I keep meaning to write about our trip over, but can’t quite find the energy. Probably because the trip really went quite smoothly, considering. I mean, my expectations were low. Really low. Somewhere around “survival” level. Which we did, so the trip was a success. But people keep asking, so I better give some details…
Fred Green was our porter at LAX. Our reluctant porter. And he didn’t even know the extent of it when we met. I had confiscated a large cart upon which to load our luggage and Fred had come over to explain that I couldn’t use it. Took me awhile, but he eventually admitted HE could use it, but he worked for tips.
“No problem,” I reply, “I would like to give you money for your help.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Did I have to beg or what?!
About that time, John drove up behind Helen’s station wagon, with our SUV packed to the gills. As bag after bag tumbled out of the two cars, Fred looked stunned.
The logistics of just getting to the airport were a dance. Helen and I went in her station wagon, with limited visibility, and John and the boys followed in our last remaining car, also packed. We dropped off all the luggage at the curb with Fred, then Helen went to park her car, returned, and took ours to airport parking, where its new owner would pick it up. Meanwhile, our family and our 23 bags went to check in.
Yes, that’s right. 23 bags. But don’t worry, we checked 15 and only carried 8 on board. That’s 2 per person. Of course, Luke and Jack aren’t really carrying bags, so in terms of useful arms, that’s 2 bags per arm.
We have a picture of us at the airport, but we’ll have to post it later. We can’t find our camera cord to upload our pics.
$50 later, Fred was a happy guy and we were on our way.
Wait. Line. Wait. Airline Lounge. Wait. Snack. Wait. Get on plane. Luggage won’t fit overhead. Cram into closet. Thankful we’re in B-class. Wait. Take off. Fly. Eat. Drink. Feed Luke. Sleep. Eat. Wait. Land in Amsterdam. Haul all luggage off plane. Walk. Obtain push cart. (Thank goodness.) Walk. Wait. Eat. Wait. Wait. Wait. Make a few work phone calls. Wait. Go check in for connection to Frankfurt.
“Sir, did you check, uh, FIFTEEN bags with us?”
“Yes, we’re moving to Germany.”
“Oh, ok,” she sounds relieved, “we thought there was an error in our system.”
“Maam, you can’t take that push cart any farther – you’ll have to carry all of that.”
My worst nightmare.
Haul. Wait. Fly. Land. Wait. Count. Yep, all here. 4 Carpenters, 23 bags, 5796 miles. Tired. Ask gentleman with worker-man vest if he speaks English.
“Nein.”
OK. Here goes.
“Ich habe dreiundzwanzig uh, “bags.””
I point to the mound o’ baggage which includes one harried-looking husband, one 4-year old glued to a portable DVD player, and a sleeping (thank goodness) infant. Plus our 23 bags.
“Haben Sie gross um, “cart”?” I look hopeful as I butcher his mother tongue.
“Ja” he says. And then makes the sign for money, “gelb.”
Ah yes, cha ching.
He and John go across the room, pick up a phone, and soon two strapping young men with a double cart that looks like the cage on the animal crackers box appear. For a mere €50 they will help us with our bags.
Name your price, dudes.
The guy at the Hertz counter looks amused by our luggage. I request a “really gross” van, with GPS. GPS is key.
Less than an hour later, we’d loaded up the Mercedes touring van and were on our way to Bad Homburg. For the first time, I realize that I only have a couple of bottles of formula left for Lukey and I’m not producing much milk anymore. We’ve got to find food for him, as well as pick up some staples because our furnished apartment has no consumables in it.
Although we’ve leased a house, we can’t take possession until April 1, so we’re in temporary housing until then. Well, actually until we move into a hotel for two nights, then into the “permanent” house.
I call our relocation specialist, Inge Jaeger. She is scheduled to meet us at the apartment at 8pm, which gives us a bit of time to shop before the stores close at 8. It’s 7pm.
By the time we arrive in Bad Homburg, it’s about 7:20. 40 minutes left to buy formula. John drops me off at Karstadt, a large department store that also sells groceries. I pick up some strawberries (erdbeeren) on my way to the baby food aisle. But I can’t find the baby food aisle. I approach the lady behind the cheese counter. (I love this country – the cheese counters are magnificent.)
