Travel Time: 14 Hours, Time In Frankfurt: 5 Hours

Our high school friend Randy, who is currently working in Holland at the moment, decided to pay us a visit while we were here in Germany. The exciting parts of Düsseldorf can usually be seen all in one day and so we needed something to do. We opted to going to Frankfurt. Steph found a museum, called the Dialog Museum, that is a blind museum. It shows you what it would be like to be blind. They take you through parks, over a bridge etc. but it is all in the dark. On certain days, they actually give you food to taste. It sounded so cool and so we thought we would go there. We decided to get a head start on the day and catch a 9am train but, unfortunately, all the trains were an hour behind. Luckily, we were able to make the 10am but only to get off the wrong transfer stop. This error caused us to be another hour late for our next connecting train. Randy was happy though because he could have more German McDonalds, which is honestly the best McDonalds in the world. Finally, we made it to Frankfurt for 4pm. We reached the museum but there were no English tours that day. Disappointed, we went to do some shopping but there was one thing we found that would raise our spirits: German Bubble Tea. Steph and I couldn't get there faster! After months of being deprived of our liquid drug, we could finally have it. The Bubble Tea was, like, the best thing ever! Afterward, we crossed the street to catch the bus to the Frankfurt Altstadt, when Stephanie discovered a man who looked exactly like Hulk Hogan. He had the same tan skin, blond mustache shape, sunglasses, bandanna, the matching muscles to boot, etc. I didn't believe it and so I forced them to take the bus so we were never able to find out if it was him. The one positive thing about taking the bus at that time was a Bachelor party. One man offered us a beer and then the groom walked towards us. He was wearing a tan, sparkly State Trooper outfit that was obviously three sizes to small with a big box of random junk he was selling. He had to make some money to buy  things at the bar later that night. We bought the new Beck's Black current beer (which is disgusting) and wished him well. The shopping in Frankfurt is really great. There is so much there and they actually have shopping malls. They had a big event thing going on in the square and so there were lots of people, balloons, and fake tattoo artists. So, we shopped till we dropped and resisted the urge to get fake tattoos to freak out our parents. We then headed back to the train station and waited almost an hour to get to the ticket counter to buy tickets. We asked for the special deal for 41 euros but the man forgot to give us an itinerary. We went back and it turns out that we had to take five different trains and we would get home for 4am. I threw a fit in the Hauptbahnhof and then we were on our way. We figured we would sit in a bar for the hour and a half wait in Au. Au, as it turns out, is a small town that has absolutely nothing there. No restaurants, hotels or bars. So Steph and I had to sit around in our shorts at 2am. We sat in an elevator for warmth like homeless people. We were kicked out by a security guard an hour later. We finally made it home for 5am and we slept into the early afternoon. Randy, however, slept until 5pm.

The European Way

This week, we decided to divert from our usual gym workout, collapse in bed, talk about going outside, make dinner, and lie in bed some more routine and try something German: The Kino. Pirates of the Caribbean 4 came to theaters in Düsseldorf and since Steph watches all Pirates movies in theaters, we decided to try it. We nervously stood in line, trying to catch what other people were saying so we could mimic their German. Once we got to the front, I asked for two adult tickets and then the woman, foolishly believing I spoke German, started rambling on about something in very fast Deutsch. I shamefully asked her to repeat in English which she kindly obliged to. Turns out, in German Kinos, your tickets are numbered and so you can't just sit wherever you want and she just wanted to know if the back was okay for us. I guess Germans believe that the strain-your-neck-just-to-see-part-of-the-screen seats at the front are prime. As we began to leave her counter, she asked, in my mind a most condescending tone "You do know the movie is in German right?" I almost through a fit but politely told her we knew. Another thing about this assigned seating is that you must sit right next to another person which can be kind of awkward and annoying. I got to sit next to a teenage girl and her boyfriend. She occasionally liked to check her cell phone which was distracting but she didn't hog the armrest. Steph was a little luckier and got to sit next to the four hot German boys. The one sitting next to Steph checked his cell phone more regularly but, unfortunately, didn't have anything new. Steph would also like to point out that her seat-mate had arm to arm contact with her on the armrest for an extended period of time. The movie was good. For the most part, we were able to figure out what was going on but not why. It got really exhausting for both of us to keep translating every word. There was also a lot of action so that kept us into it. The movie was in 3D as well and so I felt like a loser, sitting there with my glasses and the 3D ones on my face. Ah, the wonders of contacts.
Another thing we have started doing is a nightly sauna and steam room. We weren't sure at first what to wear and so we opted not going at all. Steph started really craving it and so we finally decided we would go and wear our towels. Now, we have run into a lot of cultural differences here in Germany such as the opinion of McDonalds (not a fast food chain but a quick food restaurant), lack of Bulk Foods, fashion sense etc. but this was the biggest difference we have had to face. The first time we went, we walked in in our towels and it was just the two of us and so it was fine. The second time, there were naked ladies everywhere. In our gym, there is a room, adjacent to the change rooms and the shower room (no stalls, just open showers), with open space filled with lawn chairs and wicker lounge chairs with the sauna and steam on one end. The naked women were everywhere with all shapes and sizes, just chilling. We opted to wear our towels and we were the odd ones out. We could almost feel the judgment. One teenage girl went naked and then covered up when we were there and then stopped when we left. This got us thinking that they were probably thinking we were prudes or judging them. We felt bad but we wanted to go again. Tonight, we decided we would go again but this time, we would try it the German way: au naturel. There were quite a few women there and so Steph and I grinned and bared. It was awkward at first but there was no judgment the other women. It was a little weird but it feels better without the hot towel. One young woman decided to wear a towel and Steph and I found ourselves judging her. I guess this is just normal for Europeans and we North Americans are more self-conscious. It was a different experience for sure but it was nice to not feel judged by anyone as opposed to being judged for wearing a towel.

Today, we decided to take a trip to Bonn. It was a fairly cheap ticket, only 15 euros for both of us to go down by train. If you ever get a chance to go to Germany, go to Bonn. It is like a typical German town but with more of a modern twist. It is very pretty and cute. We went to see Beethoven's birth house which isn't as exciting as it sounds. We also went to a shop called Hussel Confiserie which is a big chocolate and candy shop. They have different chocolate models of soccer balls, animals and, oddly enough, sausage. Kind of sick, I think. They have three sections of "help-yourself-bulk" chocolates. One section is fancy truffles, one is chocolate-covered fruit and then the last is mini chocolate balls some of which were filled with rum, much to my and Steph's disgust. Then we found a cute little loose-tea shop. Steph bought a Japanese green tea, which smells amazing. They sold a bunch of their own euro-each individual ice teas. They had all sorts of flavours, which was kind of neat and very delicious. We walked around a little more through the shops and found our way to the Zoological University of Bonn's Botanical Gardens. Not as nice as I imagined but still pretty. One old German lady was staring at me for taking pictures in the public garden so that was a little awkward but other than that, it was a very enjoyable walk. We also read about this Irish pub called The Fiddlers on the internet that we opted to try. It was a couple hours too early for dinner when we arrived and so it was us and two German men drinking beer. We decided to try some drinks and so we asked about the some of the vodka cocktails (because we are way to into the girlie drinks) and discovered that they didn't actually have any of the flavoured vodka drinks. Steph went the rum and coke route and I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried an Irish Snake Bite which is cider and Heineken and, I think, a swirl of Raspberry syrup on top. I received half a litre of the stuff which was good for the first bit but the beer really came out towards the end. I ended up chugging the stuff but it was my first full beer and so I am proud...sort of. The food was really good as well. I went the American route and had a burger with fries and Steph tried the potato with chicken curry...very good. It was a lovely day until we reached the Bonn Hbf and had to wait an extra 15 minutes on top of our normal 30 minutes because the train before us was half an hour late. We decided to relax with another sauna treatment before heading back to bed and crashing for the night.  

