Language fail
It is time to enroll myself in full-time German school. I do dumb things when I’m flustered, particularly with money.
Today, I purchased what I thought was ONE rug from a nice Iranian man who runs a carpet shop on the top floor of this cheap-ass furniture store called Roller. The carpets range from fairly cheap to very expensive (into the several thousands). My language skills, however, have no range — they primarily linger in the piss-poor department.
This nice salesman, who has bothered to actually learn German, also spoke a little English (really, though, just a little. I actually had to break out the Google translate on my phone). But, enough to understand I wanted a carpet and enough to understand that I didn’t want to spend a ton of money. After making my first selection and signing the invoice, I told him I wanted to look at a couple others. He took my liking of one as a sign I wanted to buy a second carpet.
So, he taped it up and put it next to the one I’d already signed for — which I missed.
He added it to the invoice — which I also missed.
And I OK’d the transaction for about double what I should have paid — which, you guessed it, I also somehow missed.
Not until he called me “very strong” for telling him “I don’t need a cart, I’ll just carry it home,” did I realized I had purchased two.
Because I used the EC (electronic cash) card, I can’t get an immediate refund (don’t follow how that works and don’t have the language skills to really try to understand). So now I have a credit hand-marked on my receipt — “gutschrift” — and I’m hoping like hell he honors it when I come back.
I’ll bring Jeff this time. While his German ranges from fair to somewhat “gut”, he is way cooler under pressure.
(Note: last time I felt flustered after being yelled at by the grocery store cashier for not following the EC card process correctly, I just left my wallet at the register. Maybe I am subconsciously tipping people for their efforts in dealing with me and my “Ich spreche nicht Deutsche.”)
Kaya introducing squirrel to the new carpet. Since, she has also introduced monkey and bear and spent a considerable amount of time just sitting on it.
apartments and other things
Did some apartment hunting two days ago (thursday). It was a successful trip in that we saw a couple places that we could easily make our home but we didn’t pull the trigger on anything yet. First, a few rules about renting in Germany. unfurnished means something a little different. truly unfurnished means: no kitchen (anything at all kitchen, no appliances, no cabinets) no light fixtures, certainly no dishes or curtains or the like. we only encountered one place like that but it was so far removed from town that it was not much of a concern to us as we didn’t want to be that far out. there’s lots of rules about down payments (usually 3 months rent deposit), cleaning, refurbishing, utilities (usually you prepay an estimate of future expenditures) and some other stuff. the refurbishing was a little intimidating to us when we read about that but we’re pretty sure that won’t apply to us as it is pre-negotiated (by our agent) and we don’t anticipate being in one apartment for that long. so mostly standard stuff but not everything. and thankfully fedex supplies us with an agent to show us around, speak german to the other agents and inform us of all the little things we need to be aware of. our agent’s name is Signe (Zig-nuh) and she’s pretty great. on to the apartments.
the first place was pretty amazing and a tough act to follow for the rest of the day. it was big (150 sq meters i believe), or about that. it had an indoor pool that belonged only to that apartment, an amazing kitchen, big closets, a big sun-room, a private garden, pretty much everything. the base rent was quite reasonable for what you get, but unfortunately, the energy costs were way too high. that pool put everything over the top apparently because it needed to be heated year round (it’s in the ground in the basement) which jacked the elec and heat bills way up. we were told to estimate at least 850-900 euro a month in energy. pass.
the second place was nice also but far outside of town, four floors up with no elevator and completely unfurnished. no go on that one.
the third place was good and we’re still thinking about that one. it’s in an area called nippes (nip-us) which is kind of like virginia highlands in atlanta. cool, young, hip, lots of artists. and turks. not sure why so many turks but there they are. the apartment had a big kitchen, even by american standards with all the fixings. there is a big bed that comes with the place as well as lots of closet storage. it also has a little garden out the back door which is nice. ‘gardens’ are what we call yards. if you rent a place with a garden you typically have to take care of it. this place requires us to take care of it. that’s fine, they provide most of the tools necessary and based on what it looks like right now it shouldn’t be hard. another feature that we’ve seen a couple times are these hardened plastic shutters that can be electrically raised and lowered for theft protection. they are installed on most ground floor windows and you close them in the evening and open them in the morning. this place had those on all ground level windows and doors. they’re very cool and they give me and allison a nice secure feeling. but it makes me wonder a little why the private citizens go to this trouble to protect their goods when more police could be hired to do the same. i’m sure there’s some fine literature out there on the subject but it’s probably in german and we’re only here for two years. we’ll just go with it. good place overall and reasonably priced.
