Mein Armes Auto - My Poor Car

To continue the adventure...

We drove to Heilbronn to get a part for the Porsche on Friday night. It's about a half-an-hour away. Sad thing was, when we got there and looked at the distributor cap, it looked the same as the one we had only cleaner. So we were 98% sure it wouldn't fix the car. We went to Ikea. Put it on the car. No luck.

So we shopped for a few other things we needed, and we filled up the van we had driven so we didn't have to come back to Ikea more than once. On the up side, we have furniture now! On the down side, we called a tow truck. But it gets worse from there.

The car was in the parking garage, and tow trucks don't fit in parking garages. So with me steering, and making car noises, and Albert pushing we rolled through the garage. Thank God their exit is a big curly cue thing that I could just coast down. We got down to the outdoor parking lot and a nice German guy thought he could help us. I tried to explain that we knew what was wrong, but he didn't speak a lick of English and I don't speak car in German. He checked it out, asked if we had called for a tow, and we said thanks very much.

The tow truck got the car and followed us home. But our street is tiny. So they stopped at the beginning and took the car off. Another plus, it was cheap! Even cheaper than getting a locksmith to let us into our apartment. But then we had to push the car down our road. Which is ok, except it dips down and then has a slight incline for like 100 feet before our garage. Our neighbors have a driveway that is up, ours is down. Gotta keep looking at the positive here. We finally got it up to the garage and in, it's a tad crooked but that's ok.

Then, our poor muscles had to deal with a little more because we needed to unload the furniture. But we have furniture now! And I can unpack our suitcases!

We were sorely wishing for a hot tub that night. But the car is home and everything is settled. And I have furniture!

Adventures in Deutschland

I'm going to have to write a book about our disastrous adventures here in Germany. Last night, we went shopping at Ikea. We had a lot of stuff and piled it all into our Porsche. Then, Albert turned the key, the car started, and died. We ended up closing Ikea, so there was no one around, and even if there was they couldn't help. The rotor cap is broken, the engine wasn't getting any spark.

Luckily, there was a cart man nearby and I asked him in German if we could leave our broken car there overnight. He said it should be fine, but I needed to go speak with security. Another stroke of luck, a security guard happened to be walking by. He didn't speak English either so I asked again in German if it was ok to leave the car, we would come back in the morning. He said it was fine. I thought I had stretched my German enough for one night, but it doesn't stop there.

Thanks to my friend for checking on the internet where the nearest train was, we walked to the S-Bahn and were two minutes late for the train. We had to wait a half-an-hour for the next one on a very cold night. The only trains that go directly to our apartment are U-Bahns, so we took the S-Bahn to a main train station, Bahnhof. But, our luck had ended there. The U-Bahns and buses were on strike yesterday. No U-Bahns to ride home and it was way too far to walk. There's a hotel nearby with a taxi line, we caught a taxi.

I have really been wanting to practice my German, so I had a conversation with the driver. I asked him if he had made a lot of money that day because of the strike. He said he had only had time all day for one cigarette. But then he said, "Geld ist nicht alles im Leben." "Money isn't everything in life." I agreed.

We finally reached the apartment two hours after leaving Ikea. It was quite the adventure. And I'm so excited that I was able to carry on a small conversation.

Albert is working on finding parts and going back to the car today. Hopefully it's just the spark and not something else, and hopefully we don't have to have it towed.

Update

Just a quick update. Albert and I are settling in well. We're low on furniture, but we have the basics and are comfortable. Nana is sending magazines, Mom McCracken is sending snacks, and Mom Cribley is sending movies...so I think we're all set!

I am starting the last part of my A-level German courses on Monday. I don't have a test until half-way through the B level, and it's only required if I want to work here. But I think I'll take it. Whether or not I work here it will be nice to have a certificate that says I speak German. Let me tell you, it is a very difficult language.

We're hoping to go snowboarding in the Alps sometime soon here. I'll make sure and take pictures. Can't wait to compare them to Colorado mountains!!!