Time To Hit The Treadmills

Today, we decided to go and sign up for a gym pass. The Germans seem to be big fans of the gym and so we thought it would be a good way to get fit and potentially meet some people. There is a woman's gym by our apartment and so we thought we'd go check it out. It was not what we bargained for...
My only experience with gyms were with rec centers or expensive exclusive ones...this is exactly what the Düsseldorf woman's gym was. We quickly learned that Germans do not do gyms but do "Fitness Centers". Normally, you can't sign up for a month by month pass. Instead, you buy 6 or 12 month packages so the lady helping us, Vanessa, was very confused by our request for a month by month. We asked for the price and she said she would tell us...after a tour of the facility. The place is amazing. They have mostly cardio machines (being a woman's gym and all), a room for aerobics, personal trainers, a kid's daycare, a juice bar, and a sauna/steam room complete with tanning. They also have a bunch of DVDs for you to rent for three days for free. New movies by the way. Her English was good but she needed to use quite a bit of German and so with our knowledge of both languages, we were able to communicate quite well. She told us about how the gym is more family oriented and that it was better to do work outs without men. We sat down with her after the tour and she told us how things were normally done. We explained our situation and she got on the phone and got us a month pass...which was 80 euros each. On top of that, we needed to pay a 50 euro registration fee and a 75 euro starting package. We were on the verge of declining when Vanessa brought her supervisor in to bargain with us. In the end, we got about 150 euros off of what we were originally supposed to pay with everything included, an extra month free, and a VIP pass into a disco club the gym is sponsoring. We also can go to any "FitnessFirst Fitness Center" in Düsseldorf and the surrounding municipalities. It was a pretty good deal I would say. We were very lucky. Word to the wise, always hesitate and say it is too expensive...when it comes to German gyms anyway.
We also moved back into our old place which was kind of sad. The place looks amazing and clean. The mattresses have been replaced with nice, new ones which is good but it will be sad to go back to single beds. I shall miss our bathtub and Tassimo machine but the Tassimo will be most missed by Steph who will quickly fall into caffeine withdrawal. I wanted to ask if we could take it with us but Steph thinks that we shouldn't ask...

The Love Shack

This past week, Steph worked more than her usual "new" babysitting hours and so we would go out in the mornings to World Coffee and sit for a bit until she heads off to work. The employees at World Coffee defiantly recognize us now and so I think it is time to switch coffee shops. We also got The Sims 2 and so there have been many late nights spent on my laptop. In Düsseldorf, their spring is like our very hot Victoria summer and so we have been adapting to the heat. I quickly realized that I packed mostly for winter, which only lasted a month for us. Now we are in over twenty degree heat. I think we will get very brown. Turns out H&M is our Old Navy and has super cute, summery clothes for very cheap. This is good for Steph as she needs to wear something other than the track pants she packed. On Sunday, we decided to take advantage of the intense heat and head down to the "beach". The "beach" is really a bunch of sand patches by the Rhein. It turned out to be much better then expected. If you block your peripheral vision with your hands, you can pretend you are actually on a real beach. So we packed a picnic lunch, which turned out to be afternoon snacks, and headed down. Currently, The Düsseldorf Eurovision Song Contest (I think it is like American Idol but MUCH smaller) is causing us much grief. We needed to take the bus to the beach but the buses no longer go the same routes as before and go in a completely opposite direction. There are no signs or notices explaining this and so we have opted to only go to places we can reach on foot or by S-Bahn. As it turns out, these fake beaches are quite popular and they were almost completely full. One family was even having a barbecue on the beach. Steph and I tanned in the sun until two young German boys decided to start playing soccer near us. For fear of being hit in the face, we packed up and went home. It was the best Sunday we have had thus far in Deutschland.
The rain in Düsseldorf is the oddest thing ever. It will be very sunny and within five minutes, it will start lightly raining and within thirty seconds will be pouring buckets. In a fifteen minute walk home, we experience sun, heavy rain, and my second ever thunderstorm. It was pretty cool. There is supposed to be another thunderstorm this week.
Due to the Eurovision Fest, we have been temporarily kicked out of our apartment. There are people coming to see the finals and they have booked our place. We must be good tenants because our landlord has allowed us to stay in his Studio Apartment. We think he uses it for some storage and for when they have family over. One downside is that to get to our place, we have to go through part of his and so we can watch our landlord and his family play outside...only a little awkward. It is fully furnished but not quite something one could live in permanently. If I could combine the two apartments, we would truly have a perfect apartment. The bathroom is a big bathroom with a tub!!!! How I have missed taking bathes. Our beds our two comfy futons which is nicer than our two, hard-mattress single beds. We had to get up early this morning to move our stuff and what we saw in the apartment surprised us. The apartment decoration is stuck in the 60's and the colouring is red, white, and black. We have heart shaped lamps, pictures, crafts, magnets etc. The sheets are red and the kitchen accessories are red from kitchen chairs down to the utensils. We have a jukebox, an old arcade game, different 60's advertisments, a record player etc. Steph has named the apartment "The Love Shack" and has been singing the song all day...much to my annoyance. It is really nice as a temporary home but I miss our big kitchen with our oven. One of the downsides is that we are not sleeping alone. In two big, glass cupboards houses multiple antique dolls of all shapes and sizes and an assortment of stuffed animals. Kind of reminds me of one of those horror movies where the dolls come to life in the middle of the night and kill people...

Internet...Can't Live Without

This last week was a frustrating one for us. On Monday and Tuesday, we spent some time lounging around the house (since Monday was yet another all-German-stores-aren't-open day) We caught up on more Grey's Anatomy, House, and Desperate Housewives and on Wednesday morning, I was going to catch up on some of my Facebook messages when a big, blaring phrase "account blocked" popped up in my browser. The page was in full German and I was given four different numbers to call: 2 for Arcor(?) and the other two for Vodafone. I tried to fiddle around with it a bit but I couldn't get past the page, much less translate what the said page was telling me. So we opted to take our laptops to World Coffee and hope that our internet would be back on at home. World Coffee likes to masquerade under the false identity of "Free Wi-fi Zone" and so much to our frustration, you must pay to use their internet. 1 euro per hour doesn't seem like much but I refuse to encourage this day light robbery. I tried to hack into other W-Lans but I was unsuccessful. Steph went and paid the euro. Once home, we hoped that all would be restored but we were very, very wrong. This continued for the next four days. We went to tell our landlord and each time, he said it would be fixed. If we went up again to tell him it wasn't working, the door mysteriously wouldn't open. I had an apartment viewing early Saturday morning and so I was most frustrated with the internet problem. On Thursday,  Steph came home with some interesting news. Her "nanny-family" asked her how she thought the job was going. Steph said she liked it a lot but she didn't want to move in (a tiny issue) and her "nanny-parents" had already decided that they didn't really need to have an Au Pair after all. They really liked her and the girls liked her and so they want to keep her on as a babysitter three times a week. They are paying her a little bit more (around the same as a high paying Canadian babyitting job). Steph's "nanny-father" suggested we do some tutoring and gave us an ad in the Neuss paper for people who are looking specifically for English tutors. He even offered to put the ad in the paper himself. He is all for helping us which is super fantastic. We, of course, will do it ourselves but use him when necessary. On Saturday morning, we tried to find a coffee shop that would be open because Germans like to sleep in on Saturday mornings. Steph had the idea that Starbucks would be open in the morning so after a mini argument on the street, we headed to Altstadt Starbucks and, thankfully, it was open. I quickly wrote down the instructions and we headed out to Pempelfort which is only 5 minutes out of Düsseldorf's Downtown. The apartment was very nice but very small. The lady wanted us to pay the damage deposit and the four months rent all up front before she went to work in France. We were not down for that. Luckily, I received an email from her stating that she gave the apartment to some one who could speak German. After the apartment, Steph went to work and I went to home to clean. By Sunday, the internet was still not working and that was very frustrating. We spent most of the day out and about, wandering around all the closed stores in Alt Stadt. Then on Monday, when we arrived home, our internet was back on and it was glorious. We also discovered a bit of an apartment scam. We have discovered an number of ways to tell if the apartment ad is a scam:
Clue #1 - The English is really bad
Clue #2 - The person gives way too much information without you asking for it
Clue #3 - They are mysteriously out of town for some business trip for an extended period of time which is nearly always a bit longer than what you wanted to stay for.
Clue #4 - If they mention any postal service...don't even bother finishing the rest of the email.
Clue #5 - If the place seems to good to be true, it is.
Our particular "future landlord" claims to be a civil engineer who is currently in Cyprus who wants us to check out Moneybookers who will take care of the whole transaction. He also gave us the full address and Steph and I went to take a look to see if he really lives there...and surprise surprise, his name wasn't on there. Man, I hate those apartment scammers. They always dash my dreams...