the fourth place had the best location by far. it’s in an area known as the ‘belgian quarter.’ it’s about a 6-7 minute walk from our hotel and is near everything including parks, train stations, bars, food and of course starbucks. unfortunately, it has only one bathroom, the kitchen is not amazing and it’s on the third floor which means stairs everytime the dogs have to pee. but it’s priced well and the location makes us willing to give up some luxuries for the convenience. we’ll see.
we have more places to see on monday including one in an area called lindenthal (linden-tall). that one has some possibilities but it would require us to purchase the existing kitchen for about 4000 euros (another german rental oddity). when we leave the place in 2 years we sell the kitchen to the next person for some rate lower than that if they want it and i don’t know what we do if they don’t want it. maybe we just worry about that problem in two years.
switching gears..
last night (friday) we joined some fedex folks in the downstairs lounge area for the official ‘fedex happy hour.’ not too many people there but they’re pretty much all new faces to us so it’s good to start small. i met several captains that i’m sure i’ll be working with over the next 2 years and everyone was really nice. then allison and i were treated to a tour of some of the cooler parts of the hotel by the manager and the designated fedex handler, Rolf Slickers. now he’s a cool guy. he showed us the restaurant at the top of the hotel which is the only one in town that boasts a completely organic and natural menu. he showed us the restrooms of that restaurant which boast the only urinals that you can ‘use’ while admiring a view of the Dom (sorry ladies, standing room only). he then took us to the rooftop where he has his very own bee population growing. the bee thing is apparently causing quite the stir because honey bees in general are on the decline but his population is doing well. they plan to offer the honey in their restaurant, his wife makes candles from the wax for sale and if they have enough honey left over, they’re going to sell it. pretty darn cool. we ate in that restaurant later that night and very much enjoyed it.
today (saturday), we walked a lot. and we brought the dogs along to see cologne. from the hotel to the Dom, north to the zoo, northwest to nippes where we stopped for lunch. we had thai food that i ordered using the numbers on the menu rather than the labels because i know how to say numbers. it was delicious. the dogs got to join us in the tiny restaurant which was nice. then we caught the train back to our area of town. this was our first attempt at mass transit in cologne and it went well. Breezy was a litte timid about the train so allison carried her onboard (she struggles with openings beneath her feet like train platform gaps, elevator gaps, metal grates on sidewalks. breezy struggles, not allison). once onboard everyone was calm throughout the journey. when we exited the station the only way up was by escalator and we figured that might be too much so we carried the pooches for that ride. successful first train ride and to our knowledge we didn’t break any rules by having the dogs there.
and that’s all for now.
And a little from me (Jeff)
Where to begin….
I’ll start around about the time we were getting checked in at the airport. I dropped off Allison and bags and pooches and returned the rental car. I got back to my little family to find the dogs were caged, had pee’d and looked sufficiently freaked to begin our journey. Good. To the checkin counter. Lufthansa knew there were two dogs coming that day and when they found out it was us they immediately gave us the paperwork to attach to the dog-crates. But first we were challenged with filling these forms out properly. Nothing too difficult, names, species, address of destination, flight number, etc. All stuff we had dealt with before but somehow, amidst this process, we just couldn’t handle this quickly or even accurately. Forms were filled out wrong, names put in wrong places, phone numbers left out, addresses all wrong. The good folks at Lufthansa took pity on us. “What you have there is fine, just need something on the forms.” All this info could easily be found between the two of us but we just couldn’t quite make it happen. Bear in mind, with my job, stress comes around once in a while and you’re asked to rise to the occasion (mostly in a simulator thankfully). Engines on fire, cargo on fire, explosive decompression, landing gear won’t come down, flaps won’t come down to name a few (again, thankfully all simulator so far). But this…..forms! Too hard. Whatever, we survived the checkin process.
You’ve heard about the doggy transport from Allison. I concur. I wasn’t terribly impressed with their handlers gentleness but to the best of our knowledge he did properly secure the dogs to the pallet. Arrival in Frankfurt was alarmingly simple. Enter terminal, clear passport control, enter baggage claim, meet Manfred (who magically knew who we were without knowing anything other than our names), claim bags and dogs, exit building. Had Manfred not been there to guide us I would’ve thought we were doing something wrong by just leaving. He explained later, Lufthansa does some background work on the dogs to make sure it’s all normal. If you say so Manfred.
Autobahn ride to hotel. Interesting. And fast. Though we still got passed by the bullet train doing the same run from Frankfurt to Cologne. They go real fast.
Hotel arrival. Great place with comfy, American friendly rooms. Big beds, hot showers and delicious espresso.