Paint

I'm really having trouble deciding what color to paint my accent wall in our new living room. The couch we want is a dark grey, so I'm thinking of going with a red or blue. Sadly, I didn't take these beautiful rose pictures. But now I'm considering buying roses just to take pictures! Ok, back on track. Here are close to the color choices.


And here is the wall. Don't pay attention to the curtains, the previous tenant left those here, and I can keep them or move them to a different room. There is a lot of light in this room. The floors are a light wood (linoleum). And the wall I'm talking about is on the far right next to the windows. It goes up into the gallery area. Our couch would go against that wall. I'm really taking into consideration the feel of each color.

Blue is a cool color and will make the room feel bigger, even though it already is. It will also have a calming effect. When you see blue, what do you think of? I think of clouds.

Red is a warm color and will make the room feel closer. It makes your blood pressure go up. What do you think of when you see red? Besides red being my favorite color, I think of hot. (I know you can't really think of hot but that's where my mind goes.)

Please let me know what you think! I'm really torn between the two because I've done red a lot, but I like it so much.

Great Weekend

Remind me next weekend that acting my age is very tiring.

On Friday night we went to an Irish bar with some friends. When that was ready to close down at two am we went to a dance club. We only spent about a half hour there and then headed home. I'm not that into drinking, and neither is Albert. We don't particularly enjoy getting smashed. He had a few, and I was the designated driver. It was all just fun. And man was it fun.

Then on Saturday night we met up with some other friends at a Mexican restaurant, yes in Germany. The food was very good. And we talked so long that it was 12:15 by the time we looked at our watches.

So I only got about five hours of sleep on Friday night, and luckily we got to sleep in this Sunday so I got some more sleep. But we changed the oil in the Porsche and put some new floor mats in. We felt productive, and when we came home I went to bed to read. Well, that lasted about ten minutes, and I was out. So now I've been sleeping for the past four hours, and I think I could sleep for ten more.

Time to eat dinner and go back to bed. Gotta get up and start the week tomorrow!

I finished!

I got to 50,000 words tonight on my very first novel. I think ever since I was about eight years old I've wanted to write a book, and this is the first time I've been so close. Now I get to spend the next few weeks looking back through it and deleting, adding, and editing. Don't know where I'll go from there. I will definitely give it some time off so I can have a fresh mind next time I look at it, but we'll just have to wait and see what my next steps are. I want to scream from some place very high (quote of Luigi from the Cars movie).

Lay it out there...

Here comes one of my very rare 'lay it all out there' blog posts. I don't like airing out the dirty laundry, and I suppose this isn't really any big secret or anything, but I usually also don't blog or talk about my feelings a lot.

But I have to say...

I'm exhausted.

- I have Deutschkurs (German course) every day from 8-12. Which is getting increasingly more overwhelming. I'm trying to switch schools for one that is a little bit closer. That's taking a lot of time that I don't have.

- I've been trying to finish this NaNoWriMo novel, and it's getting really hard. If I don't finish it, by the 30th, I will be so mad at myself. It may get to the point where I won't want to touch this book again because I'll blame the book. And I'll be in a slight depression for the next three months. I have to write just over 15,000 words by Monday, ugh.

- Albert is sick, so now I have to worry about him and worry about catching his cold. I really need to go to the store, especially so I can get some soup for dinner tonight.

- The laundry is really lacking. I have piles of clean clothes and piles of dirty clothes all over our bedroom. Those of you who have seen my apartment before know I usually do that anyways, but since we've been in Germany I have kept up on putting the clothes away, until now. It's frustrating to look at it.

- I'm really trying to keep up on making new things for the shop and researching the Deutsche Post system. I finally figured out how many stamps it takes to send to the U.S., but I still don't know how to buy those stamps and put the letters in a postbox instead of taking my letters to the post. And I have a new calendar that I will be listing today.

- The Porsche is registered, but its oil is really bad so we have to change it this weekend. Plus it needs gas now, and that's dang expensive here.

There's more to the list, but it makes me tired to think about it all. So I'll leave you with this little glimpse into my days right now.

On a happy note, I found the brand new Harry Potter DVD for only 9 Euros (that's like 13 Dollars)!!! Yay for movies.