Weekend partay!

June 4, Saturday. Errand day! The weather broke so it’s quite a bit cooler now. We ran out first thing to pick up the printer, which came in on Wednesday. (I was not willing to pick it up myself and carry it home, the store’s at least a mile away.) Just up the way from the Apple store is a produce store, we wandered in and everything looked great. It was a self-serve store, too. (The produce stands downtown are not, and my language isn’t quite up to asking for what I want). The clerk even got a fresher bunch of asparagus for me from the back. I was so happy. The produce in the local supermarkets is not great. For one thing, they don’t refrigerate it. For another, they don’t seem to care if it’s wilted or obviously past its prime, it stays out on the shelf.

We got all that stuff home, then headed out to the big Edeka market for more grocery shopping. The place we went, Isar Center, has about 15 stores in it. The grocery store, Edeka, is big with a lot of selection (but the produce still is third-world).

When we finished our shopping we stopped and grabbed lunch at the snack bar. Logan had a Leberkase sandwich. Leberkase is a cooked meatloafish thing; and it tasted like baloney (but better.) And of course the bread was a fresh roll. He liked it, and that’s great as they sell it pert darn near everywhere – at the beer gardens, the snack shops, the bakeries.

When we got home, I started to work on my pot-luck dish for the party that night. Yeah! Kim, one of the IWC members was having a wine social that night, and we were able to go. It was in a different area of town than we’d been in before. So that evening we packed up our appetizers – I made ham & cream cheese roll ups, I couldn’t think of anything else to make – and a couple bottles of wine and headed off to the S-bahn. Getting to the station, I headed for the ticket machine. You can buy a ticket that offers several trips, and I needed a new one. But I noticed something weird, on the other side of the station, across the track, a guy was running to the ticket machine. Well it turns out that the ticket machine on our side was broken, which I discovered just as the train was arriving. So we had to head back out of the station, down the stairs, up the other side to use the working machine. Missed our train. Oh well, we caught the next one. (The train system is an honor system, but the fine is stiff if you’re caught without a ticket.) While waiting, we got to watch the cloud roll in over half the sky.

We got on the train and had just started off when it started raining. A real downpour. Raining on the left side of the train and a full rainbow off to the right. (The weather here is fun to watch. Often cloudy, but the skies change all the time. There’s variation and frequently sunny patches on the cloudy days. It has been hot for a few days, and feels almost tropical, with some humidity and breezes. Then it can snap down 10 – 15 degrees cooler in an hour, if a front is moving through. The cool days are breezy too, and very fresh, so it’s like the best spring day. What a treat.)

We arrived at Kim & Chris’s place along with 2 other couples, so we weren’t too late. The apartment was beautiful, very open and spacious. There were about 20 people there; we had wine, lots of food and great conversation. At one point I was talking with Ludolph and Michelle, and he slipped into French and she’s French and they were talking about the difficulties of living in Paris. I was able to follow the conversation and even join in a bit. Wonderful!

We definitely need to learn the train schedules, though. Got back to the Ostbahnhof (station) about 9 minutes after our train pulled out, and at that time of night the next one was in 33 minutes. And the one after that was 2 hours later! Fortunately it’s a big station so we wandered around and looked at the shops for a while.

Sunday slept late. No wonder, we didn’t get to bed until 1:30. We had seen a sign on the local bakery that it was open on Sunday morning from 9 – 11. Weren’t sure we believed it, as nothing but restaurants are open on Sunday. But we took a chance, walked down and sure enough it was open. Got bread & some pastries for breakfast. Bundled up and sat on the balcony, it wasn’t raining but it was overcast & breezy.

Later, Logan went for a bike ride. I did laundry, and cooked my adaptation of beef burgundy. I don’t have the pots I’m used to, I have a ceramic bean pot and a cast iron dutch oven that I use at home. Didn’t pack those and even if I had our stuff STILL isn’t here yet. It was picked up on Wednesday May 18th, we paid to have it air shipped. They told us it would be two weeks. Last we heard, on Friday, it had not even left the states yet. I may have to do something about this to express my frustration, but not quite sure what yet.

That afternoon, we drove around to look at places that were listed as rentals. Like everything else, this takes longer than we thought. The roads are not straight (!), there are lots of stops, so it takes 30 minutes to go the equivalent distance from Saratoga to Los Altos. Anyhow, we saw the location for 3 of the places listed for rent. None very convenient to the S-Bahn nor grocery shopping. I am asking the Universe for a delightful furnished rental with lots of light, a great kitchen, at least one bathroom including a modern, deep tub and enclosed shower, master bedroom with enough space to walk around the bed without bumping your head on the overhead light, enough storage for all our stuff, an enclosed garage, guest bedroom and office, DSL and satellite TV, a nice balcony or deck that we can cook out on, and at least one fireplace; nice and quiet neighbors, close to shopping and public transportation, and convenient to work for Logan. Whew! We’ve seen some that look about right but are way on the other side of town, or 20 km out of town. I want to be in or close to the city.

Dinner turned out great. The set of pots that are here are incredible. They’re ‘Fissler’, stainless steel and thick walled with great lids. I love using them and I expect that I will buy a set here and take them with me the rest of my life. The knives that are here in the apartment are another story. Blunt, dull, and crooked. The bread knife works OK. I did not pack any knives in our air shipment, because I figured I could get some good ones here. I will need to do that soon. I did see a couple places selling knives downtown, but I expect that stores outside the city may have lower prices so I will shop around. There is an Ikea near here, have not been there yet but we will go once we move into the more permanent residence. Don’t know if they sell good knives.