Finding a New Wascherei

Still unable to interpret German directions online, I gave up googling washerei and asked my Hausmeister. He actually doesn't speak English either, but by pointing to the heap of laundry on my floor along with the new Laundry detergent I had bought, and my numerous different pronunciations of"Wascherei," he was able to understand where I needed to go. I gave him some paper and he drew me a map. Take a right, then a left and then a right, and it will be on your left hand side.

I have my two large Ikea bags full of laundry and I start trekking the few blocks to the wascherei. No wascherei to be found. Finally, I decide to go inside the Comfort Inn Hotel, and ask them where I can do my laundry. They tell me that there is one on this street, but it is 8 blocks north and on the right side. Finally, I reach my destination. I laugh at the intimidating machines and sit down. All the directions are in German. There are four rows of buttons and 16 different choices. A few moments later, someone comes in to pick up his laundry (thankfully!). I ask him for some help and he tells me i have to pay for a token to put in the machine! Luckily he arrived, because I was prepared to put euro directly into the coin slot. The machine fits 3 two towels and one sheet. It costs 4 euro.

This is when I pick up my exciting new pink bottle of oxidizing laundry detergent and show my new wascherei friend. He takes a look and shakes his head. "Dies gilt nicht für die Maschine" he tells me. Seeing him shake his head, I knew something was wrong. Then we played some German pictionary and he explained that this detergent I bought could only be used for soaking "really dirty laundry" in a tub...and that I couldn't use this with a washing machine, or the oxidizing bubbles would cause too much pressure and break the machine. (read: exploding washing machine).

Thank GOODness I was able to avoid that disaster! So, I bought a tiny bag of laundry detergent powder from the attendant (this particular laundromat was combined with a liquor store, to the attendant was usually on the liquor store side, and could speak to me through a window.) The tiny bag of detergent was .50 euro cents. (No wonder people don't like to do their laundry here! It costs too much!) It also costs .50 euro cents to dry your clothes for 10 minutes..

An hour and a half later, less 7 euros, I had a bag and a half left of dirty laundry, two damp towels and one damp sheet. Note to self: purchase a drying rack and a washing machine.

Selecting the right Laundry Detergent

Normally, I don't spend more than a few minutes in the laundry detergent section of a grocery store. Luckily, I live right above a grocery store and so I thought I could make a quick purchase before running over to the laundrymat (Wascherei -- pronounced "Vasher-eye"). I locate the aisle with cleaning supplies and find the detergent section. There are white bottles, blue bottles, pink bottles, black bottles and a variety of other color bottles. The black bottles i decided were for dark/black clothes and the white bottles said Weiss on them, which is White. Now I had a load of new colored sheets and a bunch of jeans to do, so I knew I needed detergent for 'multicolor' clothes.

There were so many options. I finally chose a bottle with some smiley bubble faces on the design, with a word that looked similar to "Oxidizing" on the front. I thought, oxidizing bubbles will definitely help my clothes become clean! I grabbed the bottle and looked at the back, just to make sure there were images of clothes on the back, instead of dishes, and I took it to the register and bought it. I was so excited to have successfully selected some detergent that I didn't even realize that I left the detergent in the store. As I was about to cross the street, a man came running after me, shouting in German and pointing back to the store. Haha. woopsies.

So I grabbed my laundry detergent and ran across the street, only then realizing that the wascherei I was hoping to go to had gone out of business. =(

“Augustiner”

December 23rd, dinnertime

By the time my family arrives at the Hotel, I have already wandered around the area surrounding the hotel and have found an “Asia Super Markt” and quite a few “Erotik Dance Halls.” Interesting. I also located a row of Christmas markets and an Ice skating rink!

We walk around and try to find the most German restaurant we can, even though I explained the amount of Bratwurst I had consumed during the last few days on my expedition to find an apartment.

We decide to go into a place called “Augustiner” – Best choice ever! I highly recommend this restaurant! The waiters and waitresses looked like they were dressed in outfits made in “The Sound of Music” and there were Christmas lights and decorations everywhere!

Augustiner Großgaststätten

Neuhauser Str. 27 | 80331 Munich

Tel: +49 89 23183257 | Fax: +49 89 2605379

www.augustiner-restaurant.com

History of Augustiner: Since 1328 on Augustiner beer had been brewed within the monastery of the Augustinian Brotherhood near the cathedral of Munich. After nearly 500 years of tradition, the secularization in 1803 and the following privatisation led to a privately owned company: Augustiner Bräu.

I ordered the goulasch and my brother ordered this gigantic “meat platter,” which contained duck, rabbit, beef, and venison. Goulasch is my new favorite meal!! I can’t believe what I have been missing out on all this time! It is a bowlful of tender meat, either prok, beef or venison, slowroasted with the most delectable vegetables and tasty sauce! I have decided that I will now measure a restaurant on its Goulasch…Augustiner gets an A+.

