Getting settled in

After surviving the trip here, we walked into a beautifully decorated apartment, our home in Frankfurt. It's mostly decorated in blues and white. Very pretty, but not super practical with the dogs and babies (both couches are white).

FIRST, SURPRISES!

Anyway, the landlady was super welcoming. She was excited about the boys and bought two high chairs, spoons, plates, bowls, place mats, and a rug for them. It was so sweet of her. I was so exhausted and felt bad that I was not more social when we met. Hopefully, she understands.

After the sweet surprises from the landlady, I was less pleasantly surprised to discover that we have only one bathroom (well, one toilet room and one room with a tub and sink). Somehow, my husband failed to notice there was not a toilet in the room with the bath, so we thought we had a 1.5 bath apartment (our minimum requirement, we really wanted a 2 bathroom apartment). Oh well, we will manage but it's an adjustment from our three bathroom condo.

Oh, and no garbage disposal (an under-appreciated "luxury").

SECOND, APPLIANCES IN GERMANY

Not surprisingly, the appliances are small. The dishwasher is half the size of our one in Chicago (and with all of the boys' bottles and bowls, we generate a lot of dishes). The laundry machine is a combined washer/dryer. First, you wash the clothes and then, in the same machine, without moving the clothes, you switch it to dryer mode. Kind of cool, but it does make doing all of our (the boys') laundry much more time consuming.

I was prepared for small appliances, but I underestimated the difficulty of using appliances with the buttons in German. It's hard enough sometimes to use new appliances in English (without the manual), but when the buttons are in German or with strange icons, it is especially hard.

THIRD, PLEASE COME TO FRANKFURT, TARGET

Although our apartment is furnished, there were still some items we needed (e.g., dryer racks, additional waste baskets , wash cloths, etc.) and there is no one-stop place for such items. We managed to get some of the items between various trips to the drug store type place (that doesn't sell the drugs, just the other stuff) and department stores, and, finally, turned to Amazon Germany for the rest. Thank you, Amazon!

Once we are fully settled, we will hopefully start having some real fun!