“Sprechen Sie English?”
“Nein.”
OK, here goes.
“Haben Sie milch fur bebe?”
She looks puzzled.
“Essen.” (to eat)
“Nein.”
No baby food.
Eek. They don’t sell baby food at the grocery stores? How do babies eat?
I call Inge. By this time, it’s 7:35. She suggests Rewe, the market with more expat (that means more expensive) food. I run down the block (in the freezing wind with no coat) looking for the entrance. Immediately I ask for help.
“Sprechen Sie..”
“Nein.”
(I have REALLY got to learn German fast.)“Milch fur bebe.”
She doesn’t know, so goes to ask. We snake our way through the store.
Nope, no baby food.
It’s 7:50.
I start to panic. Calmly.
What if I can’t feed my Lukey Luke?? It never occurred to me that I was moving to a country that didn’t feed their young.
I call Lynda, my boss’ wife, who has a little girl 2 months younger than Luke. Peter answers the phone and informs me that Lynda MAKES all their baby food.
But of course.
But then Lynda gets on the phone, like an angel from above, and tells me to go to Rossmann drug store, and proceeds to look it up online and gives me the address. I love this woman.
Calling Inge on the way, I run to Rossmann with 5 minutes to spare. I ask about milch. Aisle 65. I run. Then, I stop.
The aisle is full of baby formula, but not a single brand I recognize. And, it’s ALL in German. I call Inge.
“Come quick. They’re about to close and I can’t read the packages!”
A minute later, Inge arrives and sets about translating until the salesgirl tells us they’re closing. (At least, I assume that’s what she said. Couldn’t understand a word of it.) I grab a box of every formula with an “8” on it (for 8 months old) plus one jar of baby food (Spaghetti Bolognese) and head to the front. Figured I’d figure it out when I got home.
To the apartment we went, met John and the boys, then proceeded to lug our 23 bags up umpteen tiny stairs to our temporary apartment. What a relief to finally arrive.
Inge left us with a fresh baguette, some really stinky, but yummy (“lecker”) cheese and a bottle of red wine. Once we got the boys to bed, we indulged in the wine, then turned in. I had an 8am meeting the next day.
We were finally in Frankfurt.
P.S. Once I got home and studied the boxes of formula, I discovered I’d purchased one banana- and one fruit-flavored formula, as well as one box of just “regular” milk-flavored formula. Who knew formula came in flavors?!!
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Saturday, March 22, 2008
That’s Entertainment!!
Days in Frankfurt with Family: 5
Days of rain: 5
Days of sleet & snow: 2
Saturday morning. Ahhh, we get to sleep in. Finally. Seems like it’s been months. Of course, the Lukey alarm goes off at 7, but he went back to sleep and we all slept until 9:30. Unheard of.
Once we gained consciousness, we realized it was Saturday and the stores were open! See, yesterday they were closed for Good Friday, and tomorrow and Monday they’ll be closed in celebration of Easter. Today was our only shopping day.
“So what?!” you may be thinking. But that’s only because you have salt in your house. We spent all of yesterday trying to figure out what we could cook that required no seasonings, because somewhere in the melee of purchasing milk, baby food and diapers, we forgot all about spices.
Living in Germany, every day is like Christmas. Today’s Christmas surprise came at breakfast, shortly after John and Jack had a long conversation about the blueberry jelly John had purchased. (Clearly, we can’t remember salt, but blueberry jam was a must.) Moments later, I hear the signature,” OH NO!!” followed by laughter emanating from the dining area. Those were no blueberries – they were PRUNES! Eewwww.
Four hours later, we had our salt, plus enough food for the duration, and most importantly, some Easter surprises for Jack. We were on a roll. What else could we not live without until Tuesday? Exactly. A DVD player.
Off to Media Markt we went. Or, tried to. We had no address, so John headed up the stairs (still have to write about the stairs…) to check the web for the address. Couldn’t get a wireless signal. Decided we’d use the car navigation system. Gave us directions to Media Markt’s corporate HQ 83km away. Forced to go to into a hotel and ask if anyone knew where it was. Paydirt! And we were off.
