30.04.2016

1. I wish rewe would pick up empty bottles as well as deliver full ones.

2. We had bacon, pancakes and chorizo sausage this morning. The Germans do sausage well, even Chorizo.

3. Bought a "spicy" yufka last night and the only difference was a little bit of chili sauce and some chopped banana peppers.

4. There's very little variety in the way of delivery here in Hagsfeld. It's all Pizza and Doner and one lone sushi place that we haven't been able to get up the nerve to try.

5. The lack of windows screens here means that every once in a while a horse fly gets into the house and scares the poop out of me.

6. Radio here uses different frequency steps (50 khHz in Germany vs. 100 kHz, I think). Luckily my onkyo amp has a setting to change it. Now I have to find an antennae so I can hear all of the US music on germany radio. smile emoticon

7. Having 250mbit is great, unless you're downloading from a site with only a US CDN. It's still much better than the 12 that I had tho.

8. I'm still getting used to the VAT being built into (most) prices. Things seem much more expensive until I remember the 20% VAT was already added.

20.04.2016

1) Sometimes it's hard to get people to take my money. We're without a car, so getting around is time consuming. I tried to order our washer and dryer online from Saturn, but I couldn't find a single payment method that they'd allow me to use. No bank transfer, no paypal, no US credit card.All because I didn't have a German credit card. So Amazon won my business again.

2) Searching on Amazon.de is difficult at best. I use the english version, which is incomplete, and searches tend to work better with German terms (duh), but some terms are simply unique to german and have to direct translation. Luckily I have good Internet research skills.

3) When you have a 250mbs connection, it's surprisingly difficult to find a game on Steam large enough to find my Peak bandwidth. Yeah, I know, cry me a river.

4. On german cable, about 10% of channels carry english content. And our Horizon box can be set to prefer english audio (when it exists.)

5. Our Horizon box insists on making us enter a youth protection PIN even when I've turned it off and unlocked all channels.

6. I bought 15 power strips for the new house. It's surprising how many we need, though I suppose in hind sight, I think we gave away 30 strips from the old house.

7. Sometimes even doing all of the right things when converting a 110v appliance to 220v (via a transformer) still results in a poof and the magic smoke being let out. Mostly for very old equipment.

8. We had some really great movers who helped a ton. All really good guys.

9. Food delivery FTW

Things I love about Germany: 14.04.2016

1) The windows that open two ways. You can open them left to right, or top to bottom. I'm not explaining it well, but you can pull just the top part open if you want.

2) Milk. Fresh milk. It smells a little funny, but the milk in the US is so sanitized...

3) Blast Shutters. Metal shutters that you can lower to protect you when the zombies come. The powered ones are especially cool.

4) The people.

5) Butterkuchen

6) The weird, sweet salsa

7) All of the outside doors lock with a key. You can't accidentally leave your front door unlocked.

8) Being here.

TILIG 12.04.2016 (with questions this time)

1. I have yet to see an in-sink garbage disposal. Are they not common here?

2. The water here in Karlsruhe is very hard, mineralized water. Leaves hard water stains on everything. Are there water softener solutions? Are they worth it?

3. If I buy a (used) car at a dealer, will they handle _all_ the paperwork for me, including registration? I know I need to provide insurance.

4. I need some documents notarized with an Apostille. Anyone know of one in Karlsruhe?

5. Despite the environmental consequences, I miss soda in cans. They DO seem to have jack and coke in cans, but not otherwise.

6. They are very serious about recycling bottles and such here. There is a whole eco system here with specialized machines take in bottles (and crates of bottles) and that give you credit back.

06.04.2015:

1. Something in Germany (actually many things) agrees with me. I got good news from the Doctor about my cholesterol, and a bunch of other things. All back to normal after being problematic for many years. I'm sure it's partly all of the exercise (and losing weight). But it's probably not all of the bread, cheese and pork.

2. A tram called Str 5 is NOT the same as the S5. I figured this out after only a few stops, luckily. And I only had to walk most of a kilometer.

3. Sitting in the enclosed waiting room at the doctor's office is an exercise in trying not to breathe in all of the coughing and sneezing spores. This time, I wasn't sick (just getting test results), but I suspect in 7-10 days I will be.

4. Trying to mime giving a urine sample with a nurse who speaks no English is both not fun and embarrassing for both of us. As is trying to spell your name for her to write on the cup. The phrase "Alles Gut" is my friend.

5. They give me 100 tablets for my prescriptions and it costs me 5 Euros (total.) Not having to get refills every 30 days is awesome.

05.04.2016

1. In the US, my doctor always had me go to a separate lab for blood draws. Here, my doctor (his nurses) do it in the office. Much more convenient and they get results the next day. They probably still send it out to get processed, but I'm sure it's quite a bit cheaper to do the draw in house.

2. Cool Ranch Doritos are Cool American Doritos here.

3. Froop Joghurt is the bomb. There's this super intense layer of fruit at the top that you (I) mix in. The orange tastes just like an orange cream sicle.

4. When someone is getting on the tram with a wheelchair, or more commonly a stroller, people are very quick to help out. It's nice to see.

5. Where's all of the Hasslehoff stuff? I was made to believe (in the US) that David Hasslehoff was HUGE in Germany. Didn't he do a concert at the wall? Didn't spongebob ride him like a surfboard? Didn't he coach the german dodgeball team in Dodgeball?

6) I'm beginning to understand the outcry at various pieces of tech that ship first in the US and only later come to the EU. It's super annoying. And usually much more expensive.

7) The rampant price gouging on Amazon.de for common american foods is super annoying. They clutter the searches. There are a ton of very expensive (over 100 euro) food items, like Mio water flavoring or Teriyaki sauce (a couple of dollars in the US). Of course, there's only 1 or 2 in stock. My guess is that they took a trip to America, filled their suitcase, came back and now sell them on Amazon at a 1000% markup.

8) As with any other place, there are a few people begging for coins here. The various tactics are interesting. One lady with a small child came up to me, very close, and asked for 5 Euros. Then the little boy (who had an ice cream cone) told me he hadn't eaten in a while, could I please help. All in good english. When I declined, they didn't stop, getting physically closer and closer. I finally stepped away and then walked away. I'm usually very generous, but that one was just a little scary.

02.04.2016

1) Variable Wattage Microwaves. In our temporary flat, we have a combination Microwave/Oven. When microwaving it seems to have no problems with metal (US Ovens spark.), and it has a variable wattage. In the US, all I've ever owned were single wattage, so often you had to adjust cooking time or power for food to match packaging instructions. What I don't know is if the power setting on a US microwave is really a wattage setting. Probably so, but on our microwave here, you can just set wattage directly.

2) We had an amazing Portuguese meal at Casa Do Jose in Karlsruhe. I really do love the variety of food here.

3) When renting, your landlord may request a deposit account for the rental deposit. It's where you go to the bank and have an account set up and give special paper work and the savings book (!) to the landlord. He gives it back when you're done with the rental, assuming he doesn't need to use the security deposit. You get to keep the interest.

4) Ok, this isn't new, but being a loud American in a nice restaurant gets you some interesting looks

5) When in a nice restaurant (read: 2 hour+ meal), smoke breaks are a common thing. We saw a whole table leave their purses at the table to go out and smoke. I saw my first purse hanger too.

6) Everything seems to require at least a 2 year contract and 3 months notice of cancellation, or they extend it automatically. Evidently, the thing to do is setup a calendar item to remind you 4 months before the contract is up so you can call the vendor and get some kind of bonus for signing up again (if you're so inclined.)

7) Women's parking spaces. Women's flea markets (flohmarkt).