Tuesday – Thursday, Sept 21 – 23 - Weather has been great, sunny and cool with no rain. We went back to Oktoberfest on Wednesday just to walk around, had a beer and something to eat. We started getting things together for our possible move to the apartment on Friday.
Friday, Sept 24 - We went to the apartment in the afternoon to pick up the keys and hopefully move in. The apartment wasn’t ready, it had not been cleaned form the previous tenants. They were going to try to have it done for us to move in Sunday or Monday.
Saturday, Sept 25 - It was a cool rainy day. We went to see a movie this morning, Eat, Pray, Love. We did some shopping after the movie then went out for Mexican food. We went to Tijuana Cafe Border on Leopoldstr. The chips and salsa were good, though you have to pay for them, not like the Mexican restaurants in Texas. Jay had the fajitas and I had a dish that was like a turkey Quesada. The fajitas were OK, but needed more spices. The margaritas were good.
Sunday, Sept 26 - Another cool day, but no rain. We went to see another movie, The American. I wasn’t very good. Jay said the chick flick from Saturday was better. We went to Oktoberfest to get something to eat. BIG mistake! The place was jammed. This is Italian weekend, when many Italians come up to attend the Oktoberfest. We got an email late in the evening that the apartment was cleaned, so we packed up most of our things and moved them over via taxi and the apartment looked great. We decided not to spend the night since it was late and we still had more to move.
Monday, Sept 27 – First day in our apartment. That means that I can make toast in a toaster not a frying pan. Yea!!!!! I finished moving the rest of our things in the morning. I needed to make two trips since I was doing it by train. It took me about 2 ½ hours to go back and forth. We are on the fourth floor with no elevator, so visitors get ready for 78 stairs.
I met Jay at Oktoberfest again. This journey took me over an hour. Of course I got lost. This was the first time taking the train to Oktoberfest from our new apartment. Then I got lost at central station. This should have only taken me about 15 minutes if I got on the right trains. Needless to say I needed a beer when I finally got to Oktoberfest. We had a table at the Ochsenbraterei tent with some of the engineers that Jay works with. The Ochsenbraterei tent serves an amazing variety of different oxen specialties. This tent holds about 5,800. It takes 10 weeks for them to build the tent and everything inside and about 3 weeks to tear it down. This crowd was definitely different from last week’s crowd. They were a little more drunk, at least the ones around us. They had two bands. The first band was an older group of men that played mostly German songs. The second band also played quite a bit of German songs, but they did play a few American songs.
Tues., Sept. 28 - Friday, Oct. 1 – Not too much going on this week, just unpacking and doing laundry. Doing laundry is different than the US. I have one unit that washes and dries. I didn’t think that it would dry very good, but it actually dried pretty good. Doing one load of laundry takes about 2 hours to wash. The washing machine is very small so you can only do about 8 dress shirts at a time. We don’t have our internet set up yet. I am told that this could take up to 10 days. Things don’t happen very fast here so I am learning patience.
I can now understand why the European women are so strong. I got spoiled having a grocery store right outside our old hotel. Now I have to walk about 4 blocks to go to the store and I need to remember that I have to carry everything back and up the 78 stairs. I felt like a packed mule with groceries on my back, a back on my shoulder and a bag in each of my hands. I really missed my car today!!! Also you can’t get everything you need at one store, so you have to carry what you bought at the first store to the next store. I miss Super Wal-Mart!!! Everything in one store!
