Getting settled

The second week after our arrival was very eventful: we got settled into our apartment, bought a whole lot of second hand furniture, borrowed a lot of stuff from friends of Stephen and Barbara Emmel (our host family), and the kids got settled into school and started going by themselves by either public transportation (Ev and Harrison) or walking (Rowyn). We also got our bank account figured out, our phone set up, and attempted to get our internet connection working. The honeymoon, while still enjoyable overall, was definitely over. Then Steve had to go off to a conference in London for a week. (sigh)

We were dashing around a lot doing these errands during that second and third week, and I'll spare you the details of those adventures. Let me describe our living area, town, and various cultural adjustments we've been making.

First of all, our apartment complex: It's called Toppheideweg (Toaphydaveg- emphasis on the "hy") and it's in a smallish suburb called Geivenbeck, just northwest of Muenster. We can bike into town in just about 20 minutes, or go by bus - which is about 25 minutes. It's all flat here, so it's an EASY trip. We have decided to invest in some used bikes. There are thousands of bikes in the city, and many people do not have cars, just bikes. So far, Steve has one, mine got stolen, Evanleigh has one that we're sharing, and there's one more that Harrison and Rowyn can both ride. (I'm answering an advertisement for the remaining two tomorrow!) There are about 6 buildings in our complex. And there's another complex behind us (Gesherweg). Between us there's a long park, complete with stream, ducks, (picture above) playground and paths. Among the many benefits of our locations are a bike shop, doner-kabob restaurant (that's Turkish kabobs), a bus stop directly across the street, and a grocery store only 300 yards away. This store is about the size of the old Pay Less in Anderson - for those who remember it - or picture a much smaller store from about 20 years ago. (All the stores are this size- more on grocery shopping later.) As part of our contract, we are required to plant flowers in our balcony boxes, so the apartments themselves are quite attractive with cascades of late summer blooms everywhere. (I managed to plant some yellow mums and heather.)

As for our living space - we have three bedrooms, one and a half baths, a fairly good-sized kitchen, small dining room, and living room. Cable comes free - only 12 channels or so, but we DO get CNN international in English! The rest is in German. The kids watch a lot of cartoons - here SpongeBob Squarepants is translated into SpongeBob Squarehead. We try to tell ourselves that it's helping their German....but they really do need downtime after a long day of listening to German. It may sound small, but, really, we feel fine with this amount of space. Maybe because we don't have so much stuff to clutter it up with....but it seems roomy. We are on the ground floor - but the buildings here are not very tall. Our complex is all just four stories.

Somethings we've had to get used to is the garbage system. We actually separate our stuff into five different piles! One for plastic/packaging materials, one for paper products - including cardboard boxes and newspaper magazines, one for all biological wastes - which includes any uneaten food after supper along with all the normal compost stuff, one for glass - either green or clear, and, finally, one for the rest. The last one has a tiny trash area and you have to use a key to access it. So I guess not just anyone can come and throw their trash in your bin - the temptation being to just skip the other categories and throw it all in there. You'd think that this would be difficult - but really, it just takes getting used to. The plastic/packaging materials go into a yellow plastic bag that you get from the city - and that is by far the largest amount of waste leaving our home. Very enlightened - you might say. This is a phrase that Steve and I say a lot about living here, actually.

Some examples: Women must return to work only after their child is three years old, and they get subsidized daycare after that. Most Germans get 5 weeks off a year for vacation and work only a 36-7 hour week. They are very energy conscious - in the three story book store I frequent, there are escalators just going up, and stairs going down (or up, I guess). There is also an elevator that hardly anyone uses. There are all ages riding bikes here, even people in their 80's! There are clearly designated paths for walkers and bikers, along with traffic lights as well. (And everyone generally follows them, even when there are NO cars for miles!) Hardly anyone has dryers, so I'm back to hanging my laundry. We have a large room downstairs for this purpose. (Think how much energy we'd save as a nation is no one owned dryers?)

I guess maybe living here is a bit more labor intensive, what do you think? But the pace of life is definitely SLOWER, which I love. All for now! I'll try to post some pictures of our area soon.