Dishwasher Salt, or, An Ironing Board on my Head

Yesterday I spent about 4 hours taking trains and walking to find an ironing board, an ice chest, and bandaids. I needed bandaids for my toes that got rubbed raw when I finally wore my cute new black shoes, on which I had to replace the button a few weeks ago. I needed an ironing board because one of the legs on the board that came with the apartment went left when the rest went right, and leaning the ironing board against the wall just doesn't work all that well. And we wanted an ice chest for our upcoming vacation. I found the ironing board and ice chest, but couldn't carry them both home, so I didn't get either, and instead today we went to get them when Rob got off work. We took the train to the train to the walk to the store. By the time we were heading home, it started to rain. So, after we got off the train near our apartment Rob began carrying the ironing board over his head. I wasn't so lucky, because the ice chest really isn't big enough to cover me. So Rob shared the ironing board. I'm sure we looked pretty weird walking down the street but we were dry!

Today the little red light on the dishwasher got to me. It said, "Salz." I know that means salt. The dishwasher was asking for salt. It has been asking for salt for a week or two, and today was the day I decided to find the salt. I found the specialsalz in the dishwasher section of the local store. I opened the place in the bottom of the dishwasher that said salt in 4 languages. Then I didn't know how much to put in. So I got Rob to get the manual down (stored above the fridge). I couldn't read it. Rob could read some words, but didn't get the gist of it. I typed the information into google translator and got this:
"Door open, remove basket. 2nd Cap stocks of the salt container counterclockwise untwist. 3rd Only for initial start-up: Salt tank fill with water (about 0.5 l). 4th With delivered to funnel opening of the stock container stuck. Special salt due to funnel in the reservoir to fill. Assets depending on the version grain approximately 1.0 - 1.5 kg. Tank with special salt not overfill.

The filling of the water runs Spezialsalzes ousted from the salt tank in the bottom of the Spülraums. This is fine, because this water at the start of the next Spülprogramms off. 5th Opening the stock container of salt remains clean. 6th Cap in a clockwise direction until it reaches zudrehen otherwise special salt into the dishwater. Troubled glasses could occur as a result. 7th If you do not immediately after your Salzeinfüllen the dishes, you should see the program run Vorspülen. this will übergelaufenes salt water and salt grains off. Depending on the grain it may take a few hours until the salt is dissolved in water and salt control display again goes off. The setting of the Wasserenthärters and thus the salt consumption are dependent on the local water hardness."

This was fine, but I was still a little puzzled about what to do, so I opened Babelfish and translated again. This time I got this:
"The water displaced when filling in the special salt runs from the salt storage vessel into the ground of the Spülraums. This is harmless, since this water is evacuated with the start of the next rinse cycle. 5. opening of the storage vessel of salt remainders clean. 6. Cover cap in the clockwise direction to a complete stop otherwise arrives special salt closes in the rinse water. Cloudy glasses could be the result. 7. If you immediately after the salt filling in your table-ware to rinse should not let you run the program Vorspülen. thus overcrowded seawater and salt grains are rinsed out. Depending upon granulation it can take some hours, until the salt dissolved in the water and the control display salt expires again. The attitude of the water softener and thus salt consumption depend on the local water hardness."

I decided to pour in about .75 liters of the salt. I'll find out what attitude it has when I run it.

My Eyes were Wellin'

Today I had to go to the market before lunch, because I had no lunch in the apartment. A few days ago we talked to Meg and Lauri on the phone. Meg mentioned that she had sent a package. So every day when I go out, my heart starts pounding a bit when I walk past our mailbox. I peek into the slot to see if there is anything there. Today there was! A blue card with lots of German words on it. I have no idea what it said, except at the top, where it said addressee: Mom and Dad. I knew what it meant. Our package had arrived. But where was it? I determined that as soon as I got home with my cheese spread (lunch) I would open up my laptop and google translate the German.
On my way to the market, I saw a yellow bike, and a woman pedalling it. It was about two blocks from our apartment. On it was a big yellow bag with the post office symbol. I thought, aha! Mail is delivered by bike. And I continued on to the market.
On my way home, the pedaler of the yellow bike was stopped at a building right in front of me, so I said, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" and she shook her head, no. Then I pulled the blue card out of my purse and asked, "How?" She said, "Moment." She walked away with some letters in her hand, about 50 feet (sorry, I don't do meters yet), and stopped at a big green bin that I had thought was a trashcan. She jingled her keys, then reached in and walked back to me. Handed me a package from Meg!!! I recognized her handwriting immediately and tears sprang to my eyes.
How did that happen? The timing, the location, whoa! I quickly said thanks and sprinted home to open the package. Oohed over the paper punch for scrapbooking, ahhed over the book for Rob, and drooled over the Dagoba organic chocolate bar. Then I remembered the cheese and pork in my purse and put it away.
Thanks Meg, you made my day!

