Atherton Family Notes

Yesterday was a public holiday here in Germany. I think it’s roughly equivalent to Labor Day in the U.S. — it’s what the communists used to call May Day.

We didn’t get out of bed until noon yesterday, as the kids are still having trouble adjusting to the time change, and were up very late. Last night wasn’t much better. CeCe did better, but Carissa was up a lot last night.

We spent yesterday afternoon touring the countryside, including a drive along several roads that looked like scenery for cars commercials. You know the ones I’m talking about– twisty roads that double back on themselves, hairpin turns, the works.

We found the only store in Germany that was open yesterday. It was (not surprisingly) McDonald’s. Carissa and Cece were happy to have a meal that seemed like home. However, the toy that came with the happy meal is about the scariest thing I’ve seen in a while. It’s a doll, based on the “DivaStarz” which are popular toys in the US and Europe. It has a wind-up motor in it that causes the doll to turn it’s head and wink. The only problem is, it’s easy to get the head out of alignment, so it looks like the little girl from the Exorcist with her head spinning around. Plus, the motor always winds down with the doll half-winking, so it looks like she has some weird, lazy eye. Add to that a really terrible haircut, and you’ve got a truly scary toy.

Last night, we went to a going away party thrown by our landlady, Sabine. She lives in the place we are renting, but she will be going to Austrailia for 2 years. It’s a German tradition to throw your own parties for special events. Besides throwing their own going away parties, people throw their own birthday parties, for example.

We met several of her friends, as well as her parents and her brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, who live downstairs. Many of the attendees spoke at least some English, and we tried out bits of our limited German vocabulary. Several people offered us their phone numbers so that we could call to ask for help.

All in all, it was an interesting day, even if they did practically shut down the whole country. This practice of EVERYBODY actually taking time off for the holidays will take a little adjustment. Especially when you come from a country where you can shop at K-Mart on Thanksgiving!

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Banking in Germany is an interesting experience.  The Germans are not fond of credit, although credit cards are becoming more prevalent since they are so common in the rest of Europe.  Oddly enough though, they are actually closer to having a cashless society than we are in the US.
 
In fact, we didn’t bring any money with us on our trip– I have used ATM machines (which are everywhere, even more so then in the US) to withdraw money from our bank account in the states and to take cash advances against our Visa card.  It is very easy to do, and a relatively inexpensive way to transfer money, especially in small amounts.
 
I have taken some of the money I received this way and deposited it in our account at the Volksbank (People’s Bank).  The Volksbank is a very large institution and has branches in virtually every village in the surrounding area.
 
Once you have a bank account in Germany and money deposited in the account, you can do virtually anything without ever seeing another Euro.  Paychecks are routinely direct deposited.  In most cases, any bill can be paid by writing your account number, bank name and signature on the bill and either mailing it or dropping it off at your bank.  If not, you can fill out a form at your bank and pay it directly anyway, as long as you know the account number to pay.  Almost all stores will accept your ATM card, which doubles as a debit card, for purchases.  Any monthly recurring payment can be set up to be paid automatically.  In addition, all of this can be done online or even from your cell phone(!). 
 
You can even use your ATM card at parking meters.  It seems weird to debit a 0,30 € charge, though, but apparently the Germans are used to it.  We had to use actual change to park at the Landratsamt yesterday because I haven’t memorized my PIN yet.
 
You get all of this capability included in the monthly fee paid for the bank account.  Our account costs 5 € a month (~$4.50), so it’s really a pretty good deal.  The only additional fees charged for accessing your money are when you use some other bank’s ATM machine, just like in the US.  If you overdraw the account, there is automatic overdraft protection, but it’s pretty expensive.
 
The one place I have seen so far where you absolutely have to have money is to use a shopping cart at the grocery store.  The carts are chained together at most stores and you have to insert a 0,50 € coin or sometimes a 1 € coin to release one of the carts.  You get the coin back when you return the cart and lock it up.  Aldi groceriy stores in the US do this, probably because they are used to that kind of system– we have an Aldi here in Villingen.
 
Come to think of it, though, I’ve seen some people using tokens (or slugs, perhaps) to release the carts.  Maybe you really don’t need any cash at all here!

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Today is the third straight rainy day in Villingen, and according to the forecast , “die Regenschauers” probably won’t stop until Monday. Of course, Monday is still expected to be overcast, so that’s not much better.  Sandi and the girls go outside every time the rain lets up for a minute . Sandi’s been having fun exploring the village of Unterkirnach. She found a small park at the top of the hill, so that’s helped Carissa pass the time.  

We became legal residents of Germany yesterday. In spite of the rumors about German bureaucracy, it went pretty well. First we went to the Rathaus in Niederescach (where our apartment is), and registered as residents of the town.  The clerk was very helpful, spoke a little English, and even called ahead to the next person we needed to visit to confirm that we had everything we needed.

Since that took less time than we expected, we decided to visit the local Backerei, where we managed to order bread and pastries mostly in German– much to the baker’s surprise. I think she was worried that we were going to be difficult to work with when she heard us discussing what to order in English.  

