Cut and Paste before Internet disappears...

Update… and I feel bad leaving my last little post so negative. I should have put a happier one up so everyone didn’t think I was hating life. The day after that was much better. :) ... and now I LOVE GERMANY because…………..

Scotty got a spot at the International School! I don’t know how we pulled it off but another kid gave up his spot the day we were there and whaaalah! Scott’s in!!! PHEW. Now I can wave goodbye to three kids at the front door and watch them walk off to school… holding hands and singing. :)

Today we bought school supplies and 58 euros later!!! all THREE kids have crayons, highlighters and the correctly numbered workbooks for each class. I’ve decided we will eat cheap dinners for a week to compensate for that. :) Tonight - tuna and rice (P.S. everyone… need more cream of chicken soup.)

Actually grocery stores here may have an alternative… Holly? …I found “Kondensed Milch” today. :) …and refried beans… and I like that I can buy fortified sugar cereals…I was used to Danish stores though, shopping is hard again.

My last few Germany days have been mostly spent in the house trying to unpack and put things where I want them before Paul puts them somewhere. Whoever unpacks them first wins! :) We probably get in the most arguments over furniture placement and shelf installation. His common argument, “It’s handy.” My common response, “It’s tacky.” I am winning though since he is gone most of the time and I have unpacked 98% of the boxes. Of course when he IS home I keep him busy installing lights and filling the holes from the last people.

Lights… when we moved in the house was naked. Plain light bulbs hanging from wires in every ceiling and hall, curtain rods taken down and only holes left… It looked pretty sad for a while, but it’s much better. We’ve had to buy all new lights. We just bought cheap ones because it wouldn’t be worth the effort to go take them all back down! I can’t believe someone went through the effort to take EVERY light fixture. Silly. The plus side is that we now have two ceiling fans that I have missed since California. Ceiling fans make us happy.

I like the house. It’s unique and we are getting used to all the different rooms. It’s big and I’m desperately trying not to fill it up because I doubt we will ever have this big of a house again. It’s just cold. The windows are single pane pieces of old glass… so we’ve hung up heavy curtains… (thanks Erin!!) We’ve even put reflective styrofoam sheets behind the old radiators. We’ve even started using fans to push the warm air AWAY from the old heat sucking windows. Unfortunately, I’ve given up heating the kids upstairs rooms, except Andrea’s. I even keep my room unheated because it’s not worth it. I’ve just given everyone extra blankets and nobody complains. The part of the house we are in all day is pretty warm now. HA! It’s not warm, it’s just not freezing cold anymore.

As for my German experience so far:

- Grocery stores are huge and more American like. That is fun.

- Malls are more American like with the selection of stores and lots of cute, unnecessary trinkets for kids.

- People are not very American like. They really aren’t all that friendly… sorry to say. I’ve already been yelled at twice!! Once for not using the crosswalk I didn’t know was there and another time for not bagging my groceries fast enough. In general they all seem pretty grouchy and irritated with me. :)

I hope people turn out to be nicer when I can speak to them after I learn some German. :) I have a 50/50 chance someone will understand my English when I’m out, and if they don’t well… we point, use motions, pick words the other one might understand… It doesn’t always work. I've had to walk away several times frustrated.

I can’t post any pictures because our “borrowed” internet is good for five minutes at a time. I’m typing this in Word and will try and cut and paste it into my blog… so you are reading then it worked. We think we ordered something to set up our internet but we really aren’t sure. …and until we get that fixed we can’t set up our skype phone.