Recycling and Stairs and Doors – oh, my!

Well, we’ve been living in Germany for four days now and so far, so good. We’re getting the house settled at record speed, in part because the recycling laws in Germany are so strict we don’t want to be left with any boxes or packing materials to dispose of on our own, so we need to unpack everything in the first two weeks so that the movers will come back and pick up the empties. They’ve already been here twice. :)

Recycling and trash disposal is definitely an example of how different the German culture is. The second day we were here, a truck pulled up at our front gate and the driver, who spoke no English at all, delivered four color-coded recycling bins to our driveway. The four bins are marked Altpapier, Biomüil, Werstoffe and Restmüil. Basically, the first is all paper, the second is yard waste & compost, the third is recyclable metal, plastic, Styrofoam and juice boxes, and the last is everything else, sort of. Glass is sorted by color and walked to the street corner near our house, where a giant communal glass recycling bins is located.

My understanding is that the trash collectors, and therefore, the city, will monitor us to be sure we’re putting the correct items in the correct bins. If not, they won’t take it. I hope they give us a little slack this first week, as we’re still figuring out what is considered what. I did print out some descriptions in English to tape to the bins, but part of the problem is finding room to sort all of this is my miniscule kitchen. Of course, the upside of all this is I met a man who I believe lives in the neighborhood – although we couldn’t understand each other well – when he rang the buzzer on our front gate and instructed me to run down the sidewalk and pick up the minute pieces of packaging paper that blew off the stack the movers had left in the driveway. These people are serious! :)

German kitchens aren’t big as a general rule. Since we’re living in a city – Frankfurt has about ¾ of a million residents – ours is a German city kitchen, so it’s quite small by American standards. And, frankly, it’s not the smallest kitchen we saw when we were househunting. We bought 3 sets of shelves at IKEA on Tuesday to put in the basement for storing all the kitchen stuff that won’t fit in the kitchen – pots, pans, bakeware (much of which won’t fit in the oven either), tupperware, and large containers of food. Although this is a big house – most Germans would consider it huge – we still have a lot of stuff to find room for.

The moving men were here on Monday to set furniture in place, put things back together, and unpack, as well as remove boxes. It wasn’t the same men who were here with Chris to unload the container, so they didn’t realize how big the house is. Only 2 men arrived, but they soon called for more help and a large truck to take away boxes, since some of the big furniture still had to be carried to the third floor. Fortunately, Chris and the girls were able to get Elizabeth’s and Samantha’s double beds upstairs to their third floor bedrooms – the guys who unpacked the container didn’t even try. But the couches still had to go up there, as well as many, many boxes.

Basically, this house is all about stairs. When you drive into the driveway, there are stairs to take you up to the front door or down to the back door. If you start in the basement, you see the laundry room and four storage rooms, including the excess kitchen storage, the book room – with about 6 bookshelves and most of our books in it, and a room full of my scrapbooking supplies. From here, it’s up a small winding staircase to the kitchen on the first floor. On the 1st floor is the kitchen, a half-bath (known as the toilet here, although it’s got a sink as well), the family room, with wintergarden (sun room), living room and dining room. From there, it’s up the long “Princess” staircase to the second floor. On the 2nd floor are the guest room, our office, the master bedroom, another toilet and the master bathroom, as well as a linen closet and a lovely terrace off our bedroom. Up another flight of winding stairs is the 3rd floor – the girls’ domain. They have their three bedrooms, a bathroom, a toilet, and an alcove area complete with computer, wireless internet, television, games and a mini-refrigerator. We may never see them again. :)

I’ve been trying to collect things that belong on a different floor and take them in one trip, but still my calves feel like they did that first week in college again. I should have some significant muscles showing soon. :) Everything is all about stairs. Again, whether this is because it’s a German house or a city house, I don’t know – but I suspect it’s some of both. It should prove interesting for our first official visitor. My nephew David arrives this Saturday from Spain – with a broken foot. Whether on crutches or a walking cast, he’ll have to navigate some stairs if he plans to shower in the week that he’s here.

Doors – who knew they could be such a problem! Our house was built in 1900, so much of it’s personality comes from the era in which it was built. Some of it is purely German though – including the fact that every room, every space practically, has a door, and usually more than one. Doors are a nuisance when trying to place furniture and hang pictures. I should have left most of my artwork and pictures back in Elmhurst. :)

The dining room – not a large room by any measure – has 2 doors. One leads into the room from the entry hall and one leads from the dining room to the living room. So, of course, that door is in the living room as well, plus the door from the entry hall. Fortunately, the door between the living room and family room is a pocket door, so that doesn’t swing in the way – it just eliminates a lot of wall space. The family room has two other doors though – one back to the entry hall and a double french door to the wintergarden. Even the tiny kitchen has two doors – one from the hall and one to the basement staircase.