Afterward, we had to go to the Landratsamt (literally State Administrative Office) in Villingen to apply for a residency permit. This is different than the what we received in the first office– registering in the town you live in is required of everybody in Germany. The residency permit is only required of Auslanders (out-landers) such as ourselves.

The permit work was handled by a stem looking German woman, but it was relatively painless. She made copies of a lot of documents, then stamped a bunch of stuff in our passports as a temporary permit. We were missing one item — it is required to have a photo to use in the permanent permits, which will be ready in 2 months, but she allowed us to slip by on that account. We have to bring the photos with us when we return for the permanent permits.

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hi everybody

i am in germany

i get my toys tommorrowwwwwwwwww

lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

(this message was really typed by carissa…)

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In a place where people do a lot of walking, it makes for a difficult day when the rain never lets up.  But we did what the Germans do, which is to go ahead and walk in the rain, even if you get soaking wet.

We went to the Bakery in Unterkirnach yesterday morning for breakfast, then drove into Villingen to look at the old city.  On Saturdays, there is a farmers market around the Münster which has all sorts of meats, vegetables, and other fresh foods, as well as fresh flowers.  It is an interesting, bustling place.

Sandi was impressed by the quaintness of the old city.  It is certainly charming, even if the stores are very expensive.

By late evening the showers had stopped, and we took the opportunity to walk through Unterkirnach.  During part of the trip, we stopped in a graveyard up the hill from our apartment.

Graveyards in Germany are fascinating, because the Germans do a lot of complex landscaping over the top of their loved ones’ graves.  There area lot of beautiful flowers planted in these locations, as well as other objects left on the sites.  For example, some of the graves had personal messages to the deceased written on long, wide white ribbons.

People clearly invest a lot of time in these endeavors.

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Yesterday morning, we got in the car and headed west of Unterkirnach.  We didn’t really have a plan for where to go, but we know that there were mountains in that direction.

About 20km out of town, we saw a road sign pointing to a village called Triberg.  I had seen an advertisement in Unterkirnach for a shop called “Haus Der 1000 Uhren” (House of a Thousand Clocks), so I thought we would go window shop at least.  Germany is pretty serious about stores being closed on Sunday, so we weren’t expecting to be able to do much more than that.

When we arrived in Triberg (down a very steep slope, I might add), we discovered that it was very definitely a tourist town.  As such, many of the shops were actually open, including the clock shop.  We decided to get out and look around despite the cold spell we continue to have here.  It was between 2 and 6 degrees here yesterday (that’s 36 and 43 in Fahrenheit).  It least it wasn’t raining (much).

The clock shop is really composed of about 5 buildings plus other shops run by the same group but carrying other souvenirs, and so forth.  As you can imagine, there are a lot of clocks to see.  This is definitely the place to go if you come to Europe and want to bring home a clock.

Of course, this clock shop exists because it is near the heart of the Black Forest, which is the place of origin of the cuckoo clock.  There are available in hundreds of different styles and movements, plus varying levels of animation.  Sandi found several that she liked, but an important decision like this clearly can’t be made in one day.  I’m sure there are many trips to Triberg in out future.

In addition to cuckoo clocks, the store also carries many other stypes, from tiny desk clocks to full size grandfather clocks, and many sty;es from traditional to ultra-modern.

The only item we actually bought in at the store was a sampler of three different local fruit wines.  There is one bottle each of blackberry, blueberry and cherry wine.  All of which are delicious as we found from the store samples.

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It turns out that the highest waterfalls in Germany are located in Triberg. So after we finished at the clock store, we trekked up the side of the waterfalls (170 meter or about 520 foot elevation). If we keep taking trips like this, we’ll definitely lose weight here– even with all the good breads!

The falls are a beautiful place. We got some good pictures of the girls with the falls in the background, which we will post as soon as we get a decent internet connection at home.

The falls are one of the more untouched areas in the Schwarzwald, except for the trails. Since the slope is so steep, no one ever tried to harvest the trees in the area. Because of this, the location serves as a de facto wilderness preserve.

The girls loved the trip. As a matter of fact, it was hard to keep Carissa moving since she kept stopping to stare at the cascades. Plus, there were lots of squirrels in the area that clearly have no fear of humans. The sell peanuts at a little stand near the falls, and people were feeding the squirrels right out of their hands.

Also, since we’ve had so much rain the last few days, there were lots of little waterfalls that had formed from the drainage. These were CeCe’s favorite parts, as they were small enough that she could get to them.

For lunch, we stopped at the little café at the bottom of the falls. We ordered some German foods, including something called Schnisselbrot, which is bread topped with some sort of creme and shredded dried ham (which has the texture of beef jerky). We also had a cheeseburger, which as best we could tell, appeared to be made with ground pork and was topped with mozerella cheese, curry ketchup, pickles and peppers (sehr gut — minus the peppers, at least). For dessert, we had some Schwarzwald chocolates, and Carissa had something that can only be described as a foot long Gummi snake.

All in all, it was a good trip, and probably makes our list of places to take visitors. