Settled In

As bleak as our recent blog posts have been, the last couple of weeks have been really nice.  We feel much more settled (hot water and a kitchen help) in our new place and have seen that the people here in Münster are actually really nice, if a little unapproachable.  Maybe it was because of our high stress level, but I actually thought that it was illegal to smile in Münster because I never saw anyone smile.  I imagined that if a police officer caught me giving a stranger a polite nod and smile, I would get a 20 euro ticket.  Maybe there is a ‘mind your own business’ law or something.  Anyway, over the last couple of weeks, it doesn’t appear that way. 

This past weekend, we went on Saturday to the community pool (freibad.)   Community pools here in Germany are much more than that.  This freibad has 5 different swimming pools including a kiddie pool where we hung out (it’s the only place where it is acceptable for a 7 month pregnant Dana to rock a bikini and not get strange looks, although she did get a few disapproving glances from older German women), a large water slide, and a playground.  There is a minimal entrance fee and it is only a 10 minute (15 with Dana) bike ride there. 

Having fun in the pool.

In the kiddie pool

Yup, he's wearing a speedo.  

If you look closely you can see a big smile on his face coming down the slide. 

Lots of laughs for the big splash at the bottom. 

Dylan was definitely the only 3 year old (or person with Swimmies on) to be brave enough to go down this massive water slide.

On Sunday, Dylan and I went to the local golf course to practice on the driving range.  We have been there pretty much even weekend since moving here and we haven’t been banned yet.  We normally hit a bucket of balls on the driving range and practice on the putting green.  Dylan loves to practice and is becoming better and better with his little clubs.  I somehow got my 8 iron, pitching wedge, and putter in my luggage when we came home from Christmas, so I get to work on my short game.  It takes us 10 minutes to get there by bike and it is usually the highlight of the weekend. 

In addition to playing golf, Dylan’s favorite thing to do with ‘Daddy’ is to go to my office on the weekend.  He loves taking the train into the city and taking the elevator to my office.  He is normally occupied for 2-3 hours watching videos, which is wonderful for me because I get to put in some extra work and nice for Dana because she gets some time alone.  Two weekends ago, I bought Dylan some ice cream on our way to my office.  Dylan insisted on getting the flavor that was called ‘Mozart’, which looked like chocolate.  I ordered the ice cream cone and the ice cream scooper (the person working there) said something about if this was for a child (kind).  He was holding a cone in his hand, so I thought he was asking me if it I wanted a kids cone.  I said no, a normal cone would be okay.  He shrugged his shoulders and gave me the cone.

Fast forward 10 minutes later and Dylan is really enjoying his ice cream cone.  This is usually the time he asks me help him clean up the drips.  He handed me the cone and I proceeded on cleaning up his mess.  After two licks, this ice cream tasted different than most.  In fact, this tasted like liquor!  I had bought my three year old ice cream that had alcohol in it.  Suddenly, I realized what the ice cream store worker was trying to tell me.  Oops.  Reason #792 I feel unfit to be a Dad.    

Now We're Cookin'!

Our kitchen was finally delivered and installed last week, a full 6 weeks after buying the kitchen.  Over the last two months, we have a totally new Top 5 Worst Customer Service Experiences list, as our top 5 Worst Experiences have been completely replaced by new ones. 

The kitchen debacle was by far our worst customer service experience ever (even worse than trying to cancel our AT&T plans when we moved here), even though our service expectations were very low from the beginning.  The store that we bought our kitchen from, Poco, uses Daniela Katzenberger as their spokesperson.  This would be the American equivalent of Kendra Wilkinson from the Girls Next Door.  So ... not the highest end product.

On May 8, we bought one of the store's floor models in order to save some money and get our kitchen sooner than if we have purchased a non-floor model.  This way they assured us that by the end of the month at the latest our kitchen would be ready to be delivered, which was perfect since we were moving at the end of the month.  We needed to order a new countertop, however, because the sink was on the wrong side for where our water pipes were, but the salesperson told us it take "a week or two" to order and we could have our kitchen delivered soon afterward.  After two weeks, we followed up and learned that the "factory was busy" and it would take "a couple more weeks" before it arrived.  In America, we would have cancelled our order and found another kitchen somewhere else.  Unfortunately, we stayed with it. 

