Die Sonne scheint in München

Hallo alle,

Children's Playroom

I have been getting into the swing of things here in Germany, both culturally and family-wise. The house is actually similar to a duplex, but a very large duplex. There are nine rooms, and three or four bathrooms. My room is on the top floor and I have my own bathroom. Also next to my room is the "playroom" which is a huge room dedicated to the children's toys, games, books, movies, dress-up clothes... everything a child could ever want or desire. The two youngest share a room, the oldest has her own room, and the parents have their room on the second floor. Then on the first floor we have a designated guest bathroom, laundry room, family room, living room (complete with bear skin rug), dining room, and kitchen. Then of course there is a little basement that contains another food storage area, plus a couple other doors (large closets) that have some outdoor equipment. (P.S.: Click the pictures to view them larger.)

Light Switch

Outlet

That's the basic layout of the house. Now a few things I noticed that were significantly different than American homes. Besides the outlets (which are obviously different), instead of a small light switch, we have like a large light switch button. Another obvious difference was the shower. The children's shower isn't quite like mine, however, the glass "curtain" only covers the side and not the front. The glass fits snug to the tub, and the shower head points towards the drain. Most Germans use the tub as an actual tub, with the shower head actually much lower. Instead of a little lever that you push to flush the toilet, there are two buttons on the wall. Now in Europe, people are environmentally conscious, so the toilet isn't full of water like American toilets, there is only about a cup or two. So the first button is to flush, but the second button is to run some water through the toilet, kind of like a rinse. There are also no "closets" here. People buy "wardrobes" which are, for those of you who have never seen one, basically like an outside closet. There are hangers inside, and a shelf on top, really just a closet that isn't in the wall. The last fairly obvious thing is that the house is heated by radiators. While this isn't unusual and many places are still heated by older radiators, these (see picture) are actually brand new looking. They have individual temperatures for each radiator (in Celsius, of course), and they really do warm up a room. I always feel nice and cozy.

Radiator

Toilet Buttons

My Wardrobe

Shower

And then there are cultural differences. The most irritating is every time I type "www.google.com" into Firefox, "www.google.de" comes up. And thus all of the results are in German. Now, my German is progressing, I understand about 50% of what's going on, I can read about 65-70%, but I can only speak about 35-40% (because of some sentence structuring difficulties I'm having in my head), but trying to figure out what I'm looking for on a quick basis in German is nearly impossible. Also on the internet route, accessing my e-mail was taking me about 15-20 minutes, presumably because of AOL being a U.S. based server and I'm in Germany. I however, have fixed that since then, thanks to a brilliant suggestion (Mozilla Thunderbird), and am happily enjoying my e-mails once again.

Natürlich in German means "naturally."
This is a magazine promoting being all natural. I picked one up.

 The cultural differences extend past the home, of course. Besides the obvious fact that German is the primary language here, English is also spoken by a large majority. In fact, not one person who I have asked if they spoke English has told me no. I had my very first walk around Solln Tuesday, which is where I am technically (it is still classified as a part of Munich, it's kind of like a community, visit the Solln website), and I saw very neat street signs (pictures of the area to come soon), cool little shops, lots of walking and bicycle riding, just a very neat town all-in-all. During my mini adventure, I walked into two natural stores. Both were very nice, but the first one I was too nervous to actually buy anything. The second was is literally around the corner (picture coming soon) and the one lady who works there is very nice and she herself was an au pair in Israel. Anyway, I bought some things at the store and will actually be returning there tomorrow. There is another, slightly larger organic store called "bio-welt" ("bio-world" is the literal translation, visit Bio-Welt Store) in the other direction which I hope to visit sometime soon. I had my very first bus ride to my very first German class yesterday. The bus system is superb and getting there was very easy. My class is in Pullach (town just south of here), and was about a 15 minute bus ride. I wasn't even that nervous to speak some German!

This is the "bio" logo that can be found on foods.

This is the German logo specifically designating organic foods.

Also yesterday I was able to accompany the children and mother to a German playground, which, not surprisingly, is very similar to American playgrounds. The children are simply wonderful. They are very sweet and know English surprisingly well. They are very active, curious, and not the least bit shy. I was able to play with the kids and they seem to like me very much. The two girls love the Elephant & Piggie books, (the oldest says to me: "Do you have anything you can read to us in English?" Why, it just so happens that I have these books with me...) and the fact that I let them play with my iPod Touch is huge to them. All three children like the squishables, and they all loved looking at the website with all of the squishable animals. The middle child, who is the boy, also thought my nonogram puzzles were fascinating, and they are more than happy to sit on my lap and play with the computer or watch me show them something. My hope is that I can find the German equivalent of JoAnn Fabrics and go shopping for various craft ideas so I can do them with the kids!

One other thing is that I am just having so much fun with the German way of eating. My stomach has been handling pretty well, but I'm not about to overdo it. My daily menu is as follows: breakfast will consist of a bio-yogurt (vanilla, usually), and in it will be mixed some müsli (for those of you who don't know what that is, it's kinda like granola but with usually only oats and dried fruit, and since I don't like dried fruit in stuff, coconut and/or chocolate will do nicely), and I will have my frühstückssaft (breakfast juice with all sorts of fruits and veggies) to drink. For lunch I will make myself an organic veggie sandwich. For the last two days it has consisted of a German roll, a tasty dill mustard, zucchini, mushrooms, avocado, and scallions. And some water to drink. As for dinner, I will generally eat what the family is eating provided as it's not meat. I will try some meat and see how my stomach reacts, but I'm not so sure about the exact treatment of the cows and chickens here. I know it's better than in the U.S. for sure. But after dinner I am returning to my bedtime tea and raw honey, which really helps my stomach. Germans have lots of fresh bread and bakeries are everywhere. They also tend to work harder on education and the professional world then on their food, which means that they tend to do quickly prepared meals, even if that means long baking or cooking time. This often means an fresher flavor with more noticeable tastes. The timing works just fine for me because I may have to cook the children's lunches on occasion...

This brings me to what I will be doing on a regular basis. For the record, no, I do not have to wear a uniform. When I wake up, which does not have to be any set time, I will open the children's windows and air out the rooms and fluff their blankets and pillows (yes, I know this is a very European thing to do). I then will clean up the remains from the children's breakfast and make breakfast for myself. After which I will close the children's windows and straighten their rooms a bit. Then I will clean up the kitchen and front area, and check on the laundry situation (I mostly do the folding and putting away). Then I will clean up the play room. The children come home about 12:00pm or so (sometimes earlier or later depending), and they will do their homework in their rooms. I will probably have to cook lunch for them at some point. But then I pretty much have a break from 2:30pm or so until dinner time, where I'll probably set and clear the table. The children do love coming into my room to play with stuff, and I will, once I get better with the bus system, take them out to do things. The mother really needs a break, she's been overloaded with things to do because they all just moved here a few months ago, so I am here to be a reprieve.

I didn't realize the amount of things that I have done in just a few days! I will try to post a little bit more frequently until a regular schedule is established, when things stop being as interesting as often. Peanut Butter and Julius have their very own cartoons that I have shared with you here. I hope you've enjoyed the blog so far and I appreciate you all reading!

Tchüss,

Holly

P.S.: I have also shown the kids a new puzzle game that I have been playing around with. If you'd like, take a look at q.u.b.e..