Media Markt is located in the Main(pronounced “mine”)-Taunus-Centrum, which is an outdoor mall ala Century City. We see it as we approach the exit.
“Prepare to turn right,.” says the Combi’s nav system. We do. And then we turn. And then we stop. Abruptly.
“What’s going on?” Our exit was blocked in the middle of the cloverleaf turn, and men were stopping traffic on two other exit roads so that we could cross in front of them. I felt like a lemming. Where were we going, suddenly? And how could we extricate ourselves from this odd parade?? The line of traffic we were in was being directed into a grove of trees, through a narrow iron gate and into a large, wavy abandoned parking lot that looked like an old drive-in movie theater. A man vehemently motioned us to park, so we did.
“Do you see the mall anymore?”
“Nope, you?”
“Nope. What if these people aren’t even going to the mall? I saw a sign for a circus. Do you think we’re going to a circus?”
“Nope, I think that’s the mall building over there. See?”
Have I mentioned it sleeted on the drive over? We were parked in a mud bowl with a bunch of lemmings.
Get out of car. Haul out the Phil & Ted’s. Pop open. Install second seat. Install Jack and Luke. Grab diaper bag, purse and bottles. Follow the trail of people through the mud pit.
As we neared the edge of the lot, we discovered the building we thought might be the mall was the Dorint Hotel. John immediately starts to enter “Dorint Hotel” into his new Blackberry in case we get lost, or maybe if someone finds us. Indeed, there was no mall in sight. There was, however, a big bus.
“Where are we going and how will we get back?”
Yet, we schlepped the phil & teds on the bus and away we went…to the mall. Phew! As we separated from the bus, we madly scribbled the name of the bus on a random piece of paper in case we needed it later.
Once at Media Markt, we searched for a DVD player that would allow us to play US-format as well as European discs. After standing in line for what seemed an eternity, we were told to look on the back of each machine for a little globe with a number in it - the number 2 meant European, the number 1 was US and 0 meant it would play both. Away we went, picking up every single one and searching for the 0. But alas, there were only 2’s. All the machines were European.
Forced to stand in line again to get help, we learned of a secret code we could use to fake out a Philips unit, so we grabbed an HD compatible one and went to stand in another line to pay. Cash. No credit card. No checks. Only cash. Because, of course, we don’t have an EC card (debit card), because we can’t get it until we have a bank account, which we have, but it has no money in it since the banks have been closed the majority of the time we’ve been here and we need to add John’s name to it, but we can’t get any EC card until we have an address, which we have, but we don’t move in until April 1, and even then I think we need enough time to get bills with our name on them and that is why we have to pay cash everywhere we go. Whew!
So, loaded with our new HD DVD player, with a 2 in its globe, but instructions from the web that include the word “hack” in them somewhere, we’re off to find the bus that dropped us off, in hopes to return to the mud bowl cinema.
Which we did.
All in all, a good day.
P.S. We learned today that we have been washing our dishes in our dishwasher without soap. I mean, we THOUGHT we were using soap, but it turns out we were only using glass brightener. This revelation brought on an emergency trip to the grocery store at 7:45 pm, only to discover the store had already closed for Easter. After traipsing through the sleet, John finally found one open and returned with the Calgonite Powerballs. (seriously, that’s what they’re called.)
Days of rain: 5
Days of sleet & snow: 2
Saturday morning. Ahhh, we get to sleep in. Finally. Seems like it’s been months. Of course, the Lukey alarm goes off at 7, but he went back to sleep and we all slept until 9:30. Unheard of.
Once we gained consciousness, we realized it was Saturday and the stores were open! See, yesterday they were closed for Good Friday, and tomorrow and Monday they’ll be closed in celebration of Easter. Today was our only shopping day.
“So what?!” you may be thinking. But that’s only because you have salt in your house. We spent all of yesterday trying to figure out what we could cook that required no seasonings, because somewhere in the melee of purchasing milk, baby food and diapers, we forgot all about spices.
