Dinner with our Landlord and Adventures in German Laundry

Last Monday our landlord and his wife invited us to their house for dinner. Eugen and Gisela are a very nice German couple in their seventies. Eugen speaks English very well, although he seems to think he doesn't. Gisela however speaks almost no English, and Matt and I speak almost no German. This made for some very interesting conversation barriers, but we all seemed to manage pretty well.
They welcomed us to their home, which is in the same village as ours; It's just a short trek across a meadow. They greeted us, then after a deep breath, Gisela sweetly pronounced in English, "We heartily welcome you to Rodenbach!" She had been practicing the phrase just for us.
The dinner she made was fantastic: chicken in a thick, but not heavy, cream sauce; yellow rice with peppers and corn; and a delicious salad with lettuce and herbs from the garden in their backyard. But before all that...and during...and afterwards...there was wine. The Germans love their wine--and with good reason, because German wine is fantastic. The region of Germany that we live in is basically the Napa Valley of Germany, and there are wineries everywhere. Eugen and Gisela have offered to take us on a tour of several wineries and castles nearby. Matt and I are really looking forward to this.
After dinner, Eugen have us a tour of his home. His entire home---even the closets! It is a very lovely house with all kinds of wonderful little nooks and crannies, heated floors, and a wood-burning fireplace. There is an apartment upstairs which they rent out. Their laundry room is bigger than our kitchen and dining room combined and even has a sauna inside. And in the backyard there is a gartenhaus. These are very popular in Germany. Basically, they are pretty little decorative buildings that sit in the backyard like a shed. But they're not for storage. Eugen, for example, has outfitted his gartenhaus with a dining table and china cabinet. When the weather is nice and the grandkids are over, they eat in the gartenhaus and the children camp out there. After dinner we sat out in their beautiful backyard chatting and enjoying the cool German weather. It was a fantastic evening.

On an entirely different subject, cleaning our clothes has been an adventure in and of itself. The base has supplied us with a washer and dryer for the three years that we are here. They are German appliances, and since they are calibrated differently than American ones, using German detergent is recommended. So Matt and I ventured out to Globus, which is like a German version of a Super Target, only much bigger and much busier. Before you even get inside the main grocery section of Globus you will find a bakery, a restaurant, a key maker, a pharmacy, a beverage shop, and several clothing stores. Then beyond a small gate are the grocery, hardware, and housewares sections, a small book store, and more. It's overwhelming, but so much fun to peruse all the aisles and look at all the great German foods.
Anyway, Matt and I made our way to the aisle with the laundry products where we found what we were fairly certain was detergent. I put a few loads in the wash when we got home and thought that all was right with the world. But then I noticed that there was a small image on the back of the bottle of a feather inside a circle with the word "hypoallergenic" in German. The feather was what tipped me off. I did a little poking around online and verified that yes, that company only makes fabric softeners. Thank goodness that German fabric softener is not quite as potent as American softener because I might have ruined all of our clothes. Everything came out fine, and our clothes smell absolutely fantastic. But we're going to have to make another trip to Globus very soon. And this time we'll make sure we ask what we're buying before we leave.

Figuring out how to use the washer and dryer was a whole other beast. It's a German appliance, so obviously, all of the settings on the machine are written in German. The base did provide us with an English instruction manual, but the words on the machine are pictures in the manual. And they're not self-explanatory pictures either. For example, I have managed to figure out that one setting on the dryer says "Extra-dry" in German. In the manual, however, there is a picture of a closet. I really don't get it. I do have to say, however, that our washer and dryer work amazingly well. After using college dorm washers and dryers for the past several years, this is sheer luxury!

Rachel

Driving in Germany

Matt and I have recently acquired our German drivers' licenses. Before we arrived here, I figured that driving in Germany would probably be like driving in America, only faster. But I was wrong. It's very very different. First of all, there are about 168 different road signs that you might encounter on a drive, and not all of them are easy to interpret at first glance. And they're in German. Which is a problem when you don't know any German.

And then there's the autobahn. I'm still a little terrified of it, but autobahn driving is not as intense as I thought it was going to be. In most places, there are speed limits: the norm is usually 130 kilometers per hour, which is about 80 mph. But every once in a while, you come to a stretch of road with this sign posted:

...and all bets are off. People start flying past you at 170 kph or more. Even in the places where the limit is 130 kph, people are still usually driving at 140 or 150. And the fines for speeding here are drastically low compared to the states. The dealer who sold us our car (Yes, we bought a car! More on that in a moment) said that the fines are usually only about 25 euro. So people like to go fast. Right now I'm sticking to the two far right lanes. 

A few days ago we bought a new 2011 Volkswagen Jetta. It's "tempest blue," shiny, sporty, and we can't wait to drive it! It needs to clear customs and be driven up here from a town a few hours south, so it's going to be a few days. But we're so excited! Pictures to come. 

Rachel