heard our complaints about not speaking the language... but it really does come up constantly. And every time you fail to communicate with someone, it makes you feel increasingly more inept.
Have we described the window situation? We talked about how there is no air conditioning here, and that opening the windows is the best that we can do to cool off the apartment. The windows are very large, but did we mention that none of them have screens? The result: the windows are constantly open and there are more flies and gnats in the apartment than I could possibly describe. For example though, yesterday morning I killed at least 30 gnats before I stopped counting. And let's not kid ourselves, it's only a matter of time before pigeons start coming in. They sit on our windowsill, eerily gazing into our TV room.
We hate not being able to see the people back home. We can schedule occasional chats... but there are so many people to consider that it's just paralyzing. This blog is the best solution I've come up with to that problem.
Every few days I go on a frustrated search, trying to find something I would swear we brought with us. I can search for it in this apartment... but of course I cannot search in the last apartment, the hotel, the apartment before that, the rented car, or our house in KY. The constant state of thinking you lost something without being able to verify anything is downright maddening.
There are countless normal things that I don't know how to do. I would really like to run here in Germany, but I don't know how to find (or get to) races. My hair is growing out of control, but I don't know where I'm supposed to go or how I'm supposed to describe what I want from them. The washers and dryers are comically tiny, and they take 2 - 4 times longer than American styles. It is light outside from 5 AM until 10 PM (it sounds kind of nice, but you never sleep). And buying beer requires me to carry a crate of 20 (0.5 Liter) bottles half a mile down the road.
That's all I have for today!
Until next week.
It was the first time Elizabeth has eaten at Paulaner Wirtshaus. Paulaner serves typical Bavarian food - so lots of meats and gravies and breads. We sat outside in the Marktplatz... which means that you can see it in the Schwäbisch Gmünd website!:
http://www.schwaebisch-gmuend.de/353-Webcam_Schwaebisch_Gmuend_Marktplatz_I.html
We were at the end, in front of the 3rd building on the left. And guess what I just discovered! You can see where we live on a different webcam:
http://www.schwaebisch-gmuend.de/3601-Webcam_Schwaebisch_Gmuend_Tunnel_Ost.html
Do you see the tower with a clock on it in the middle of the picture? That's exactly where we live! Pretty neat, right? (You might need to be patient and wait for the camera to pan all of the way to the left)
Back to the story: after dinner we enjoyed some enormous bowls spaghetti ice cream (vanilla with strawberry sauce and whipped cream). It was very good, but I think I'll stick with regular ice cream. Even though I always regret my flavor decision, I like being able to pick my flavors.
Afterwards, they came back to our apartment and took ALL of our cardboard for us! Over the past month, buying all new furniture, we had collected a serious amount of cardboard. We are unbelievably fortunate to have the Seegers here to take care of us.
In order to not give anyone the wrong impression, I'll spend the remainder of this blog talking about the negative experiences that we've had so far in Germany. You've already heard our complaints about not speaking the language... but it really does come up constantly. And every time you fail to communicate with someone, it makes you feel increasingly more inept.
Have we described the window situation? We talked about how there is no air conditioning here, and that opening the windows is the best that we can do to cool off the apartment. The windows are very large, but did we mention that none of them have screens? The result: the windows are constantly open and there are more flies and gnats in the apartment than I could possibly describe. For example though, yesterday morning I killed at least 30 gnats before I stopped counting. And let's not kid ourselves, it's only a matter of time before pigeons start coming in. They sit on our windowsill, eerily gazing into our TV room.
We hate not being able to see the people back home. We can schedule occasional chats... but there are so many people to consider that it's just paralyzing. This blog is the best solution I've come up with to that problem.
Every few days I go on a frustrated search, trying to find something I would swear we brought with us. I can search for it in this apartment... but of course I cannot search in the last apartment, the hotel, the apartment before that, the rented car, or our house in KY. The constant state of thinking you lost something without being able to verify anything is downright maddening.
There are countless normal things that I don't know how to do. I would really like to run here in Germany, but I don't know how to find (or get to) races. My hair is growing out of control, but I don't know where I'm supposed to go or how I'm supposed to describe what I want from them. The washers and dryers are comically tiny, and they take 2 - 4 times longer than American styles. It is light outside from 5 AM until 10 PM (it sounds kind of nice, but you never sleep). And buying beer requires me to carry a crate of 20 (0.5 Liter) bottles half a mile down the road.
That's all I have for today!
Until next week.
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