Trying to be proactive, we tried to get our delivery and installation appointment set before the countertop arrived.   But, for some reason, we could not set up a delivery appointment until the countertop arrived.  When the countertop arrived on June 6^th, the soonest installation appointment was … June 19^th!  Dana took that call and I promptly moved Dylan into the bedroom until that call was over. 

We proceeded with this horrendous service and our kitchen was installed on Tuesday, the 19^th, 6 weeks and 1 day after buying our kitchen.  When the kitchen was delivered, we were really surprised that the countertop wasn’t even cut!  Our installer had to cut it on our balcony.   In hindsight, we should have cancelled the countertop order and had it purchased at a different store (same day service).  Nevertheless, we have our kitchen installed and vow to never shop again at Poco. 

Out of spite, we bought the rest of our furniture on amazon.de.  Because we don’t have a car here in Münster, we would need to have the furniture delivered.  Interestingly enough, we made a huge furniture order on Wednesday night and most of it arrived Friday morning.  There is hope for timely service in Germany.

When we tell this story, the response is totally different depending on whom we tell it to.  Germans don’t even blink and tell us that "this is completely normal here."  They are not surprised or compassionate to our predicament.  Our American friends and family, are totally appalled and can’t believe how someone could stay in business with this level of service.  (They still can’t believe that we would need to buy a new kitchen for a new apartment, but we have already blogged about how weird that is.  Speaking of which, can anyone tell me another country in the world where you have to buy your own kitchen for an apartment.  I would be interested to know where else not to move.)

Big D is 3! ... and other news

Big D turned 3 last week and we celebrated by taking him to the local zoo, which was tons of fun.  His best buddy from Borken along with his parents joined us and Dylan had so much fun that every day since then he has asked if we can go back.

Dylan and his friend spent the whole day running around, pulling a wagon together through the entire zoo and being super silly.  I think pulling the wagon was a bigger attraction for them than the animals, but regardless, by 4 pm they were tuckered out.

After getting pizza (Dylan's favorite) for dinner, we came home and opened presents.  Bryan says I went "overboard" on the presents, but it was just so much fun shopping for him that I couldn't help myself.  Yesterday Dylan asked me if I would re-wrap all of his birthday presents so he could go through the fun of unwrapping them all over again.  It was a good birthday.

This is as close as he would get to the donkeys.

Checking out the elephants.

These boys shared wagon-pulling duty all day.

Big gorillas were in there.  I had to keep telling the boys to stop sticking their heads through the fence.

Awesome presents!

We were waiting for the seal feeding to begin and the boys got really silly.  They put on a little "pre-show" of their own.

He's trying to show us on his fingers how old he is.

We now have jam sessions every day.  Dylan calls it "playing musics."  

In other news, the shingles are slowly healing but still quite painful.  Since I'm pregnant I'm trying to avoid any pain medication and it's been several days since I've had to take any.  My skin is super sore and now very itchy, but it's definitely getting better despite being massively uncomfortable.  

In apartment news, we're STILL waiting for our kitchen to be installed.  We ordered this kitchen on May 8 and right now the installation date is June 19.  It's really frustrating going so long without a kitchen.  We have a microwave (thank goodness!) a toaster and a coffee pot, so we're pretty much eating a lot of PB&Js, canned soup and going out for pizza.  Dylan is getting bored with the food regime and keeps wondering why we don't have any milk or cereal.  I'm on a mission to get some kind of discount / rebate for the delay.  German customer service is not as flexible or apologetic as America customer service and most people here just grit their teeth and deal with these delays, which aren't unusual.  The customer service / sales people like to pass-the-buck on responsibility and, of course, our sales person has been on a 2 week vacation, so her replacement has been unfriendly and unhelpful in speeding things along.  The basic answer for "What's taking so long?" is "I don't know, but that's the way it is. There's nothing I can do about it."  This response just wouldn't fly in America.  Actually, in America, no one would EVER stand for renting an apartment or buying a house that doesn't come with a kitchen because it's the stupidest system in the entire world, so no one would be in this ridiculous situation.  Dylan moved his toy kitchen into our kitchen a few days ago and said "Look Mommy, now your kitchen has an oven and a sink."  It made me laugh, but it's also kind of sad.

