We finally have our stuff! I am actually able to write this while sitting at my own table, drinking wine from my own glass, instead of sitting on the floor and drinking out of a disposable cup. It is so nice after being in transit pretty much since January.
We got back from Mallorca super late on Monday night. We waited around just about all week to hear when we would be receiving our Household Goods (“HHG”) shipment but didn’t hear a thing. I had to go into work this week but we spent the rest of our free time getting to know things in and around our house.
Tuesday we had our first dinner in our new house, on our temp furniture.
Matt and I also discovered Real, the German version of a Walmart and made several trips during the week “for fun.” That place really does have everything but there is no method to the madness. Cucumbers are next to suitcases that are next to TVs, that are next to car parts. You just have to wander until you find what you need. There is also a chicken truck in the Real parking lot that sells delicious chicken. We can’t resist it!
The biggest new “thing” for us is the recycling. They seriously gave us a 20-page binder that lists the rules and schedules. Our house comes with four, color-coded trash bins. Blue for paper and cardboard; green for bio-waste/compost; orange for plastics and metals, and gray for everything else. There are also different colored bags that you can put in the “orange bin.” Each of these bins is picked up every two to three weeks. It’s on different days and sometimes follows no pattern, so you just have to hang the calendar up and hope for the best.
The Germans are fanatical about recycling. The compost is actually reused in farming, the plastics, metals, and papers recycled, and even the trash–aka “residual waste”–is burned to generate electricity. Because they want a “clean burn,” many, many items are restricted from being thrown away, like lightbulbs, electronics, batteries, etc.
The “Werstoffhof” is the big community recycling center where you can take stuff if your bins are overflowing, or if you miss your pick-up. There are about 30 receptacles for different types of materials like wood, electronics, clothes, etc. But don’t try to bring your lightbulbs there–you have to turn those in at a hardware store. So many rules! You can also dump “residual waste” there but you have to pay per bag. Keep in mind our household bin only holds about two bags and only gets picked up every other week, so we have to be so careful about what we put in there. Don’t try to sneak any trash in either. The hole for dumping trash is very small so if you want to throw away anything larger than a gallon of milk, the attendant comes over and goes through your bag before he opens it for you.
Matt and Brooklyn set up a cute recycling center in our house and once we are done unpacking and all of the debris is out of the way, we should be good to go.
We got to know our new appliances during the week of waiting. All of the appliances in our house are made by Siemens, a German company. I had heard of them before but never seen them sold in the U.S.. Prior to getting to Germany, I was expecting the worst with regard to appliances and the kind of functionality we expect in the U.S.. However, I’m happy to report that most of the machines here seem to work WAY better than the ones we have at home. My dishes have never been so clean. Baking sheets that I never thought could be completely cleaned from the baked-on crumbs are suddenly looking new again. You also don’t have to rinse dishes here. As long as they are scraped, the dishwasher does everything else.
Our stove and oven both heat up so quickly. The oven, even though it is small, is pretty much a big air fryer. There is a fan in the back so everything cooks quickly and is nice and crispy when done. Our fridge and freezer are smaller than U.S. standards but we have a second in the basement that’s issued to us by the base housing office. All of our kitchen appliances also blend in with the kitchen.
The washer and dryer are still not what you would expect in the U.S., but only because they are small. I can still wash a load in under an hour and drying takes about an hour and a half.
One thing that we didn’t realize right away is that it’s not actually a dryer, but instead a dehumidifier. The machine literally sucks the moisture out of wet clothes and then holds the water in a reservoir which has to be dumped once in a while. While trying to dry a load of towels, I kept coming back for hours wondering why they were still soaking. Finally, I opened the door and was almost burned by the cloud of steam that came out. After opening up doors on the dryer, I found the reservoir–which was overflowing–and emptied it, and the towels eventually dried.
All of our windows also have the German rolladens. These are metal blinds we have to roll up and down. When the sun is shining through the window, we close them to prevent the rooms from heating up and when there’s no direct light, we open the blinds and windows. We close all of them at night and it makes it pitch black. All of our walls are made of concrete so it’s actually pretty effective, free temperature control and also a free arm workout many times a day.
German houses don’t have “forced air” or Hvac. So, not only do we have no A/C, and rely on radiant heat; every room has to be “aired out” for at least 10 minutes a day to prevent mildew. It means a lot of running around so most of our windows just stay open, all day. So far, we are enjoying a lot of fresh air and hearing the many hourly church bells we can hear from the house.
On Thursday, we finally heard from the moving company. They said that they could come and unload our crates on Saturday. We were planning on going to Switzerland for the weekend so I asked if we could push to the following week. The next date they had available was about three weeks out, so we decided to postpone our trip (luckily our Airbnb let us change the date) and we agreed to the Saturday drop-off.
Friday was my day off and also Brooklyn’s first orthodontist appointment. It went great and the doctor thinks she should be finished with her braces by early next year.
After her appointment, we went to Sprung Bude, an indoor trampoline park, and met some of our friends. The kids were so happy to finally be out of the house and had a great time.
Afterwards, we went back to our friends’ house for dinner, which was street tacos from a popular food truck parked nearby, and even a couple of Coronas!
Saturday, we got up early and disassembled all our of temporary furniture to get it out of the way. I had to stick with the movers for most of the day as they made me inventory each item they took off the truck. Matt and the kids stayed busy trying to empty boxes as they brought them inside.
The movers will usually reassemble the disassembled furniture for you, except we had a huge problem: the box containing all of our fasteners and bolts had gone missing. All of our beds, tv stands, mirrors, and my computer desk could not be put back together. Our bed was even missing several of the center support pieces. We were facing a night sleeping on the floor since we had already disassembled the loaner furniture. Matt was so amazing. He drove to Obi, the German version of Home Depot, and bought lumber and a hand saw and literally rebuilt the missing pieces and we all slept in our own beds that night for the first time in three months.
We also realized that Saturday happened to be our 14 year anniversary. We celebrated by taking a break from unpacking, getting a McDonalds delivery and drinking a couple of beers.
We spent all day Sunday continuing to sort and go through stuff. We cannot believe how much junk came. Now granted, the packers did accidentally pack a lot of stuff from our “Do Not Pack” zones, but still, we intentionally brought a lot of junk and we have had to purge a lot. Ironically, we don’t have enough furniture and could have brought more. We have so many empty spaces in the house. Hopefully we can fill those out over time, or maybe just live with the space.
Next week, it’s back to work and then a couple of day trips over the next weekend. Hopefully we will be completely unpacked by then!
Gilcrests Abroad 