A Weekend in Berlin

The Pretty View from our Jail Cell

Since it was Easter holidays and we were planning on having one of our German friends come down, Steph decided to book off Wednesday to Monday for holidays. The friend, however, didn't end up coming down and so we were left with a lot of booked off time and nothing to fill it with. Steph, not wanting to go back to work on Tuesday and announce that she didn't do anything in the booked off time, decided that we should go back to Berlin. So we quickly called up BaxPax, our last hostel, to get a room. Unfortunately for us, it was all full in the Downtown and the Mitte BaxPax. So sad. We failed to realize that it was the Easter Long Weekend and so many families and tourists are traveling and probably booked the hostel weeks in advance. So, with heavy hearts, we scoured the internet for other hostels in Berlin. Most of the hostels are fairly expensive and/or already booked and so our hunt continued. Finally, Steph found the International Youth Hostel of Berlin. It had space and the man on the phone told me it would only be 18 Euros a night including breakfast for each of us. For two nights, that is pretty darn good but the downside was sharing a room with ten other people! Not a big deal as we were really only there for sleeping. So on Friday, we headed down to the Hauptbahnhof. During the Easter long weekend, in Germany, the stores are only open on Saturday and closed for the rest of the holidays but not, thankfully, in the Hauptbahnhof. The DM (German equivalent to Shoppers Drug Mart) was open and so I went to buy earplugs. I figured that if we were sharing a room with ten other loud, boisterous teenagers, this may be a must. Then it was five hours to Berlin. We started watching Dirty Dancing but the laptop battery died and so we had to resort to making conversation...which quickly turned into listening to our iPods. Finally, we were home again. We arrived around dinner time so we thought we would find the hostel, drop our heavy backpacks and head out again. It took us a little while to find it but we had previously been around the Potsdam area and so we found the hostel fairly quickly. The hostel was a huge cement building with tiny windows.  The first words out of Steph' mouth, when we arrived at the building were: "OMG, it's a jail". As we got closer, a group of about six teenagers were walking in front of us. Our automatic thought was: "These are the party kids who will be keeping us awake until three in the morning". Steph wanted to turn around and find another hostel but we really had no other choice. We walked into a very nice lobby and to our left were computers, a cafeteria, a bar, a number of doors leading to the different rooms. We walked up to the desk and were told to fill out a form because we didn't have a membership. I thought it would be a good idea to put our German address as opposed to our Canadian one but I was sorely mistaken. The Sexy But Incompetent Youth informed us that if we had a German address, we must pay more for the membership...which we didn't know/want to have to buy. So it turns out the 18 dollars we were promised was actually 18 dollars, plus the membership, the stamps per night, the key deposit and the towels. Steph was infuriated that we had all these hidden costs but we had no choice but to pay them. Sexy But Incompetent Youth then directed us to the cage filled with linen and pillow cases and instructed us to make our own beds. Feeling very uneasy about this whole mess, we slowly climbed the stairs in much trepidation of what we would find in our dorm. We walked in and were greeted by a older man with long, straggly locks and glasses whose name was Mark. We quickly found out that he was there with his daughter/girlfriend Salmon Pants. She wore the beastly-est tight, salmon coloured pants and had a perm. Steph says that it was sad to see such a nice girl living with such a tragedy. The relationship of Mark and Salmon Pants is still unknown. Steph and I were fortunate enough to get bunk beds next to the window, excluded from the rest of the room. There were two showers and a bathroom which were in the room which was a nice change from the last room we stayed in in BaxPax. After throwing our stuff in the lockers, we headed out to Oranienburger Straße which is our favourite street in Berlin...or the one we spent most of our time on. We enjoyed looking at the changes that occurred since we were last there. In February, I promised Steph that we could go to a Thai food restaurant for dinner but we never ended up going. Steph has held onto this promise and so we went to a little cute one by Oranium. It has a couple tables outside but the restaurant in underground...very cute. We were greeted by Metrosexual Thai Man With Style and Thai Girls With Short Skirts. It's food was very delicious. We are never skimped when it comes to food in Germany. The only problem with that is that we need to finish our plate or else we cause offense. Sometimes this is a very difficult feat especially when one has no men around to help. After dinner, we walked by Oranium to see if we could spy some of our old waiters. As we approached, we saw the tall, sexy body and the sexy smile of Sexy Florian. Our hearts melted in the street. After walking around and seeing all our old "hang outs" such as the 24/7 mini-market, we headed back to the hostel. After being inside our room for about five minutes, we quickly realized that we were sharing a room with Friendly Grunges. Most of them were smelly and thought that showers were an unnecessary part of personal hygiene. They were, however, very friendly and we received many smiles and hellos. In our last hostel, we had free internet access and just needed to ask for a new code every 24 hours and we assumed this one would be the same...we were sorely mistaken. Sexy But Incompetent informed us that the only W-Lan (Wi-Fi) they had was on the computers downstairs and pointed to the list of extremely over-priced prices. I, refusing to support this daylight robbery, decided to steal W-Lan from some other source or at least attempt to hack into theirs. I was unsuccessful in the hacking but I did find "AP- Potsdamer Platz", a public wi-fi. I was overjoyed by this finding but upon further inspection, Steph discovered that most sites are forbidden and streaming video is very slow. I never knew I could appreciate our crappy, slow internet until I discovered "AP-Potsdamer Platz". After an unsuccessful attempt at watching Grey's Anatomy, we headed to bed.

The next day, we discovered that some hostel guests are very open. Steph walked out the bathroom and was face to face with the Israeli woman standing stark naked in the room even though there were other men were around, one being her husband. Also, none of the Grungies liked to shower in the mornings and so we had both bathrooms to ourselves. Afterward, we headed out to Oranium again to have our usual breakfast. There was only one waitress we recognized who we are unsure whether she recognized us. It was lovely to fall back into our old tradition. Afterward, we headed over to Alexanderplatz because there was an Easter Market going on. The flats I was wearing were starting to hurt my toes so we went into New Yorker to find me some flip flops. I admit that this is probably not the shoes I should be wearing when walking all day but it was better than getting more blisters. Steph found some cute jean capris and then we continued our shopping excursion into the Alexa mall. Steph then found some cute shorts so now she has something more summer-y to wear than the pants that she brought. The weather is very hot here. I believe it was 25 degrees though it felt hotter. Steph had an old work friend who just moved to Berlin and so we met up with her later in the afternoon. The market was very cool. It had a giant beer garden in the middle, a mini bungee-jump-off-trampolines for children, a merry-go-round, and a number of different shops selling everything from clothes and jewelry to sausage and cheese to cotten candy and wooden trinkets. Lucky for Steph, there was a crepe stand. The last time she was able to have a crepe was during Karneval so she couldn't control herself. She got her typical Nutella and Cherry and ordered me an Eggnog and Nutella crepe. The lady serving looked at Steph and asked if she was 18. Steph, caught off guard, panicked and said: "Yes...Oh wait, no. I'm..uh..um..ninnnne...teen. Uh Nineteen." This did not seem to persuade the woman of her true age and so she asked for ID as I killed myself laughing in the background. The Eggnog did not taste like the Canadian Island Farms I was expecting and it was the most repulsive thing I have tasted. It was like eating pure rum that numbs your mouth. I also hate rum so I ended up squeezing the "eggnog" out and eating the Nutella instead. Alexanderplatz is a big square surrounded by tall buildings of different shops, restaurants and businesses. There is this one glass skyscraper on one of the sides of the square and they were free-falling people off it (with bungee cords of course). It was very neat to see but you have to not have a fear of heights to be able to do it. After wandering around a bit longer, we headed back to Oranium to show Steph's co-worker our favourite restaurant. As she had only been in Berlin for a week, we needed to show her where to eat. In the

spring/summer, all the restaurants have "patios" which consist of blocking out most of the sidewalk for the tables and causing crowds of pedestrians to walk in the street if there are more than three people walking. We opted to try sitting outside, a phenomena that we can't really do in Victoria due to the bugs but this is not the case in Berlin. There are essentially no bugs and it is sometimes too hot to eat inside. There was a soccer game on and so most of the people who were inside were not there to eat. Steph and I were very disappointed to see that none of our favourites were there. We proceeded to tell Steph's co-worker all about our times in the hostels, Oranium, and Germans in general. By the time we got out of the restaurant, we had been there for about four to four and a half hours. By the second hour, we saw Sexy Florian, serving the tables closer to the street. I mentally kicked myself for not sitting in the middle of the outside tables instead of the closest to the inside. He came over to watch the game or stand with his back to Steph pretending not to recognize us, no doubt. He was working after all and once he started talking to us, he probably couldn't stop. That is our story and we are sticking to it. It was a very enjoyable evening full of sexual comments focused only on Sexy Florian. Our night in the hostel was spent almost exactly the same as before and we were asleep before eleven.
We decided that we would try out the breakfast in the morning to see what it was like. Steph was fearing the deli meat, cheese and buns meal that Germans love to have and so I was sent downstairs to investigate. There were two buffet tables and the first was filled with, you guessed it, meats, cheese and buns. The second was cereal and some fruit. We opted for Oranium again. As we were having our last meal in Berlin, again, the waitress who served us from our previous trip came over and said "Ah, you girls are back again!". Turns out many of the older waiters were "let go" including our favourite Susie, and new ones were added. I was sad to hear Susie was gone and tried to hide my relief that Sexy Flo was still working there. As we left, she said she hoped to see us again. Very cute. So we headed back to Düsseldorf and as much as it is nice to be in our real German home, it sure was nice to be back to our original.

Lego Giraffe In Potsdamer Platz

Short Days, Long Nights

This week has been a fairly uneventful one. Steph has been working most of the week to make up for the six days off she will have over the Easter long weekend. Once again, when she comes home, we stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then sleep in. We ventured down to Altstadt only once this week. There was a group of boys doing break-dancing or something like that and it was gathering quite a crowd. We came at the tail end of it which was too bad. They started up again as we were leaving but we didn't stay to watch. Another favourite pastime of ours is to go to Steph's favourite coffee shop: World Coffee. Steph has become quite enamored with one of the men who works there and so she must go there every day to see him. I am only guessing here, but I believe that since we go there everyday and we are probably the only people who order in English that we are very recognizable. One of the girl baristas started up a conversation with Steph on our third day in a row. I think they like the opportunity to practice their English. We discovered on day four that we are not the only regulars at World Coffee. Steph's Sexy World Coffee Man comes in on his days off to sit and study. Steph watches him and tends to stop paying attention to the conversation at hand. This continued until one unfortunate day when he walked beside her and she discovered that he is only an inch taller than her. I think he lost a few points with her but she still insists on going everyday. After our coffee, we head home and Steph goes to her nannying and I start my studying. I have decided to incorporate German television into my studies and have nightly shows that I watch during the week. On Tuesday, I watch The Simpons and a little bit of Two and a Half Men. Wednesday is Grey's Anatomy and Thursday is Germany's Next Top Model. Friday night is game show night. I watch Who Wants To Be a Millionaire which is very annoying to watch because the host believes he is super funny when he's not. Even the contestants get irritated with him. My favourite is Die Perfekte Minute. It is a very strange game show where there are two contestants on a team (they aren't competing with other people though) and they have to do a task in one minute. The tasks are very strange. There was one where the contestant had post-its stuck to her back and arms and she had to shake them off without touching them and keeping her arms straight. In another one, the contestant had to roll a golf ball down a paper towel roll into a basket on the other end of the table. Another one had the contestant blow cocktail umbrellas out of a straw and get them to land in the champagne glass with the umbrella facing down. They look super difficult but it is fun to watch.
Unfortunately, our apartment is being rented out for Europafest and so we will be unable to stay. Our landlord gave us the option of moving into the next apartment while "ours" is rented out and then move back in when the festival is done. We decided to look at more apartments for the time being before taking him up on his offer. It looks like most apartment owners will keep the place furnished as long as you pay 500 to 1400 Euros for it (that is the least and most we have seen) on top of the damage deposit etc. Fully furnished, we are discovering, are very hard to come by. Yesterday I found the perfect apartment. It is fully furnished, in the middle of Düsseldorf, nice furniture, big windows etc. but it is only available in September because the owner has to go abroad. It was very sad. We are going to keep an eye on it. So far the apartment hunting has not been very successful but we do love the apartment we are in so I think we will end up staying, which isn't the worst thing by any means. I would like to move into a smaller apartment closer in town but I think that will be very hard to come by.

I'm Going to Pop You One in the Chops

Since the Sunday that Stephanie started her job, our weeks have become the same. Steph is picked up by her family at 4pm and I start my studies. At 10, Steph comes home and we spend a good few hours watching tv or cleaning up the apartment. As a result, we sleep in longer to account for the late hours we stay up at night. During the day, before Steph's work, I like to watch The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother auf Deutsch. It is interesting...even if I don't understand: The voices are much less annoying. Very soap opera-ish. My biggest fear is learning German via Big Bang Theory and end up speaking like Sheldon Cooper ;) Stephanie get Sunday and Monday off and so we took advantage of the spare time. It is too bad that she doesn't get another week day off because there is absolutely nothing to do on Sundays. So we decided to spend the day resting in bed and catching up on the season finales we are missing. Monday, we went out into the German world! Steph wanted to get her eyebrows done and so we headed over to Senzera: Bodylicious waxing and booked an appointment. Steph also needed to replenish her M.A.C supplies so we headed over to the only M.A.C store in Düsseldorf. We walked in and the Redhead-Witch came over to help us. She didn't speak much English so Steph kindly told her that she knew what she wanted. She headed over to the shelves with products and Redhead Witch yelled at her to get away from there and that the sample products where over on the other table. After a little confusion, Steph just told her what number she needed...and of course they were out. Young Asian Worker told us that there was a M.A.C counter in Altstadt in one of the stores. Steph was very frustrated that "All the Germans were as pasty pale as I am and take all the good foundation". So we wandered across town to try there. Luckily, they had the exact one. Afterwards, Steph needed to buy a bus pass and so we stopped in the subway station to buy one. Oddly enough, they didn't take Visa, only cash...even though they had a visa/debit machine. So we had to run over to the cash machine. After, we wanted to bask in the sun down by the Rhein. I found a German site that explains some of the German grammar and one of the sentences was "I am going to pop you one in the chops" which we repeated over and over. As we were walking, there were two Germans men walking behind us. They were walking behind us for about ten minutes and nine of those minutes we were talking about "popping one in the chops". I would like to pause for a second and try to figure out what was going on in their brains: They have two ENGLISH speaking females walking in front of them, and so they must think of the most interesting/sexy thing they could say in a second language to attract their attention. One of the German men (the sexy one by the way) came up with this one-liner: "Hey girls! Where's the sun?". We turned around and turned into Japanese School Girls and fell into a fit of giggles. His friend made fun of our laugh and that was the end of that. We repeated that wonderful line all day and tried to figure out how he thought that was a good pick up line. Got to give the man credit for trying. So we sat for a while and then we walked across town for Steph to get her eyebrows waxed. She always enjoys trying to talk to the German ladies because their English is very limited. We walked over to World Coffee but it was closing, we hadn't realized it has gotten so late. So we headed to the grocery store before it closed. I have discovered that all cheese is very cheap in Germany. I bought quite a bit of Edam cheese for 59 cents. Very surprising! So we bought a bunch of fruit and restocked our cupboard. We had currywurst again for dinner and then Grey's Anatomy to finish off the night. Now it is Tuesday, the beginning of our week, and so we are starting our cycle again. Unfortunately, we have discovered our apartment has an ant infestation. They are crawling through the grating in the bathroom and they crawl under the floor. We have discovered ant repellent and so I think our landlord knew about this problem before...Hmm

A Simple Sunday

Over the last couple of days has been our preparation for the changes that are going to be coming up. Elise and I are supposed to be moving out on May 10 so we have been searching for an apartment, we did though message our land lord and asked of the possibility of extending our stay since we did see an advertisement up for him renting out the apartment for June onwards. He has not yet gotten back to us which worries us a bit. If we don't end up extending it won't be the worst thing since we were discussing the idea of finding a cheaper place. I officially started my job yesterday and will be working Tuesday-Saturday five hours per day. Even though it was a Sunday it was more a "bond with the family time" rather than actually working. I thought finding my way on my own would be no problem since Elise and I did it once before without any worries but this time it was different. The bus all have their numbers but the bus I take has three different routes under the same number and confuses me and not to mention that I am very DSL and the bus drivers do not speak a word of English. I tried to ask one of the buses drivers but it didn't get me very far. I must have been looking confused and upset because, a guy came over and tried to help me. He talked to a couple bus drivers and finally we found a bus going in my direction. He told me he would take the same bus and see that I don't get lost. Luckily his bus pass was good for two people so I didn't have to pay. I was worried that I was going to be late because of the bus confusion but luckily I arrived at my stop in more than plenty of time to get their on time unfortunately I took a wrong turn on my way there so I ended up being about 10 minutes late. The family had prepared a lovely set up of tea and cake on their back yard patio. After a lovely snack in the sun, we headed over to the park. The children we not yet comfortable with me so they weren't that enthusiastic to play with the non German speaking girl who keeps watching them but a few hours later despite our language differences I was their new friend. I didn't get back my side of Dusseldorf until about 9:45 where Elise happily met me at the S-bahn station. In my absence she cleaned our apartment spotless, washed and folded our laundry and studied up on her German; since I did not notice that Elise had changed the table cloth. I was awarded title of "ungrateful husband who comes home from work and doesn't take time to notice the little pleasant changes".

Köln Cologne Köln

After our few days of recovering from laziness, we decided to join the German world once more. Yesterday, we stayed in bed most of the day and watched Grey's Anatomy and cleaned around the house a bit. I have discovered a German channel that plays most of the sitcoms, like Big Bang Theory and Scrubs, that we have but in German. I enjoy watching them and listening to the voice changes. Germans sound much sexier and not as annoying. Every day is a different show and so it is kind of nice to have that little bit of home mixed in with the language we should be learning. After my show, we ventured out to the Rhein as it was a very warm, sunny day. It was the first time since we came to Germany that we didn't need to wear our coats. We sat down on the grass by the Rhein and got some much needed Vitamin D. As we sat, we were stared down by a Turk gang. They would each in turn, turn around to look at us as they walked by. A couple minutes later, we were interrupted by some German LBs (Little Boys) who thought that screeching at the top of their lungs and smiling at us was the best way to get the internationals attention. Steph was lucky enough to have the LB with the reverse mullet. He liked to turn around every minute or so and get another good look at Steph. Very funny. We also decided to make my Oma's very famous Boterkoek. It is an almond cake that is kind of like a brownie but harder...very delicious. We went to the store and Steph spent almost half an hour trying to find Almond Extract. She even enlisted the help of a Stock Boy but to no avail. Germans must not have a need for almond extract or any extract for that matter. Disheartened by this turn of events, we put our plans of baking on hold...until we got into World Coffee. As we were sitting, Steph spied some of the syrups they had on sale and one of them was almond. They only had it in a large size but we figured we could use the syrups in my coffee as well. Not a problem. So we headed home to make it. Unfortunately, we didn't put enough syrup in and it tasted like butter and, quoting Stephanie here, "It was hard, mushy, not cooked and stale. It was disgusting". So the only logical thing to do was to leave the pan on the counter all night for the Boterkoek to stick to the pan, making it impossible to clean. Today, being one of Steph's last free days, was spent in Köln. The minute we stepped off the S-Bahn into the Hauptbahnhof, we knew we loved it. It was almost like Berlin, it felt kind of like home again. Home being Berlin of course. We had decided that we were going to go to the Schokoladenmuseum of Lindt. It was so neat! The Museum has this mini Rain forest. There is a door that opens to this tiny room and you can't get out until the next door opens (which only opens when the previous door is shut). The Rain Forest felt like Mexico all over again. Steph thought her face was melting off, it was so humid. The next level had all the factory machines and they show you exactly how it is all made. It was really cool. The top floor was all history. It was a very neat museum. They have a cafe and a gift shop (which is full of chocolate, of course) and it was a very big building. After a walk down the Rhein in Köln, which was very enjoyable, we headed more into the shop part. It felt like we were in Paris because there were so many souvenir stores. Steph bought herself a Beer Stein which was only 18.95 euros and that is the cheapest we have seen it. We found a puppet that sings in one of the shops and it sang Usher's Yeah. It was very funny. A couple of German girls were singing along...very cute. Afterward, we headed the hour back to Düsseldorf and had Currywurst for dinner. Probably will be an early evening for us full of our new favourite pass time: Word Challange.

A Day of Rest to Recover From a Day of Rest

Oh the Sundays and Mondays of Deutschland! They rate top on the list of the most boring days of the week. Sundays, Elise and I wear pajamas all day and have marathons of Grey's Anatomy while snacking on our most favourite chocolate, milka. So you would think when Monday rolls around and everything is back up and booming in town we would take full advantage, but this is not the case. We take this extra day to continue to be lazy so we may recover from the ultimate day of laziness from the day before. We indeed cannot be as lazy as Sunday though so we did make a slight effort to go out for a little while. Elise and I decided to head out to Ikea for a little look around since that is one of Elise's most favourite places and I have to say I do quite enjoy it as well. The ticket machine at the train station seemed to be broken but we decided to take our luck and hope the the machine on the train would be just fine. We hopped in one of the ends of the train and to our displeasure the machine was out of service; it seems like most of the time the ticket machines are out of service in Germany. We quickly hopped off and ran to a different section of the train. We almost didn't make it but then a nice German guy half put his body in the door way so we would make it. Ikea wasn't as great as we expected, it was still excellent but it must have been half the size of the one in Vancouver so we were slightly disappointed. Elise and I decided that this evening we would do some baking so we picked up a banking pan and also another pillow for myself since mine is pretty crappy. On our way home we stopped at the grocery store, Real, so we could pick up the ingredients to make boterkoek. Two things I hate about German grocery stores, is firstly everything is impossible to find and secondly selection can be quite limited. The baking section was the worst. There was a million different kinds of canned milk but hardly any baking ingredients. They did not have almond extract or any extracts for that matter. I don't even know how Germans bake. We never found any so we could not bake this evening which is what I had been looking forward to, possibly tomorrow. Instead we cut up a baguette had it Camembert cheese and tomatoes or Nutella. We ate and enjoyed the rest of our night watching Grey's Anatomy once again.

German Shopping Survival 101

Our lives have slowed down quite a bit since we have come to Düsseldorf. In Canada, our lives were so very busy preparing for Germany and once in Berlin, we were trying to pack everything into two weeks. Now that we are in Düsseldorf, we have all the time in the world (it feels like) and so we take it one day at a time. We relax and enjoy our stay which is very nice but also makes for a boring blog. We woke up late yesterday and spent the day in our pajamas. I have a courier package arriving and so we spent the day waiting for it...we needn't have bothered. The package never arrived and so we wasted the day. I had another dinner with my Au Pair family that night and so I left Steph to her own devices for a couple hours. Since my Au Pair family eats very late, they also stay out late. 10:30 at night is still an appropriate hour to have guests over. I felt rude telling them I needed to catch a train home right away but I was falling asleep at their house...not a very good impression. They had a previous au pair come for dinner as well. She is from Winnipeg and so we immediately became friends. I believe that when Canadians meet other Canadians in a different country, you automatically have a safety net/personal connection. We had a very nice chat about the family and our lives in Germany. She came here as an au pair for 11 months and then came back on a traveler's visa and is trying for a work visa. She is very nice and easy to talk to. As it turns out, the au pair with the family fell through. That is alright. Instead, I shall spend a couple weeks learning the language through my school and then apply at my highest calling: Starbucks in Germany. Today, we went grocery shopping. We hadn't done any grocery shopping in a few days and so we were scraping the bottom of the barrel for food. It felt so nice to be able to have food in the cupboard again. We bought some more fruit and so I shall have to cut up the pineapple once more for Steph. Hopefully it will all get eaten this time. I have discovered that there is a reputation about Canadians. Everyone says we are so polite and easily manipulated...this has never been clearer to me until grocery shopping in Germany. There is no time to ask someone to move in Germany, you just roll your cart right over them. A tall German man mowed me down with his cart in the seasonings aisle. It is also customary for two people to stick their carts side by side, blocking the entire aisle with said carts and not moving for anyone until they are done examining every last ingredient on the food item. It is also customary for people who have only a few items to budge in front of people with more than 5 items. Some German woman budged right in front of us, said something about us having too many items, then turned around with a fake sweet face and thanked us! I was appalled. We tried to switch lines but then another German woman speed up and pushed her cart in front of us again only to move to a different line five minutes later. Maybe Canadians are too polite for the rest of the world. That or I need to grow a backbone. After putting away the groceries, we sat and had some lunch at our dining room table for the first time ever. It was much nicer to sit and talk instead of shoving food in our faces in front of the tv. It was a nice sunny day, the first in quite a few days, and so we went for a walk into town. Steph has found her new favourite hang out: World Coffee. She loves to go in and buy her White Chocolate Wocochino. I feel like we are betraying Oranium. It consists of the white chocolate coffee-mocha drink with whipped cream in a glass. It is very good. After that we went home and enjoyed a lovely German meal of Currywurst. We continued to watch our Grey's Anatomy as the storyline gets much better as the seasons go on. We had wanted to spend our "Sunday In Deutschland" baking as I wanted to make Boterkoek to celebrate our moving in but we forgot the ingredients of course. 
 

Rebel Children with No Manners

Today was an early morning wake up for us, well mainly Elise. After waking up at 7 we headed into the living room for about ten minutes before I decided to head back to bed and Elise decided to continue staying awake and playing spinnicles, a game I will never understand why she finds it fun. I was definitely in the mood for a good piece of toast that morning but after opening up and examining the cupboards and fridge I realized our groceries had become pretty scarce; understandable though since we hadn't done a good grocery shopping job in awhile. My breakfast ended up consisting of two mini oranges and a piece of chocolate. Today was the day that I was to meet the family interested in me becoming their au pair, so I had been nervous for the last day or so and continued to be nervous all day. After catching up on the latest House episode and watching a hilarious episode of family guy, I started to plan out how to get to their house. The family did offer to pick me and Elise up but I decided it would probably be better if we made our own way there. The family wanted us to meet them at their house at five so there wasn't too much time since I had woken up at 11 but we figured we could fit in a drink at our new little favourite coffee shop, World Coffee. The service isn't great but the drinks are quite excellent. We decided to catch the bus back home since we had been running short on time. There was no ticket machine at the stop but since we have discovered they have one on the bus we need not worry that is if the machine isn't out of service, unfortunately this was our case. Elise and I only made it one stop then we hopped off the bus, we were too concerned about being caught ticket-less again. We raced home, only to grab the instructions and then race to the S-bahn station. As we were sitting on the bench some boys across the tracks were hiding behind a sign smoking, they couldn't have been over 13 years of age. Elise and I were repulsed. The boys were little brats, they were yelling at people at the station and attempting to throw rocks at us. Luckily for us their throws only made is about halfway across the tracks. As Elise and I were just about to board the train, I took a last glance at the boys only to witness one of the boys scream "Hail Hitler" and give the salute. We were sickened.
The dinner went pretty well. The house they lived in was pretty large and newly renovated. The children are adorable, they don't speak any English but I still believe they will warm up to me pretty easily. The parents are extremely nice people. The hours seemed a little longer than I wanted to do but the dinner was only a meet the family dinner, the actual business talk would come later. The father was nice enough to drive us home afterward which we were glad about so we didn't make it home too late. We only watched one episode of Grey's Antomy and headed to bed.

Seafood Onion Rings

In our apartment, the floors are very creaky and loud when you step on them. As a result, Stephanie wakes up, and visa versa, whenever I get out of bed. I rarely sleep in and so this has cut into her sleeping pattern quite a bit. Today, I, in a vain attempt at giving Stephanie some more sleep, forced myself to stay in bed. I was able to sleep for most of the morning until the pillow on my head was unceremoniously thrown from me, exposing the light through the window. Steph thought I had left and "needed to check". So we were up early once more. We had bought a bag of mini Pain au Chocolat and have been faithfully eating them for breakfast. Much cheaper than buying them from a bakery but not as delicious. I checked my email and it turns out that I got the Au Pair job. One less stress for sure. We decided to watch some of our German cable as well for more German immersion. I watched the news for a good half hour and then Steph joined me for Schön und Reich, a German Soap Opera. I find it a lot easier to understand the German in soaps than the news, obviously. I wanted to take a trip to Ikea today as I discovered where it is but Steph had to do her laundry first. Normally, laundry takes about an hour to an hour and a half to do it at home but this is not the case in Germany. It takes about two hours per machine. We never actually got to go to Ikea. We wanted to get out and about anyway so we went to leave but we couldn't find our keys. After half an hour of searching for the keys in every inch of our apartment, Steph made a startling discovery: The keys were underneath her purse that she had thrown on the counter previously. What a relief. I was thinking up different scenarios of how I would tell our landlord that we lost both keys to his house and our apartment...in our apartment. After solemnly swearing we would keep the keys in my purse at all times, we were able to do our walk...which landed us in World Coffee. This coffee shop had it's menu in half English and half German and sold Hersey's Cookies and Cream chocolate bars (my favourite). It is a cute little place that is fairly inexpensive when compared to Starbucks. For dinner we decided to have Currywurst again because it is so delicious. Steph thought it would be nice to have onion rings with it as a one time treat. We picked out a bag but couldn't see the price of it. We decided to splurge a bit and buy it no matter how expensive. We were shocked to see that it was 9 euros for a bag and not even a big bag at that. We went home and Google Translated the instructions on the back. Turns out we had bought Squid Rings instead of onion rings. Now that I look back, perhaps we should have known because a) we bought it from the seafood section b) it had a lobster as a logo and c) 9 euros for onion rings? I felt pretty stupid afterward. It tasted like Calamari and it was so good so I didn't mind. After watching Date Night, we decided to go to bed early so we can be fully rested for Steph's job interview tomorrow.

Disciplinary Omas

Once again another average day waking up in our little apartment in Dusseldorf, the sun was shinning and we sat and ate our breakfast while watching some Grey's Anatomy. One of the job offers for the Au Pair was to be in Duisburg, a neighboring city of Dusseldorf an approximate commute of 20 minutes. To Germans that seems like a lot but to us Canada folk seems like no time at all especially if you have to go into town for work. On our way out of the house we grabbed our garbage to drop off in the bin and our bottles for return. Elise and I have been feeling quite confident with ourselves about living a German life... well I guess we haven't been following the way of German exactly. As soon as I started putting the garbage in the can, a little old German lady who had just stopped and got off her bike started yelling at us in German... we were terrified.... the only thing that I could say was  "English... English". The woman in awkward bad English and hand gestures started showing us that we weren't recycling properly. She actually seemed mortally offended by our garbage. We of course apologized and told her it would not happen again. She smiled and then ended the conversation by stating that Garbage is heavy for the men... what ever that is supposed to mean :P. As Elise and I turned our backs away from her we debated the idea of her contacting our land lord to tell him of the incident but then we decided that would just be childish and ridiculous for her to do that. It didn't take us very long to drop off the bottles and I needed to stop at home before we took our little trip down to Duisburg. When we were leaving again, we caught that little childish ridiculous woman red handed, telling on us to the land lord! We decided to show her up one and walk over to show her how courageous we are. The land lord wasn't angry but we apologized anyways. He also brought up the fact that we hang blankets in the windows. He then told us blinds are on the out side of the window and we can close those instead of hanging blankets... we were pretty embarrassed.
At the train station to Dusseldorf Elise received a call from another family interested in her, they wanted to set up a meeting with her that evening. So our trip to Duisburg was much shorter than expected, basically we hopped on the train rode it there and then literally got right back on the next one back home. On the train ride home I decided it was a good idea to rest my feet on the seat across from me. Because the train was pretty bare I did not see any harm in it since I wasn't hogging a seat from somebody. Once again an unacceptable thing in the German culture... a little old lady walked by and decided to discipline me with by speaking German and pointing at my feet, she was smiling but I could tell she was secretly frowning. From what I am understanding, Germans like to get mad and smile at you at the same time. Elise had a wonderful meeting with the family, the daughter is such a doll and they told Elise they would get back to her by Wednesday... so fingers crossed! We made it home pretty late since the meeting was quite long so we only managed to watch half a episode of Grey's Anatomy before heading off to bed. All together it was a good day despite our minor incidents; eventually we will get the hang of everything. :D

Another Sunday In Deutschland

Yet again, another lazy Sunday in Deutschland. I am starting to think that perhaps these Germans have the right idea. You have a day where you are forced to stay home and do absolutely nothing. If Stephanie and I worked all week and shopped on Saturdays, it might be really nice to have this but this, however, is not the case. As we have pretty relaxed days of shopping and site-seeing, our weeks do not demand a day of rest. In any case, we stayed in our pajamas all day and watched more Grey's Anatomy. I have discovered German flashcards on my new Learning German site and so we also spent a good portion of the day doing those. It is really good as they show you the word and then only speak the word and then ask you to spell it out. Kind of like a Rosetta Stone. It is really excellent. Trying our hardest to "fit in" in the German culture, we decided to buy Beck's...big mistake! We had bought one regular and one gold one. It was the worst beer I have ever tasted (not that I have tried many before) and so we are too afraid to open up the other bottle we bought. Good thing beer is cheap here. We decided to create a profile on an Au Pair website to get our foot in the door for more jobs. We set me up with a profile first and so we spent a good hour doing that. An hour or so after the profile was set up, I received a call from a woman in Duisburg, a neighboring city, and so I set up an appointment with her for later in the week. Feeling very excited about the potential job, we had a celebratory Chili Vodka shot which we almost spit out. Afterward, we decided to stretch our legs a little bit and walk around our neighborhood. There isn't much to see as it is mostly residential. Walks are much more enjoyable here than in Berlin as the weather is much warmer. I stopped at the corner store (miraculously open) and picked up some juice. I tried to do the whole thing in German and succeeded but at the end, the man asked me if I was from Holland. My roots must be shining through...in my German? I'm not too sure whether it is better to have your accent, when speaking German, be from another European country or North America. Once home, we threw on another episode and then I received another call from another family who is interested in me. It was a very exciting day. Two job offers in one day! Who could resist that? Over all, it was a very good Sunday in Deutschland.

Blood Shot Burning Raccoon Eyes

Saturday seems to be the most busiest days of the week in Germany, since everything is closed on Sunday and school children and the older working crowd "typically" work Monday to Friday that leaves only one day of the week to go out in the city and shop... Saturday.
After a waking up from a very restful sleep Elise and I made ourselves some breakfast and turned on an episode of Grey's Anatomy. We have caught up on all episodes of My favourite, House, and  Elise's favourtie Grey's Anatomy and have finally gotten sick of watching so much Family Guy so we now are starting to watch Grey's Anatomy from the very start. Elise and I decided since we never did or really accomplish anything yesterday, thus no blog, we should really go out and do something today. We grabbed our coat and scarves and headed out to old town since we love it down there. This time going down we had to walk, since there is no where that we know of that sells tram tickets and not wanting to risk the police, we walked. 45 minutes later we made it, streets were crowed full of people but into the cobble stone streets full of hustle and bustle we entered. We only window shopped and people watched since this did seem like the best day to do that due to fact that money is limited until we can find employment and that fact that there are just so many people, not watch them would be issuing me a challenge. After getting enough of the crowds we wandered down to the Rhine, it seems to be a custom down there to climb over the safety fence and sit on the edge of the walk way beside the Rhine. So after Elise coaxing me against my fears of randomly tumbling off ledges to my death/heights that is exactly what we did, dangled our feet above the water like the rest of the Germans. After a half hour of talking, enjoying the scenery and watching the crazy skidoer in the water we headed home. We decided it was probably the best to buy a ticket for the bus so we headed down to bahn station to pick up a pass. We were stumped by the ticket machine, it was super ghetto and had no option for language selection like the one in Berlin so after a few minutes of conversing and looking confused a nice woman at the machine next to us gave us a hand. In the end we decided to not worry about a pass but to just buy one ticket home and we would deal with the pass later. After a good meal of tortellini we decided to get ready for bed, I was pleased because we had bought make up remover that after noon and I had been sick and tired of looking like a raccoon. I bought the one with pads with solution already on it to make it easier. I took one out of the package and rapidly rubbed it on my eye. It only took less than a few seconds for the burning to kick in, I screamed out of pain and hurriedly threw water on my face trying to flush out my eye, I yelled at Elise to Google translate the packaging of the make up remover. I look up in the mirror, my mascara and eye liner smudged all around my eye, and my pupils blood shot; My eyes were blood shot burning raccoon eyes. I had not been rubbing eye make up remover on my eyes but nail polish remover instead, I really need to be learning German a little more.

Elise and Stephanie : German Criminals

It was another cloudy, rainy day in Dusseldorf. Steph and I were especially tired today. We rolled out of bed, watched House, and then crawled back into bed for a quick snooze. Today was not a day we were going to do something special. After much back and forth conversation consisting of: "We should probably go soon" "Yeah" and then continuing House. It must have been something in the weather because we were very tired. After eventually kicking ourselves out of the house, we decided to walk around and try and find a mall. Instead of a mall, we found a street full of very expensive stores. We wanted to look in the likes of Chanel, Hugo Boss, and Louis Vuitton but they seemed to be the type of stores you go in when you want to actually buy something. So we stood outside and eye-shopped, reassuring ourselves that one day we would be rich enough to buy something from there. I think that Europe is all about the fancy shopping stores that no one can afford. We continued to walk around until Steph realized that her eyebrows "were bushes" and needed them waxed. We wandered around until we found Senzera, bodylicious waxing. It seems to be a chain in Germany as we have found three of them in Dusseldorf and one in Berlin. Once we found it, we walked in and waited fifteen minutes for someone to come down the stairs to serve us. Lucky for us, we got the woman who spoke almost no English. Another joy of not knowing the language of the country you currently live in. After our half German half English conversation, Steph's appointment was booked and we went to Starbucks to celebrate...and kill an hour. Steph noticed that Starbucks is hiring and as working at Starbucks in Germany is my highest calling, I considered dropping off my resume. After Steph's appointment, we went to the grocery store to pick up some veggies and Joghurt mit der Ecke, which is my new favourite thing in the world. It is yogurt cup with a something with it. I like the chocolate crisp ones the best but they also have berries to go with it as well. Very delicious. Then we hopped on the bus and after two minutes, we had a man with a weird ticket printer in hand, asking us where our tickets were. I panicked and pretended I had forgotten it at home and so we would get off the bus. This was not allowed. The man then continued to speak in German to us, but we didn't understand. He then called his friend over to speak to us. He told us to pay 40 euros, which we both paid half of and then said that that was only for one person. We didn't have anymore money and so we told him we would go to the bank for him. This also was not allowed. He told us "40 euro or Polizei". We were panicking so much and then he told us to get off the train with him. We stood in the bus stop and he told Steph that I was going to jail and that she would come later with the money to get me out. Steph begged him to let her go in my place as she is so terrible with directions. This was not allowed. He kept saying "No, your friend go. You come later". His English was very bad and broken. Then he went to his other friends and they spoke German for a bit and he printed out a receipt for us. He said, we think, that he would wave the other 40 Euros but we must go get a pass right away. We thanked him profusely and got out of there as fast as we could. We couldn't believe our luck. Steph didn't really want to be put in the German Criminal Records and I didn't want to have to bail her out of jail with more non-English speaking men. We arrived home feeling very shaken and very relieved. We decided to make curry for dinner with some of the tofu we bought. Tofu is also one of the things that taste different here but not in a good way. The dinner was still pretty good anyway. Once we had gotten over the shock of our almost jail time, we laughed about almost being put in German prison. I wonder if I would have had a jail cell...or been stuck there overnight with all the other people who ride buses without paying...Still wondering as to why I had to go to jail instead of Steph when we both paid the same amount of money to Balding Turk...

Rain Rain Go Away...

It was our first rainy afternoon in Dusseldorf and our first real rainy day in Deutschland. The sky was dreary and the rain pounded the pavement and for the first time since we have arrived in this country we just stayed in. Elise made a pot of coffee and I made myself a piece of toast. We curled up on the couch with our food and drinks in our nice warm blankets and pjs and watched a few episodes of House. It was lovely just to relax. We did though eventually get dressed because we did need to pick up a couple of things from the store so we headed out for a quick bit. In Germany it is custom to pack your own groceries so Elise and I have created a little system so we can be the most efficient and not get in anyone's way. Elise will stand closets to the cash register so as the cashier rings the food through Elise will pack it with the excellent skills she has acquired from her many years at Fairway Market and I will hand the cash over so once that transaction is done we will be packed and headed out the door; objective completed since no traffic jam is created since there is very little space at the end of the till. Today was different though, the cashier insisted on helping Elise pack the groceries and while I was counting out the coins from my hand, since I insisted on paying all in loose change, the cashier gently pulled my hand towards her and counted out the coins herself; German coins almost all look the same so I was a little slow. As Elise and I left we couldn't decided whether it was just really good customer service or she was just a wee bit pushy. Yesterday I bought the Sex and the City movie at Media Mart and so to feel even more at home we watched it over some dinner. We did though indeed want to educationally benefit somewhat from it so we put on German subtitles as part of our German immersion and to possibly learn a word or two. Since the translation was not a direct translation, the subtitles got frustrating and we turned them off, not even ten minutes into the movie. Next time we will watch it in German with English subtitles, maybe it will be better then.

