Lots of little things

Growing up in New Paltz, I heard the church bells every hour and half hour.  When I’m in Hurley, it’s the same. I’ve never really heard them other places we’ve lived until now.  I haven’t paid enough attention to know how regularly they do them, but I notice them fairly often.

Money - not used to change being “real money.”  I’ll buy something for a little over 2€ and give a 5€ bill instead of pulling out a couple 1 or 2€ coins.

Why are there two Plittersdorf-Mitte stops on the same bus line?  It’s not like one is northbound & one is southbound or one is the 611 and the other the 637.  No, the 637 & 638 have two consecutive stops named Plittersdorf-Mitte.

Feeling stupid - Yes, I can find my way around pretty well, but I can’t read or talk.  It’s frustrating.

Dogs - Lots of people have them and they are everywhere. They are allowed on buses and in most businesses.  They are incredibly well-behaved.  This morning I heard a dog bark and I realized that it was the first time since I’ve been here.  

Weather - talk about changeable - it’s downright freaky.  Yesterday it was beautiful, sunny, a little breezy - I opened the windows and ran across the street to the grocery store for half a dozen things.  As I was crossing the street, I noticed it clouding up a bit. It rained while I was at the store, but was sunny again by the time I walked out. It’s been like that for the last four or five days.

Biking - it really does come back quickly. Yesterday I biked up to Bonn city center (almost 9 miles round trip) and am not stiff or sore - and honestly, I expected to be.

Along the Rhein - and biking

On Thursday, we did a thing with some of Daniel’s work folks.  I met him at work and we walked a couple kilometers up the Rhein.  Here are a few pictures I took then.

This is the UN building where Daniel works - somewhere up on the 11th floor.

View up the Rhein from near his office toward Bonn city center.

A couple random shots down and across the Rhein from while we were walking.

Everyone here bikes.  I was apprehensive about getting back into it (probably been about 30 years since I really biked), but when I saw the 80 year woman biking on a fairly major road while listening to an ipod, I decided I was being a tad silly.  

Daniel and I went down to the park along the Rhein and I practiced. Our plan was to bike to the big beer festival in the park (weekend event), but when we got there they had more or less cancelled for the day - did I mention the wind with 50+mph gusts?  For some reason all the various vendors were nervous about their tents. The advantage to the weather was that there were very few folks out in the park and I didn’t have to worry about tons of other bikes and pedestrians. We did about 4K yesterday - considering how long it’s been, I’m surprisingly not sore. I tried to take pictures, but my memory card claimed to be full (it shouldn’t have been, but I emptied it anyway, hopefully it was a one-time flake out) so I didn’t get any. If we attempt the beer festival again today, I'll see if I can get some.

Grocery Shopping & Sassy

Grocery shopping:  Food (other than meat) is cheaper than the US.  (Actually, I haven’t bought many frozen convenience foods, so that may be more).  

For example, I bought:

10  eggs (that’s how they package them)

pack of three small heads of some sort of baby romaine lettuce thing

2 avocados

pack of tomatoes

green onions

3 sweet peppers

about 4 lbs. of carrots

package of cremini-type mushrooms

head of cauliflower

bunch of broccoli

liter bottle of peach wine(?)/cider(?)

a small package of salami

half dozen brochen (roll - think baby bagette)

liter of vanilla soymilk

a liter of limeade soda thing

Total price: a little over 26 US dollars.   

Specific things about prices: It really is cheaper to buy beer than to buy soda, juice or water.  You can grab a bottle of good beer for under a buck. Breads are silly cheap (pack of brochen - mini baguette things are 6 for about 40 cents).  A container of cheap blueberry yogurt almost twice the size of the standard 6-oz runs about 45 cents.


Sassy:

Sassy seems to be settling in, although she's still a little nervous. We did, after all, spend a few weeks at Rebecca & Allan's before putting her on the plane, so she's probably not sure how permanent this is. She has claimed the sofa as her own, although sometimes allow us to share.  She likes sitting on table on balcony, but hasn’t tried to jump up to the ledge. When Daniel set her up there, she seemed less than thrilled (the metal under her claws might have been a big part of it).  She hasn’t tried to get on the windowsills when the windows are open - even in the bathroom where she has several smaller jumps she can make to do it.  She has tried leaving a few times when the door is open, but the one time we monitored her and after several flights of stairs someone opened their door, and that was enough to send her back up.

Doors/Windows & a better shot of the castle

At Linda's request, here are some shots of the doors & windows in various configurations:

Patio door tilted for fresh air

Bathroom window open

See the lip?  That's why the door looks open when it's closed.

This door is closed.

And finally, on a sunnier day with a better angle, our castle and watchtower.

