Snow Day!

This is Will. I thought I would give you all a break from Rachael's side-splitting jokes about my frugality to show you this picture. We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. The Altbau-style houses look so much cooler when covered in a layer of snow!

Dad Makes My Day

Yesterday I got a phone call. Even though I've practiced "I'm sorry! I don't understand." about 10,000 times, I can't seem to get it out quickly enough on the phone. So when someone starts speaking German, I freeze. This particular phone call caused such panic, and I rationalized that it must be a telemarketer because their intro was just too long. Mature adult that I am, I hung up on this unwelcome caller. But she called back. So I stopped answering my phone for two days. Finally, I admitted to myself that this person did seem to at least think that they needed to get in touch with me, so I googled the phone number, and lo and behold, a flower shop in my Munich 'hood. Now I knew that this was not a gift from Will - he is a dear man but the move has put the pinch on us and these days he starts to sweat when I buy condiments. It occurred to me at last that the call was about my Christmas poinsettia! Every year since I've lived on my own, my dad has sent me (and my sisters) a poinsettia plant. It is always a nice surprise, and this year, being so far from what I know, it was extra special. By the time I mustered up the courage to answer the next call, the young woman at the flower shop had realized that my affliction was language related and not merely rudeness or xenophobia. So now I've got my poinsettia, and it's feeling a little more like home. Thank you, Dad!!

Making Peace with the Rolands

Will and I have had a lot of lousy neighbors. I think this is par for the course when you are always living in multi-unit housing, but I also think it's par for the course to feel like your neighbor saga is uniquely awful. And we do.

Our first bad neighbor, in the apartment we shared senior year of college, was an "older" woman (she seemed older at the time; probably late 20s) who shamelessly hit on Will. That wasn't her bad neighbor bit, though; that activity quite perked the boy up, actually. She constantly parked in the spot that we paid through the nose for, leaving us roaming the streets of Ann Arbor for a free spot when she couldn't be located to move her car. One late night when we were leaving early the next morning for some trip or another, she did it again, and this final transgression turned Lover Boy against her: Will called a tow truck. Well, to sum this neighbor up, there were loud and angry confrontations that followed for the duration of our lease and, of course, no more flirting.

We had a period of neighborly love after this, first with our house in Oak Park where our neighbors' only peculiarity was such an obsession with perfection that they occasionally gardened or shoveled for us - no complaints from us on this. After that we moved back to Ann Arbor, and dwelled in relative peace, bothered only slightly by very bad death metal by the condo residents behind us and a very nice couple's very mean Sharpei who would try to eat our puppy. Truly no serious or chronic complaints.

Then dark days set upon us again when we moved to Detroit and were plagued with: (1) a 6'10" professional basketball player living above us who played basketball in his loft and kept European hours given that he played for an Italian team, (2) an adjacent after hours club whose bass caused our loft to vibrate from about 2:30 am until 5 ish, (3) a Jekyll/Hyde neighbor who reacted very, very badly to a request that he turn down his music, as well as a few other characters.

I left Detroit for Redwood City, California to re-join Will in 2008 - he'd been living in California for almost a year at this point working as a post doctorate fellow. Our colorful neighbors here included a gaggle of teenagers who left their barking dog out all night and filled our bedroom with pot smoke and (musically as well as personally) offensive rap music pretty much every night. When confronted about this nuisance, the putative father of the house assured me that the marijuana was legal because these kids had "a permit and everything." Well, I certainly had no idea that glaucoma parties were quite so lively, nor that so many blond co-eds were afflicted with the condition. I assured him that I was not 5-0, and what I really wanted was to sleep, not to prosecute. Well, that never happened, but as we do, we eventually moved.

Now we are in Munich. We live in a beautiful apartment in a quieter part of town than we originally wanted to live in. Part of the reason for choosing this place was coming to terms with our neighbor luck and the fact that a "fun" part of town would not only make for higher rent, but for a much greater likelihood of "fun" neighbors. And I do not like fun in a neighbor. Quiet, clean, bookish, and painfully shy are my top four neighbor traits. Nevertheless, the day we moved in, we met Roland. Roland lives above us and introduced himself thusly: "Hi! I'm Roland! I play the Indian drums. Let me know if it ever gets too loud." Sigh. I've since learned that Roland does not dabble in the Indian drums; he plays in intervals throughout the day and into the evening. Roland also stomps like a Yeti, moves furniture constantly, and has a 12 year old who is allowed to jump up and down until the downstairs neighbors (i.e. us) ask him to stop. Last night the spastic jumping carried on until near midnight, causing Will to climb the flight of stairs to beg for Roland's mercy. Will returned victorious but looking worse for the wear, saying only "He answered the door in a banana hammock" before returning to sleep. Apparently Roland is also very comfortable with his body.