We did the immigration and work permitting process on Monday. It was a quite comfortable process with our friend from the Frankfurt law firm there to guide us through. We just show up, she expedites us to whatever person we need to talk to, they ask questions and create forms, we sign the forms. She had a cab waiting for us to take us to the next spot, more questions, forms and signatures. And some fingerprints were done too which I had a little trouble with. The nice German lady informed me afterwards that she hadn’t seen anyone have trouble with the fingerprints since they started using the electronic fingerprint scanner. Super. I’m just doing my part to keep the dumb American stereotype alive and well.
Tomorrow (Thursday) we meet with our realtor lady who seems quite nice to show us some apartments. Should be fun.
On a side-note, my first trip has been assigned as part of my European familiarization flights. My overnights will be in Tel-Aviv and Paris. Stopping in Athens and Munich somewhere along the way too. I’m not sure I ever in my life expected to be visiting some of these places, much less in a big ol’ cargo jet. I can’t wait to get started.
The human-canine journey to Deutschland
We’ve made it to Deutschland, complete with pooches and about 400 pounds of luggage.
We left Atlanta Saturday after a wild, out-straight week of packing, movers, a round trip drive to Florida, three or four visits to a storage unit, and two nights in our temporary housing.
Sad to leave, we were excited for our new adventure — if we could only get the dogs checked into their flight, through TSA, and across the ocean … ALIVE. This was my (Allison’s) primary fear and biggest concern through the entire moving process — how to get my furry babies over the Atlantic without suffering some sort of canine version of a nervous breakdown. Our vet, and Jeff’s dear friend, Meg refused to provide anti-anxiety meds, and for good reason. But worry not, I took mine with enthusiasm (chased by a cabernet-merlot blend).
Helping to calm our nerves, Jeff buddied up with our flight’s First Officer prior to boarding. He made it a point to check on our pooches during his walk-around (what a nice German and great first impression!) and then point out the location of our boxed-up children on the ramp near the gate. I spent about an hour with my new Swedish friend Emelia, who was shipping her felines, watching the three “live-animal” crates with the same attention and horror that we might watch a thriller. The process of getting them settled onto their cargo pallet (yes, I said cargo pallet) went something like this…
The ramp worker/animal handler followed a clear checklist and process. He:
–very gracefully placed Breezy and Kaya onto their pallet and roped their crates together.
–positioned the smaller cat crate behind the dogs — and applied more rope.
–shook them vigorously (I guess he was testing the strength of his knots, but at the time, I assumed he was making an obvious attempt to wake the dogs from a black out, or the early-stages of a coma …were they dead already?)
–decided, this was not the best crate architecture.
–untied crates and removed dogs and cats from pallet.
–repositioned Breezy and Kaya.
–put cats ON TOP of dog crates.
–repeated roping.
-repeated vigorous shaking.
–looked at his first pet packing job with satisfaction and moved them to the boarding area.
Here are the doggies on the ramp, behind the white pick-up truck. You can see the ramp worker securing the cats into their first position.
Meanwhile, I asked the gate agent to have someone check their water bowls (obviously, the water didn’t stand a chance with all that shaking). They did. Thanks, Lufthansa.
Eight hours later — complete with a delicious dinner, a four hour nap, half a movie, and one more hour of stressing — we landed in Frankfurt. The rest was literally a breeze. We picked up the dogs from their special baggage belt, met with our driver Manfred, passed through customs with hardly a glance at our doggy paperwork by German officials, and headed to Cologne … at the slow speed of up to 190 km/hour (that is 117.8 mph, folks) on the famous autobahn.
We arrived at our second temporary home, the Pullman, by noon on Sunday. Greeted by happy faces and a clean suite, we began the settling process. It took the dogs no time to relax.
Needless to say, we began our adventure with a nap.
—Allison
T minus 2, an adventure for you
Welcome to blog “Gshwankelkamp,” launching just two days before we (Jeff and Allison) jet off on our two-year German adventure with two canines in tow … well, technically cargo. And here we sit in the Residence Inn, just a mile from our old apartment, with bellies full of free chicken wings and iceburg lettuce salads.
After two 2 a.m. nights, we’ve cleared the apartment. Well, almost. Our movers have taken all they can, and now we’re left with the miscellaneous crap that you don’t really want to pack, but you don’t particularly want to take with you — with a heavy emphasis in the grocery department. Several half-eaten boxes of girl-scout cookies (we have those in the hotel already, not to worry), a Costco-size container of pre-washed spinach, and not a utensil to eat it with.
We’ve also got the random pile of shiz that still needs organizing — dozens of mismatched socks, hundreds of pens, lots of papers, and the clothes we kept adding to the “we can stuff that into one of our checked bags” pile.
So we’re off to attend to what remains of the apartment. Hopefully we’ll make it back for another disappointing episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Jeff’s favorite.
More to come.
—Allison
A European Adventure 