Living in Germany, every day is like Christmas. Today’s Christmas surprise came at breakfast, shortly after John and Jack had a long conversation about the blueberry jelly John had purchased. (Clearly, we can’t remember salt, but blueberry jam was a must.) Moments later, I hear the signature,” OH NO!!” followed by laughter emanating from the dining area. Those were no blueberries – they were PRUNES! Eewwww.
Four hours later, we had our salt, plus enough food for the duration, and most importantly, some Easter surprises for Jack. We were on a roll. What else could we not live without until Tuesday? Exactly. A DVD player.
Off to Media Markt we went. Or, tried to. We had no address, so John headed up the stairs (still have to write about the stairs…) to check the web for the address. Couldn’t get a wireless signal. Decided we’d use the car navigation system. Gave us directions to Media Markt’s corporate HQ 83km away. Forced to go to into a hotel and ask if anyone knew where it was. Paydirt! And we were off.
Media Markt is located in the Main(pronounced “mine”)-Taunus-Centrum, which is an outdoor mall ala Century City. We see it as we approach the exit.
“Prepare to turn right,.” says the Combi’s nav system. We do. And then we turn. And then we stop. Abruptly.
“What’s going on?” Our exit was blocked in the middle of the cloverleaf turn, and men were stopping traffic on two other exit roads so that we could cross in front of them. I felt like a lemming. Where were we going, suddenly? And how could we extricate ourselves from this odd parade?? The line of traffic we were in was being directed into a grove of trees, through a narrow iron gate and into a large, wavy abandoned parking lot that looked like an old drive-in movie theater. A man vehemently motioned us to park, so we did.
“Do you see the mall anymore?”
“Nope, you?”
“Nope. What if these people aren’t even going to the mall? I saw a sign for a circus. Do you think we’re going to a circus?”
“Nope, I think that’s the mall building over there. See?”
Have I mentioned it sleeted on the drive over? We were parked in a mud bowl with a bunch of lemmings.
Get out of car. Haul out the Phil & Ted’s. Pop open. Install second seat. Install Jack and Luke. Grab diaper bag, purse and bottles. Follow the trail of people through the mud pit.
As we neared the edge of the lot, we discovered the building we thought might be the mall was the Dorint Hotel. John immediately starts to enter “Dorint Hotel” into his new Blackberry in case we get lost, or maybe if someone finds us. Indeed, there was no mall in sight. There was, however, a big bus.
“Where are we going and how will we get back?”
Yet, we schlepped the phil & teds on the bus and away we went…to the mall. Phew! As we separated from the bus, we madly scribbled the name of the bus on a random piece of paper in case we needed it later.
Once at Media Markt, we searched for a DVD player that would allow us to play US-format as well as European discs. After standing in line for what seemed an eternity, we were told to look on the back of each machine for a little globe with a number in it - the number 2 meant European, the number 1 was US and 0 meant it would play both. Away we went, picking up every single one and searching for the 0. But alas, there were only 2’s. All the machines were European.
Forced to stand in line again to get help, we learned of a secret code we could use to fake out a Philips unit, so we grabbed an HD compatible one and went to stand in another line to pay. Cash. No credit card. No checks. Only cash. Because, of course, we don’t have an EC card (debit card), because we can’t get it until we have a bank account, which we have, but it has no money in it since the banks have been closed the majority of the time we’ve been here and we need to add John’s name to it, but we can’t get any EC card until we have an address, which we have, but we don’t move in until April 1, and even then I think we need enough time to get bills with our name on them and that is why we have to pay cash everywhere we go. Whew!
So, loaded with our new HD DVD player, with a 2 in its globe, but instructions from the web that include the word “hack” in them somewhere, we’re off to find the bus that dropped us off, in hopes to return to the mud bowl cinema.
Which we did.
All in all, a good day.
P.S. We learned today that we have been washing our dishes in our dishwasher without soap. I mean, we THOUGHT we were using soap, but it turns out we were only using glass brightener. This revelation brought on an emergency trip to the grocery store at 7:45 pm, only to discover the store had already closed for Easter. After traipsing through the sleet, John finally found one open and returned with the Calgonite Powerballs. (seriously, that’s what they’re called.)
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