They ID In Germany???

It was a day like any other day when you are waking up in your own bed rather than a hostel bed. We got up, caught up on some of our shows we have been missing since we arrived in Germany such as House, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. We keep getting this feeling of "Don't stay in the house, there is limited time and so much to see". We forget that we have a long time to do all those things and if we take it a day at a time, we will have more than enough. So after lunch, we headed out to Old Town again but this time, we went down a street full of stores. Steph was on a quest for pajama pants and so after searching stores for an hour, we found a store and they weren't too expensive. We also found an English Tea House and so Steph went and bought some Green tea. On the way home, we stopped in at "German Costco" and attempted to make our favourite meal Currywurst. We got home, put all the groceries away and promptly forgot the drinks. Off to the Penny Markt for us! Once we picked up our (my) juice, we spied a couple coolers on the shelf and thought to ourselves "Why not?". At the counter Too Much Foundation Turk Cashier asked us "Ausweis?" To which we responded with blank stares. She repeated herself and I asked if she spoke English and being as helpful as she was, shook her head and repeated herself. Thankfully, Woman With The Baby in the lineup spoke English. Turns out we needed ID to buy the 5.9% cooler. Steph said she didn't have ID but that she was 19 which, strangely, Too Much Foundation Turk Cashier took as sufficient evidence of our age. We left the store feeling very confused as we had never been Id-ed before. We went home and looked up the age limit in Germany and the cashier must have thought we were 16. We were shocked to say the least. The Currywurst turned out alright but we picked the wrong sausage. The cooler turned out to be a nasty carbonated wine cooler...Germans sure do love their carbonation. We had bought some DVDs earlier in the day of popular movies at home that we could then watch in German. Our landlord had provided us with remotes but not batteries in said remotes. We couldn't manually get the machine working so we will pick some up today and then begin our German immersion. It was a very quiet night followed by a pretty quiet day.

The Fact That You Are Calling Me Names in English Doesn't Mean I Don't Understand

The loud booming sound of German festival music awoke me and Elise this morning. Yesterday we had thought that was the last day of Karneval but we were pleasantly surprised this morning to hear it was one more day. This holiday is so big that they even closed schools today so everyone could celebrate one last day. We ate some toast with Nutella and caught up on the desperate housewives episode missed from the previous night then headed out to brace the streets of Dusseldorf once again. First day of Karneval seemed to be the children and parents, second day seemed to be teens and young adults... today it was everyone. Everyone gathered in the streets dressed up, Elise and I wore out German flag coloured leis so we could try to blend in as much has possible. As we were walking down the street a guy yelled to us in English and said "Hey girl, I am liking that bandanna" I firstly getting thrown off by the fact he was speaking English and secondly confused by the fact he liked our "bandannas" since we weren't wearing any gave him a weird look and then turned away without saying anything; it seemed like the logical thing to do at the time. Unfortunately this was unacceptable to him he yelled once again "Hey thanks for ignoring me!" paused then called me a "B****". I then thought up multiple rhetorical things I could have said back but it was too late, probably for the better anyways. Even though after this minor upset, Elise and I managed to have a blast, we crammed ourselves into the crowed to watch yet another parade go by, and man do these Germans have some good parades. We all dance and yell and sing and wave our arms, while people throw candy at us. Unlike the parades we have back home when the people in the parade gently hand the goodies to children, Germans throw the stuff around everywhere and everyone goes for it and it sure is a battle. Adults throwing themselves on the floor to beat that little 4 year old to the pieced of crushed, half unwrapped candy that was just thrown into the crowd. It is pretty nuts! One lady even hip checked Elise so she could get to a piece of candy that had just fallen right next to a little child, luckily she managed to get it before the child or Elise could ;). The buses were closed due to the Karneval so Elise and I had to walk home. On the way we stopped at a store that I thought looked like it could be a grocery store, so we decided to check it out and by golly we found the Costco of Deutschland. We were so happy and relieved since our grocery selection so far had been quite limited. We planned out a nice dinner of tortellini soup, unfortunately when it came down to it we lazied out and just had tortellini with tomato sauce instead, maybe tomorrow we will cook something more exquisite. Elise and I today have been down to our last pair of clean clothes since we were confused about the washer and our landlord had been out of town so no wash had been done. Luckily that evening there was a knock at our door and it was our good old landlord Marcel, he showed us how it worked so tomorrow we shall be looking our freshest!

The Frauds

It was another Sunday in Deutschland. Steph and I, foolishly thinking that Dusseldorf would be a bit different from Berlin, have some stores open on Sunday; we wanted to go buy Tesafilm (scotch tape). The other night, in a vain attempt to shield our eyes from the rising sun, Steph tried to hang a blanket on the door and ended up breaking the top mini-curtain piece off the door. Our landlord is away at the moment and so we figured that if we fix the thing ourselves, we wouldn't have to admit that we are wrecking his place. So off we went to the Superstore equivalent "Aldi Süd " to find the parking lot deserted and the lights off in the store. Disappointed and dreading yet another Sunday in Germany, we sent off for Old Town. Since yesterday was a parade, we assumed there would be another one today...what actually happened was even better. All the young adults has turned the streets into their party zone. As we entered into the crowd, one of the German boys who was standing outside one of the beer gardens, looked at our German coloured leis, looked at us, smiled and said something about having a nice lei..or so we think. As we continued in closer to the heart of the party, the crowd got thicker and there were a group of Germans all huddled together singing at the top of their lungs. In Germany, it is custom to drink small bottles of alcohol and smash them on the ground so we were walking through a sea of glass...very dangerous. As we walked through the sea of Germans towards the Rhein, a "fairy" tapped Steph on the head and then tapped me on the head with her wand and said "Und selbst" and gave us Fairy Dust. Feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, we walked down the Rhein to look at the water. Steph, for some unknown reason, thoughts we should lose ourselves in the crowd again. We made our way through, avoiding the beer bottles, getting stuck to the cobble stones (made sticky by the beer), and the lit ends of cigarettes teens were waving around, and we found ourselves on the quieter side of the festival. There are many alcohol stands littering the streets (I am still fascinated by the concept of public drinking) and we found one that didn't sell beer but different cocktails. They had Sex On The Beach, A Capri (no idea what that is) and a Karneval Cocktail. Deciding to be brave we asked for the Karneval Cocktail and found it to be half berry juice and half tequila...very strong! It was pretty good anyway. We walked around a little bit more and we were pretty used to shouting and singing but then two German boys started yelling at us. As we don't speak German, we ignored them and so they felt the need to run up to us and continue talking in fast German while waving their arms in excitement. It seems as if the one guy had started his drinking binge quite early as the blank expressions on our faces didn't seem to phase him. Steph told him we spoke English and he gave her a three second blank stare and then asked (in perfect English) "Yes but are you from England?" Steph responded with Canada and he shook his head and said: "Canada, that's some f***ing crazy s***". We laughed and laughed as he ran past us and jumped air. It seems that in Karneval, lots of people get together and yell, sing, and dance and as Steph and I are two non-German and non-German speaking frauds that we should go home. If we spoke the language, it probably would have much more fun for us but it was still quite the experience anyway. As we waited at the bus stop, an old German came over and sat beside us. He began speaking to us in German, which I proudly responded with "Sprechen Sie Englisch? Ich spreche nicht viel Deutsch". This to him must have sounded like "I speak Spanish" and so he spoke in a mix of German and Spanish which was even more confusing. I pointed this error out to him but he was probably too drunk to realize as he refused to speak any English. From the little bits of German we know, Steph and I took turns responding to his odd questions. I was very proud of us for our German. Once we got home, Steph decided to start mucking around on the television and got it to work. We've been watching the parade we watched yesterday for the last half hour. Maybe we can get the tv in our bedroon to work as well...