After a two hour closet designing session on the Ikea website last night (another very cool internet tool, btw), Hubbalicious and I have achieved the design of Closet 1.0 (he’s reserving the right to add another section later, should he decide he needs it). This exercise, btw, was a hilarious and illuminative exercise in understanding how each other thinks. My design approach was based on what I wanted to store (hooks for necklaces here, a small drawer for scarves and gloves there, etc). Hubbalicious’ approach was pure geometry – he had 300 cm² of space in his dresser at home, and therefore needed to replicate that in his closet. Mars, meet Venus :)
The trophy wife errand du jour was to venture forth into Ikea for the THIRD time in five days…and to purchase our closet masterpiece, so its delivery would coincide nicely with our move in date…and I FAILED!! Our local Ikea is an establishment with integrity – because when they discovered that one of the 15 parts I was ready to purchase was out of stock – they just couldn’t sell it to me. I told the clerk that it was okay if the part was backordered – we didn’t really want the closets to be delivered for a week or so anyways – she responded by saying “But Madam, I cannot sell you what I do not have”. Oh! Well…okay then! She told me that they would have the requisite part back in stock in two days (seriously? You can’t backorder for two days?!?), and I could come back and make my purchase then. And so that, Ladies and Gentlemen, marks the only time in the history of mankind that a person has left an Ikea store without having made a purchase!!
In our time here, we have discovered that we really need to have a German bank account. The reasons for this are complicated – so I’ll go into them in a later post – but the long and short of it is, our payment options around here are cash or German bank card and I can’t do math in my head well enough to figure out how much cash I’ll need as I cower through the already intimidating grocery store check-out line.
But I digress – today, on Hubbz’s lunch hour, I met him near the base to venture forth into deep German territory. With some coaching from those who went before us, and some colorful Deutch-glish speak passed between us, we got….well, we got nothing! We started an account, but I don’t think we actually opened it. At no time did they ask us for an initial deposit. They said that our paperwork would come in the mail….so we’ll be making our way back to our oracle for advice on that one!! We even had enough time at lunch to swing by the local O2 shop and ask them how the heck to make the mobile internet solution we bought yesterday work The 19 year old kid behind the counter smirked and told us we had to buy a monthly password from him. He implied that it could only be done at an O2 store. My interpretation of the German brochure (aided by Google Translate) indicated that we could input our credit card number somewhere online to recharge our service when needed – but Smirking Schultzie didn’t want to give up that information, and after our game of German charades at the bank, we were too spent to push any harder, so we rolled over and bought the card. So much for good Ole American Stick-to-itiveness!!
We got a call today indicating that our car parts are FINALLY in!! (For those of you who haven’t been keeping track, it’s been about 6-7 weeks since our little accident. As luck would have it, the mechanic called at 4pm today to ask us to drop the car in the morning. Hubbz has been working with USAA (LOVE them!) through this process and confirmed to me that we have rental car coverage for the time that the car is in the shop (which is pretty crucial, now that we’re a one car family). I assumed that he had the process in hand for retrieving the car – but when I called him at 5pm to ask about the parameters for booking tomorrow’s car, he shrugged (I’m guessing, since I actually couldn’t SEE him) and said he didn’t know. By then, our USAA contact in Frankfurt had gone home for the day (voicemail) and the adjuster who answered the phone in the US call center wasn’t really clear on the rules for us ExPats. Sooooo – now, in order to get the car squared away, we’re going to have to wait until 8:30 tomorrow AM to arrange for our rental car for the day. No biggie, but this means that Hubbz won’t get to work on time (and he really hates that!). We’re hoping for an SUV or a van to minimize the number of loads we need to take from the hotel. Between our 17 suitcases which accompanied us from the states, and the small express shipment that arrived in early July, we have managed to cram a lot of stuff into our little hotel bungalow.
The upside is that we actually heard from the Realtor today (whoa! Watch out for that flying pig!!) He set an appointment for our walk through tomorrow at 7pm. At this time we should receive our keys and be able to move in a first load of our stuff from the hotel (can I get an AMEN?!?) We are relieved and excited – and starting to steel ourselves for the long days ahead.
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