What does a Frau do all day, other than skipping through the hills with her curtain-clad children, singing. Well, mostly catch up on email, trying despirately to rent our house, and learn German through Rosetta Stone.
Don't forget the laundry, a good Frau always has her families clothes smelling springtime fresh and shirts ironed lovingly. Well, problem folks, don't have a dryer, better known as a "tumbler" here. They are very "unswiss" in that they use lots of energy, and it will cost us at least $1500 to get one. Instead, I have a drying room. Yep, a 14ft x 14ft square room dedicated to drying clothes. Oh, a good frau loves to hang up the unmentionables!
But wait, it gets better! It takes about 2 days for your clothes to dry by this method, and the unmentionables previously mentioned get a little, should we say, stiff? So off I go to get fabric softener. This is highly "unswiss" of me, ruins the water supply, promotes unrecyclable garbage, etc. My purchase of said product was met with considerable distain. Enough is enough, life is too short for stiff undergarments. Perhaps I have discovered why the Germans are not the cheeriest people, but I digress!
So it is on to homework time, but that has been a little difficult without furniture. Check out Nicole's favorite reading spot...
Yep, the kitchen counter. That sea shipment can't come soon enough! We do have a "new" dining room table, and lots of rosemary bushes that we have gotten from other ex-pats:
Notice the standing lamp in the foreground. This bad boy gets moved on it's extension cord whereever we need it, because there are no permanent light fixtures in this house. Just like no curtains, you get no light fixtures. Not a big deal, but because all the ceilings and walls are made of concrete, you must drill into the concrete to install a light, which means you have to repair the concrete and remove the lights when you leave. Our house was somewhat unique because on some of the walls we have this elegant fixture...
We don't have any lights our the living room, so we depend on our huge windows. Crap, we have another leaf situation!
A Frau's work is never done!
Ah, yes. I remember air drying and crunchy socks. Yuck! We opted to get the large American dryer (the Asian ones could only fit one pair of our jeans at a time, LOL!). You may find it worthwhile, especially as it gets colder, to invest in that dryer - ugly looks or not. Dry, soft clothes never felt so good!
ReplyDeleteNot having a tumbler seems pretty typical in the EU from what people I know who live in the UK have said. Do you have the option of line drying? I remember doing that as a child, and it's decidedly fresher smelling than room drying is likely to be.
ReplyDeleteThe living room looks awesome, you'll love it once you have a place to sit I'm sure :)