There is no such thing as an open floor plan. Of the 16 houses we looked at in March, only the newest one, still under construction, did not have a closed off kitchen. They boasted how the construction was American – in that the kitchen flowed into the family room. Of course, once you got upstairs, there were doors everywhere!

Now, consider that back in IL, when we remodeled our master bedroom, we didn’t even put a door between the bedroom side and the bathroom side, although we did give in and put a door on the toilet. Here, our master bedroom has a door leading from the office, two from the hall and double french doors to the terrace. Once we’ve installed the wardrobes we had to buy since there are no closets, there will be very few spots for pictures on the wall. Of course, since we’re renting the house, we don’t really want too many holes in the wall anyway.

Once the remaining boxes are gone and the furniture built and in place, I know we’re going to love this house, even with all the stairs and doors. It’s lovely – definitely out of another era – and so convenient. We walk to the end of our block and can turn either way to find a bakery. They girls love the fact that they can get fresh pretzel bread every day (except Sunday, of course). What’s not to love – pretzel bread is great, whether in rolls, baguettes, croissants, or actual pretzels. And there are about 300 other kinds of great German breads to explore as well – bakeries are incredible here.

Also, within a block and a half from our house is the train stop. This stop is on 3 different subway lines as well as the line for an above-ground electric street car. We’ll have to try them all out and see where we can go. Chris took the subway into downtown Frankfurt when he was here – it takes about 6 minutes. I think he can start at the stop here, take the subway to the main Frankfurt train station and pick up a train there to take him to work in Weinheim – which is about 45 – 60 mins away by car. We’re going to try it out next week, since I don’t have a car yet and I have to take the girls to their school for placement exams. Hopefully, it the train is fairly easy to do, he can use this route on the bad weather days next winter, if he doesn’t need the car to go the FHP headquarters in Mannheim.

So far, in the 2-3 blocks around our house, we’ve tried out the Mini Mall (grocery store), the discount grocery store, the butcher, the drug store (Apotecke), both bakeries, and the Chinese restaurant. I hope to go to the kitchen and bath supply store today to get more hanging hooks for my kitchen. I also want to find the nearest post office – I think it’s about 2 ½ blocks in a different direction. Yesterday we shopped at a great little produce place and brought home incredibly delicious raspberries, strawberries and blueberries, as well as some peaches that are white inside and nearly tasteless, even though obviously very ripe. The fresh produce looks incredible and there are farmers markets all over Frankfurt on different days of the week, so at least in the summer, we’ll get some great produce.

I have to remember, though, to take our bags with us when we shop. German stores don’t give you bags – you have to buy them, although usually they’re only about 10 cents. The problem with buying them often, at least in our little neighborhood stores, will be that we’ll be seen as wasteful Americans who won’t reuse their bags. Again, Germany is very environmentally conscious and we are expected to bring our reusable bags w/us. Once I have a car, I’m sure I’ll just leave some in the trunk all the time, but for now, I have to remember to bring them.

Chris starts working today, so the girls and I will have some time to ourselves. In addition to building Miranda’s desk, our guest room futon and the basement shelves, we’ll be able to do some exploring in the neighborhood.

Today the washer, dryer and extra refrigerator are being delivered and installed, so I’m very excited to finally get to do laundry. Of course, it’ll be a challenge, as the buttons are all in German. Fortunately, the instruction manual has English on it, so I should be able to figure the washer out. Also, now we can do a big grocery shopping, since our built-in kitchen refrigerator is tiny and the freezer holds almost nothing. I almost bought a big American-style fridge for our second one but again, it has to go down the winding basement stairs and we didn’t want them to get it to our house and then have to take it back. But, at least the new one is somewhat bigger and more than doubles our space.

Which brings me to my last observation for today. Chris & I took 10 weeks of Berlitz language training before our move and the company will pay for 6 more months of it now that we’re here. Really, we should have had 6 months before we got here, because we needed it as much this week as ever. The moving men had very little English – well, only one of the 4 guys had any. The cable man had no English at all, but fortunately got the internet connected for us. Neither the trash & recycling bin delivery guy nor the mailman spoke any English. The appliance delivery men today will probably have very little if any English. The consultant at IKEA who helped us pick out our wardrobes had some English. Only the people at the bank have been fluent. It was great that the relocation consultants made all the arrangements for us regarding the movers, the cable company, etc. – but left us here on our own to “talk” to these people. My little bit of German helps, but it’s not nearly enough. Hopefully I'll learn quickly - about everything! :)