I believe that life provides you with the challenges that you need to grow. It is clear to me that I need to learn to tolerate noise and unpredictability, to master confrontation in a productive but not negative way, and apparently to shake loose from my prudish, puritanical roots. So thank you Roland, as you pound your feet like a drunken Michael Flately above my head as I type this entry. Thanks to all you Rolands. I must try to work with you and in spite of you, because I will burst into flames if I let myself get consumed with my annoyance and anger. And so through gritted teeth and deep breaths, I choose peace.

Weekend Walk

Everything is closed here on Sundays, which offends my American sense of entitlement to service as well as my tendency to try to get a hundred things done everyday. It is, however, a blessing.

Here is a picture from our long walk through the Englischer Garten last Sunday. There is an entrance to the park just minutes from our door, which is an amazing amenity. The park is larger than NYC's Central Park, runs down from the north side (where we live) all the way past the center of Munich to the south side, and has about 46 miles of trails within it. On this walk, we went a few miles south and then rode the train back. It was a beautiful day, the baby stayed off my bladder for the most part, and the dogs survived the subway. All in all, a great Sunday.

Laundry Day

A mini-shipment of our things arrived yesterday and it held all the contents of my baby shower. So I've set upon washing everything, optimistically looking forward to the day that our actual furniture arrives so I can put it all away. I don't have a dryer, so I have to hang dry, and since my drying rack has not arrived, I have to get creative. Here's a picture of the first load of baby stuff drying on the wall heater in the bathroom - how cute are all of those onsie butts??

The Mystery of Sancho Brand Dog Food

Grocery shopping in Germany has been a particular challenge for me. There are several reasons I can think of for this. One, I don't have a car, so trying out two stores via rolling cart and subway is a day long affair for my increasingly beluga-whale like self. Second, I am vegan, i.e. no dairy or meat, and these restrictions are a little trickier in Bavaria than in the Bay Area. Third, I have to rely on internet dictionaries and pictures on packages to know what I'm buying. Fourth, and most importantly, the grocery shops here are qualitatively different than those back home. Germany has many discount grocery stores, which are tantamount to T.J. Maxx's with food: while there is an array, you get what you get and there's no predicting it. These places offer great prices, and my ..ahem.. frugal husband loves this. He has declared a trip to ALDI as being a weekly affair and delights in nothing more than asking me what I normally pay for [fill in product] at a normal grocery store. I love saving money, don't get me wrong, but I have also tried to point out that a bargain is a little less impressive when it results in laundry detergent that stings your eyes when opened.

Enter Sancho dog food. We ran out of kibble yesterday, and I didn't have the time or energy to track down a pet store. So we stopped by our local discount grocer, Netto. The only dry dog food brand that Netto carries is Sancho. Incidentally, they have cans of Pablo brand dog food. Both brands are packaged exclusively for Netto, so apparently some ad wiz at that corporation believes strongly that dog food with a Spanish flair with have greater appeal. This food is *really* cheap. It is also multi colored. Our dogs have only ever been fed high quality food, and it was only exhaustion that led to our actually taking the bag of Sancho to the register. We poured a bowl for the dogs when we got home and one of our dogs, Billy, set upon it like I've never seen. He is not a kibble-hound; even other dogs' kibble he is only momentarily interested in. Sancho, however, has turned him into a zombie. He ate and ate until I pleaded with Will to take it away, worried that he'd make himself sick. Once the bowl was gone, Billy stood on alert with his nose pressed to the bag of Sancho, tail wagging furiously, cursing his own canine-related communication limits. The zombie effect lasted all night, causing Billy to pace around the house until finally around 3 am Will took him outside in case he was ill. Not ill, apparently, though his digestion was on overdrive, and he returned ready for more Sancho. This morning we only gave him a small amount. Right now I can hear him whimpering softly for more. What in the world is in this stuff? [note: it might be best that I never answer this question] All I can say is that I am going to a pet store a.s.a.p., buying some kind of doggy health chow that Billy will tolerate, and then my family can start sleeping easy again.

Things I have learned after 7 days as an expatriate in Munich:

1. Dogs get jet lag.

2. Germany Shepherds are just called Shepherds here. Seriously.

3. Baking soda is not an internationally popular product. Please send my regards to Arm & Hammer.

4. Cable companies cannot get it right the first time here, either, yet German cable guys will also act baffled by these mysterious and apparently unanticipatable obstacles.

5. Everyone in Germany speaks great English, except for anyone who talks to you; e.g. store clerks, servers, nice old ladies on the subway and movers.