Here's what our kitchen looks like right now.

Munich Flashback

I realized that Bryan didn't post a ton of photos from our trip to Munich a few weeks ago, so here are a few more in case you were wondering what else we did while we were there.

We sought refuge from our grouchy son in the English Garden, one of the few places he was content to hang out in (probably because we bought him massive pretzels)

This is at the start of a walking tour that we did, but only I completed.  Bryan and Dylan pealed off after about 20 minutes because Dylan was being disruptive.  

We thought The Champions League Festival would be fun for D, but the whole time we were there he refused to get out of his stroller and kept saying "It's time to go."  

Things turned around by Thursday when Dylan was in a better mood.  He was pretty excited to climb around the lions at Odeonsplatz. 

Really cool watching the surfers in the Icar.

Dylan insisted on sliding down this hill with Bryan a few times.  It took Bryan a while to get up after this last trip down.

Family photo in the English Garden.

We met up with our friends Thomas and Ginny for an afternoon.  So good to reconnect with our old Jacksonville neighbors!

I think the highlight of the trip for Dylan was getting to watch Cars2 on repeat on the train rides to and from Munich.  Every time he sees an ICE train he says "I get to watch movies on that train."

Official Diagnosis: Shingles Suck

So, it turns out that when I asked the doctors for a translation at the hospital for what they said my affliction was, they told me Chicken Pox.  But according to Dr. Linda (aka: my Mom), whose diagnostic skills are akin to those of Dr. Gregory House, it turns out that my symptoms are much closer to Shingles, which makes a lot more sense, since Shingles are often brought about when you are under extreme duress. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more stressed in my entire life than in those few days before our move and consequently when the Shingles developed.  Shingles and Chicken Pox are closely related and the medicine I’m taking for it actually says it treats both.  Go figure.

When my skin started to get irritated, I honestly thought it was just because my bras were too small an all the moving around from packing and getting ready to move just caused too much friction.  I don’t think we’ve mentioned this on the blog yet, but I’m about 5 months pregnant (Yay! The pregnancy was going great, until this), so my normal clothes including my bras are quite tight these days.  I figured the solution was to just not wear a bra for a few days and the sore spots would heal, but instead they got worse.  By the time I walked into the ER it was obvious this was some kind if virus … a very, very painful virus. 

Shingles feel like you have deep bruises all over the afflicted area that are constantly being pushed on.  In addition, there are frequent bursts of acute pain, like you’re being zapped at random with electric shocks.  Sometimes it feels like my skin is on fire. It is constant pain and it is terrible.  Oh, and your skin bubbles up into little blisters and looks like skin of a recently plucked chicken.  Gross.  I’m super thankful it’s not on my face.

After a miserable, nearly sleepless long weekend, on Tuesday morning I set out to go to the nearest Doctor’s office, which I had researched online at Bryan’s office on Sunday afternoon since we had no Internet connection at our apartment yet.  I walked over to the Doctor’s office at 7:30 a.m., right when it opened, only to find that the entire office was closed for vacation until next Monday. They had thankfully put the names and addresses of two other local doctors on the sign and I recognized the streets, so I headed for the nearest one.  The second Doctor’s office that I went to didn’t open until 9.  It was here, standing in front of this doctor’s office an hour and a half before it opens and 5 days into excruciating pain where I started to cry.   I cursed the hospital under my breath for not having any medication and tried to pull myself together before arriving at the third doctor’s office of the day.  This one was open and I’m not quite sure if they actually take walk-in appointments or not, but the receptionist saw that I was in pretty bad shape (and I was prepared to cause a scene if they wouldn’t see me immediately, so maybe she saw the “crazy” in my eyes) and I got in.  The doctor prescribed a topical cream but I can’t take the normal strong antibiotics because I’m pregnant.  She said that in about a week the blisters should go away, but the pain could remain for a really long time. Great.

Hopefully in a week or two we’ll be able to post good news that the blisters are gone and the pain has gone away or at least lessened.  As Bryan said in the last post … it can only get better.