What can I say, I am sooo excited that I can hardly stand it, but more on that later.
First, Happy Birthday to Anurag Khare. He is a developer at John Deere TCI in Pune, India that I have worked with for over a year. He im'd me today just to let me know that he was enjoying my blog and told me that it was his birthday. Anurag - I hope your day was great!
I am also glad that so many of you have been reading my blog. I hope that I don't ramble on too much. I just miss everyone and want to let you know what is going on in my life. For anyone that is interested in starting a blog, it is so easy at blogspot.com you should try it
So on to my day...
On my way to work this morning (back on my regular schedule), I was standing on the tram platform waiting for it to come when I noticed that there were several people with dogs waiting for the tram also. Here in Germany it is not unusual for people to take their dogs everywhere with them. I have seen them on the tram, in restaurants and at the mall. Of course they are well behaved but sometime they must have to go to the bathroom. I never see the owners with the little 'poop' bags that you see all dog walkers with in the US. I also do not see a lot of the droppings on the ground. What happens to it all? I guess that I will have to ask one of my german co-workers.
I could hardly concentrate at work today, it went slow because I had to leave early to get back to my apartment for the shipment to arrive. At lunch, my coworkers asked if I was going to lunch and I told them that I was leaving early because my stuff was being delivered. Manfred asked if it weighed 40 tons. I laughed and told him that I wish I could have brought that much. I would have put a lot of the people I know in it!
I left work at 12:45 because the delivery was supposed to be at 1:30. I got home and straightened up a little since I knew that there would be several boxes when the driver arrived. Well 1:30 came and went. I was really anxious and by 2:00 thought that maybe I should call the movers. I overcame that impulse since I figured that I would have a lot of trouble communicating with them anyway so I would give them another bit of time. Finally at 3:27 my door monitor sounded. The driver was at the front door. I could not understand what he was saying into the speaker but I could see my boxes and buzzed him in.
I grabbed my camera to take some pictures of the delivery. First my batteries were dead and I had to find some new ones. Then when I started my camera it told me that the SD card was full. Thankfully I had another one so I did not have to take the time to delete any from the old card. I popped in the new card and went out to the balcony. When I say that I went out to the balcony, it sounds so simple, but in germany nothing has been simple. Here the doors and windows open not only with hinges on the side like in the US, but also tilt in from the bottom. The first time I tried to open my balcony door, I thought that I had broke it and it was falling in on me. I just had to find the right method to open it. So I finally opened the door to the balcony that is off my living room and took the following pictures of the delivery van in front of my building:
I could see the boxes in the back of the van. I was surprised that all of them fit in there, but I don't think that anything else would. For those who did not hear me lamenting that they were only allowing me a standard size shipping crate, the size was 4' X 4' X 4'. I had it marked off on my sun porch at home. I was amazed at how much actually fit into it. But I am off topic.
It took the driver a while to get up to my apartment, I kept looking off the balcony and did not see him so I finally decided to go down to the front door to make sure that he got in ok. He was just going back out to the van. He had been wondering around my building trying to find the apartment. In my building (I don't know if it is the same all over Germany), there are no apartment numbers on the mailboxes or doors. My name is on the mailbox and then it is supposed to be on the doorbell outside of my apartment. Well he knew that I was on the 3rd floor, and came up in the elevator while I was messing with my camera. I did not hear him and he did not ring the doorbell because it still has the name of the previous resident on it. So he went down and then up the other elevator at the other end of the building to see if my apartment was over there. When I finally found him, he was very flustered and worried that I was upset that he was a little late. Upset? No, I was just so glad to get my stuff that I could have kissed him. Well not really, but it tells you how excited I was.
He started opening the boxes and I could not get to the contents fast enough. The first one was one of my stamping cases that was very heavy and just wrapped in packing paper. He just looked at it with a puzzled expression. I just laughed and said that he would not understand. The next one actually had some clothes in it. Of course the sweatshirt on top was a Bears hoodie. I ripped it out of the box like I had never seen anything like it before. I did not have too much time to savor the contents of each box since as soon as he opened them, I had to empty them. He had to take the boxes with him.
After the first few boxes that he brought up were unloaded he went back down to get more. Here the poor guy is unloading more boxes from his van. You can see some of the empty ones waiting for him to take them away.
It took about 45 minutes, but I finally got all of the boxes unloaded so that he could leave. After signing all of the papers, I was finally alone with my stuff. That is when the work really began. When I was unloading my boxes, I just piled the stuff on the beds. You would not believe the mess. I slowly worked to get a few things out for the living room and put away enough so that I can actually sleep in my bed tonight. Tomorrow I will finish putting away the stuff that is on the bed in the other bedroom.
Finally, here is my living room with some appropriate decorations. Of course it is a Bear's motif:
With my Bear's afghan and pillow on the couch, it almost feels like home. It is not quite the same because I have TV on right now to the only English speaking channel, CNN International, and my friends are so far away.
It's getting late now and I need to get some sleep. I feel like I got a lot accomplished, but my apartment is a work in progress.
I hope you all have a wonderful day. Until next time...
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