Silly Signs updated

I like to take pictures of funny signs and store names. To see my collection so far, click here.

Cover your eyes

Today we decided it was time to go to the Englischer Garten. It's a big, big park just to the east of the city center. The weather was beautiful so we decided to ride our bikes. The garden has a big Chinese pavillion in it, and seated in the pavillion, several stories up, was an oompa band. You know, the typical German band that plays polka like music. So, English garden, Japanese structure, German band. Hmm. There are tons of paths, some just for walking and some for biking. You can generally tell the difference because of signs like these.

We rode for awhile, up near a lake with paddle boats and lots of geese and other water fowl. Then we saw this other view. If you haven't seen female buns before, you may not want to scroll down. But really. You may not have heard of Veggietales before, but there is a silly song about a ceboo in it. I'm not sure what a ceboo is, but the song ends with questions, like, "did the sick ceboo get better? Did the sad ceboo get happy?" So questions like that were flowing through my mind: Did the girl know her buns were so exposed? Did her boyfriend notice when he walked up? Was he embarrassed for her, or did he enjoy the view so much that he said nothing? Does she always dress like that? To protect the innocent, I won't tell you who I was biking with. But he asked, as you might, "was she even wearing underwear?" So here now is the picture. Eek!

Anyhow, we rode around for awhile longer and then headed home. I also took pics of pretty buildings, which I will post somewhere soon.

Water Chestnuts

Today, being Saturday, meant that it was shopping day. Our wishlist was simple: a can of water chestnuts and a lightbulb. Also, return the charger that we bought for the dead cell phone. We got on the Ubahn, went three stops, and transferred to the next train for one stop. Our destination was Marienplatz, which is the shopping district in the center of Munich. It was extremely crowded because it's a tourist destination. We've learned that it's really good to hold hands going through places like that. People tend to go around you then instead of through you. Anyhow, our first stop was Karstadt. It's sort of a mishmash of little shops. When you go in there's a candy shop on the left, and bedding on the right. Towards the back is a cell phone store and some stationary. A few weeks ago, we discovered the great downstairs secret: They've got foods that people from other countries seem to like. So we got our water chestnuts. Why did want them, anyhow? For cashew chicken. Last time Rob made cashew chicken he used celery for the crunchy part. It was okay, but not great. So now we are set. We bought 2 cans!
Next stop, Saturn. No, not the planet. Saturn is larger than a Best Buy but smaller than a Frys. We showed the receipt for the phone charger at the door. A woman stamped it and sent us upstairs. From there we went to the service desk. They said to take the charger and receipt to a person in a blue shirt. The first person in a blue shirt said to take it to exactly the department in which we bought the charger. Finally, we found an available blue-shirted person there. He took the charger from us and stamped the back of our receipt. We filled out our address and such, and then he stamped it again and filled out some other blanks. Finally, we were told to take the receipt back downstairs to the cashier (kasse) where we would get our refund. We walked past a lightbulb display on the way there and got our lightbulb. Also we saw an indoor/outdoor thermometer gadget. So we bought those, got our refund, and crossed that off our list.
We had also heard of a toy store near the end of Marienplatz. It was just past a McDonalds near a big fountain. We found it and headed downstairs, where we heard there were games. Wow! There sure were! We looked for one called "The Struggle for Rome" but didn't find it. We did however find a new expansion for Settlers, called Traders and Barbarians. Looks good. Also got a game for Keith (yes Keith, it has to do with...s oh wait, i can't tell you.)
Success!

another inspiration by Meg

Today I sat on my bed all day.

This is a sentence that Meg wrote in her school journal in kindergarten. It applies to me today. It rained a lot and instead of going for a bike ride we decided to stay in. So far, all day. And it's almost 5 pm.

How I live

Here is a link to views of our real house, our apartment when Rob first moved in, and our apartment now. just click here.

Today I opened my first bag of dark chocolate m&ms. Rob brought me 4 bags from Colorado! Yum. He also bought a new cell phone because his old one really was dead. So you can once again call me on it if you really want to spend a lot of money. Since Rob was jet lagged from his trip, he slept in some, and then we went to the big grocery store I discovered last weekend. We bought 44 Euros worth of groceries at one time! Probably a record. See, the good thing is, Rob and I DROVE to the store, so we could stock up. Both tomorrow (friday) and sunday the stores will be closed. Tomorrow is some sort of Catholic holiday and a lot of people have the day off. Including Rob, not because he's Catholic but because his company observes the holiday here. (sorry Portland TQS's)