We’ve been in Würzburg and our apartment for more than a month now. I guess you could say we’re officially living here! Although the daily routine is changing once again now that Tessa is in kindergarten (yay!), we do now have a handle on how to do most things.
For instance, it’s habit to pat the keys in my pocket before walking out the door. (Goal: to not get locked out of the house this year.) Seeing as how we barely even have keys in our US home, I think it’s commendable that we’ve picked up this habit so quickly.
Also, we only have 2 transportation options for getting around town: feet and bus. It doesn’t really seem restricting or annoying or bothersome anymore. There’s a really cool place we found on the internet, but you have to drive there? Oh well, we’ll find some other really cool place. There’s a nice hike down below town? We’ll make it a longer hike by walking to the trailhead too. We weren’t home when they tried to deliver our 60 lb box of house goodies from the US? We’ll “borrow” the post office’s trolley to push it the half mile home. (In our defense, the clerk said we could use it to take the box out of the office and leave it in the parking lot. It just so happened that we took it waaaaaay out of the office. But we did bring it back to the parking lot afterward.) It’s just become habit to mostly use our feet; no big deal anymore.
But there are a few things (mostly daily household things) which are taking a bit longer to get used to, things which so far make us go “grrrrrr” each time we encounter them. I know they’ll become old hat eventually. An entire country works through them happily. But so far “grrrrr” from us.
Shopping Grocery shopping is different. In Colorado I would take my car to the store, buy a week’s worth of groceries and home care products, drive home, and stock it all til next week when the kids are in school again. That sort of thing is not possible here. For one thing, there is no “supermarket” close to us. We found kind of a health food supermarket (extensive but kind of expensive) about a mile away. But since we have no car, we have to schlep home on our bodies everything we buy. That can get heavy as well as cumbersome! So, instead we go every other day (or so) to the discount markets near us. There are 3 Aldi-type stores within a quarter mile, so that’s easier. The selection is much more limited (and random), and often means we make another trip to the other store that has that other thing we like better. (Moms out there, going to multiple grocery stores with your preschooler every other day – I’m a saint, right?)
Compounding the shopping complications is the storage situation at home. Our kitchen is small (3 cupboards and one drawer) and our fridge is very small (we can keep and use our coffee maker on top of it). Plus we eat a lot of fresh food. Here’s a typical produce list for one day’s consumption: zucchini, 2 bananas, handful of cherry tomatoes, 2 apples, handful of grapes, bell pepper, half cucumber, 3 carrots, head of cauliflower, eggplant, avocado, half container of mushrooms, pint of strawberries. Mmmmm. We eat good! But where do I put these things, plus everything else? It is so far a challenge.
Homework Maggie has homework this year. Our Durango elementary school had a “no homework” policy. We have gone 3 years without after-school assignments, getting in the mindset of “after school time = play time.” Not here! Probably because of the structure of the school day (no formal classes after lunch), kids get homework assignments for the afternoon. Maggie is in an after-school program (which does include some homework help) from lunch til 4 so she can make friends with classmates and informally get language instruction just by being with peers. And of course, also because it’s fun and she loves it! But then it’s 4 o’clock and Maggie is tired and we still have to finish up school work. She also is given extra take-home assignments to learn German faster and to get her to the same level of math as her classmates.* The principal herself is giving Maggie private tutoring (which is amazing!) in German, penmanship (cursive writing in German), and math. We have all been frustrated at some point with this heavy work load. She is getting an amazing education here, but it comes with an amazing amount of work.
Laundry Washing clothes is a straight-forward process (now that I’ve had the landlord come over and tell me what all the little symbols mean on the machine). I am very much grateful that we have a machine in our apartment and don’t have to wash by hand (like in Italy) or go to the laundromat (as in Belgium). However, I do wish I didn’t have to do a load every other day. The machine is on the small side, so not a ton of clothes fit in it. Plus, the drying rack has a limited capacity; I can’t do more than one load every 2 days, otherwise they’d have no place to dry. I used to do 3 loads on Friday: wash, dry, fold, put away, survey my kingdom with satisfaction. Now the loaded drying rack is a permanent piece of furniture in Bill’s and my bedroom.
Sleeping We are still figuring out this European sheet system. We are used to having a sheet and a blanket tucked into the bottom of our bed a comforter on top. Here, you get a comforter. Moreover, each person gets their own. Even though we start out fully cozied up under our fluffy piles, by the first mid-night turn-over, feet are sticking out, corners are falling off the bed, things are all turned around and you have hot bits and cold bits. The comforters are too short to tuck in at the bottom, especially for Bill, and that has been my only problem-solving brainstorm for the situation. Suggestions (especially all you world travelers)?
That’s a pretty good list of annoyances. Nothing serious or deal-breaking. Just things we’ll get used to, I’m sure. And perhaps that habituation will happen quicker now that Tessa is not at home during the chore hours. Just be aware when y’all come to visit, you will be expected to carry home some groceries, recite your times tables, display your unmentionables next to ours, and wear socks to sleep.
*Maggie’s school (and I think the general US model) focuses heavily on literacy and then they do some math too. They learn addition and subtraction in the early grades, stacking numbers vertically and learning about ones and tens and borrowing and so forth. Then multiplication and division come in the later grades. In the German system, students learn early to do addition and subtraction (for numbers up to 100) in their heads. And multiplication and division tables for single digit numbers too. So far, Maggie’s class has been doing mostly review work of these things before they’ll move on to triple digits and probably higher multiplication and division. So she has some time to catch up.
Magrilless 