Off to Munchen

Decemer 23, 2009

Germany is cold! Today I am flying to Munchen to meet my family for the beginning of our holiday vacation. I am hanging out at the airport, eating a brotwurst, because that is all they have that is warm and tasty under 3 Euro. It is the 16^th Brotwurst I have had in the last 8 days. I go through the security and sit at the gate and a lady starts speaking over the loadspeaker…in german, which I still can’t understand. A guy sees me looking very confused staring into a german-english dictionary and tells me that the roads are icy and the planes can’t land, or take off, and that the plane we were going to fly on has been diverted to another aiport. I smile, and say “Ahh, Danke!” and eat some gummy candy.

Since I have some time, I may as well talk about gummy candy. Gummy candy here in Germany is amazing. Usually, I would consider gummy bears to be for children. Here, gummy candy is akin to a gourmet treat and adults love the gummy candy! The only word in the ingredient list I can understand is Fruchtsaft. “Fruitjuice.” Since I have been overloading on brotwurst instead of fresh produce, I consider my little pack of gummy fruits to be quite healthy.

Four hours later, we land in Munchen. The flight is only an hour. I arrive at the hotel and decide to walk around. Here in Munchen, it is a balmy 40 degrees, and I decide to leave my arctic-polar-goose-down-puffy-marshmallow-coat in the room.

Transportation

Searching for a place to live is one of the greatest ways to get to know a new city and how to navigate it. I have taken buses, trams, metros and trains all around Berlin. I now know the difference between the

The DB trains — go over ground, are fairly fast and go longer distances

the U bahn trains — go underground and are similar to the metro in Washington DC,

the S Bahn trains — go over ground and are slower than the DB trains

The tram — is yellow, goes over ground in the middle of the street with the cars

Buses – self-explanatory

Tickets – The idea with tickets is the honesty policy. You are supposed to buy a ticket, stamp it in the date stamping machine before you ride any mode of transportation. One great thing is if you buy a day ticket or a “Tageskarte,” it is good for all modes of transportation.

Today I learned that if you buy a ticket, it is only good for that day (When you buy a ticket, the date you purchase the ticket is printed on the top. Unless you buy a ticket specifically for another day, in which case that date is printed at the top.) Every so often, and it is more often than not, authorized personnel will come through the train, bus, tram or U/S bahn and check your tickets. If you are caught without a ticket it is 40 Euro. (A typical day pass is 7 Euro.) The man checking tickets, pointed to the incorrect date atop my ticket, and then ripped it up and gave me a very sad look. Luckily I was with a German friend who explained that I had know idea what I was doing, and I bought too many day tickets a few days prior.

Baggage

My luggage arrived today! Losing your luggage is kind of traumatic. The first day it was kind of nice, because I didn’t have to tug it around everywhere. On day two, I was still hopeful and tried not to think about it, but the idea of getting a couple thousand bucks to go buy some more clothes doesn’t seem that bad. Day three is when it starts to get bad. I start thinking about all the things I had in there, leather jackets, down jackets, sweaters and all of my work clothes. It actually becomes sad to think about how long it has taken to acquire all of these items. Years and years of buying things, and now all of my favorite jeans, shirts and jackets could never be seen again. =(

It adds a different spin to ‘starting my life over.’ Although, I was sitting in the train thinking about what my new apartment is going to look like and I began thinking about whether that is really what I am doing. “Starting over” seems difficult and troublesome even. One example would be when someone loses an ability to do something, they may have to “start life over” since they have a completely new perspective given their new circumstances.

I have simply picked myself and changed locations…although, in a way, I have lost some of my ability to communicate. It was very interesting when I had to draw a picture of cell phone minutes and text messages to understand the pricing structure of my prepaid phone plan. Some of the concepts I am used to mentioning in passing now take up huge chunks of time. Perhaps I will become an expert at pictionary.

Buying a cell phone

Buying a cell phone plan seemed to take hours longer than expected. First you have to decide between the prepaid phones and the contract phones. The prepaid are great because you can avoid a contract and you only spend as much as you need. This downside is that if you make international calls often or if you want to surf the internet, it is very expensive. Apparently with T-mobile, the daily rate for accessing a data plan, is 5 Euro! That is 150 Euro per month, just on data if you were to use it everyday!

The contract phone plans are much cheaper, but more expensive up front. Here you still have to buy the phone when you sign up for

Vodafone and O2 seem to provide the best service

T-Mobile is the only provider that provides the I-phone

Base seems to be less favorable

Also, a friend of mine told me that she had a lot of trouble getting out of the 2 year contract. Apparently German contracts are very strict and it is very difficult to get out of a contract, even if your time is up.

So, since I am not sure how long I will be here (could be six months or six years) and I have a hard time making long time commitments anyway, I finally opted for a T-Mobile prepaid phone.