We've got VERY few mosquitos - I can sit out on balcony & read with only 1 bite after 4 hours (usually I'm covered after 10 minutes). This is good, because there are no screens.

The squirrels can’t get to balcony, we can feed birds and not worry about them. The roof is very, very steep and there's no traction.

Balcony Views

Being from New Paltz, having a small mountain on the horizon is a comforting thing (for those of you who don’t know the area - http://tinyurl.com/pd7oqek - that’s pretty much the view I grew up with from my bedroom window).  The flatness was (part of) the reason I hated Iowa so much the year I went to school there.  Sterling had the advantage of being able to get mountain views pretty easily without too much of a drive, and a long weekend back to the mid-Hudson Valley was doable.  Here, it’s other side of the Rhein valley that makes it feel homey - especially given the watchtower on top of the ridge a little to the south.  

Not easy to get a picture of the watchtower and castle, but they are in the top picture on the far right.  In the bottom picture you can easily see the hotel.  

First few days

The good:  being with Daniel, no complications in the travel, Sassy settling in, feeling more at home than I expected, walking a ton every day, very good yet very inexpensive bakeries on every corner, learning my way around more quickly than I thought I would

The bad: the package I sent is being held hostage and I'll have to drag a 25lb. box across the city tomorrow, feeling stupid because I don't speak the language

The ugly: Heat wave, 4th story walk-up, no AC, no fans


As you can see, the good is far outweighing the rest.  

From the balcony I can see the local castle, a watchtower, and some sort of what-used-to-be official-residence-turned-hotel. No actual view of the Rhein, but it's less than a kilometer away. I've forgotten my camera every time we've left home, so no pix yet, but soon, I promise.


Day One:

Got in mid-afternoon and we drove up to Bonn.  Pretty views of the countryside including vineyards.  Honestly don't remember much of that day.

Day Two (Wednesday):

Took the bus to Bad-Godesburg - the nearest surburb-type place (under 2K, so walkable and bikeable). As is the case in many cities, hard to tell when we left Bonn.  Nice pedestrian zone full of shops.  We walked back.

Day Three (Thursday):

Walked over past the kids' school and down to the Rhine (again, under 2K).  Sat and had a picnic. The shade and breeze made it very nice.  Have to figure out two things:  what kind of tree we were under and what the structure we were sitting on was.  My speculation on the second was somewhere that they had cannons set facing the river.  When I have pictures, I'll have to have everyone put in their two cents worth.

Day Four (Friday):

Bus to Bonn city center.  Lots of pedestrian areas lined with shops.  Went into a beautiful church (where it was 15 degrees cooler) and sat for a while.  We went out to dinner and celebrated our 25th anniversary.  

Saturday:

Took the bus up to the entrance of the park on the Rhein to go to the big flea market. Cross between flea market and multiple yard sales.  ENORMOUS.  It went on and on and on.  We didn't get to it all and we still spent almost two hours walking it.  Walked home from there, stopping for a bite to eat.

Sunday (Today):

Went to the bakery on the next corner down and bought some pastry for breakfast.  Managed it, although not smoothly.  I went to say "ein" (one) and integrated Spanish and French in there and ended up with "une."  Fortunately, she guessed what I meant.  Early this afternoon we went for a walk.  Went south then turned toward the Rhein.  Sat at a biergarten overlooking the river and had some soda and potato salad (beer is so not my thing, but Daniel had one).



Things I've noticed so far:  


In the US, bakeries make a lot of their money on Sundays - pre and post church crowds, Sunday brunches, etc.   Here, almost nowhere is open on Sunday - our bakery is one of the few and it closes at 11.

On the other hand, the biergarten doesn't open until late afternoon Monday-Saturday, but is open at noon on Sunday. 

No open container laws.  Bikes - women in dresses on bikes.

The doors.  One would not expect doors to be so freaking different. Our doors always look like they are open because they extend around the doorframes on the inside.  

The windows/patio door:  Downright clever.  You turn the handle 1/4 of the way and it opens like a door.  You turn it 1/2 way and it tilts down so you get fresh air.  Yes, the patio door does this.  




The apartment feels like home - more like home than Applegate did for the last month or so.  Even though the kids aren't here, Meg & Donald's stuff is.  We've got a grocery store right across the street.

There's a bike at the shop for me getting tuned up and brakes fixed.  Oh, and the seat dropped (yeah, I'm short).  I'll have to get back into the swing of biking after we pick it up.

Yesterday and today were a little cooler, but it's supposed to be hotter again Tuesday-Friday.  Maybe I'll try biking over to the park on the Rhein and hanging out there to stay cool.  The park has free wi-fi.

OK, there's an initial rundown of what's going on.  I'm going to try to get a bunch of pictures taken this week.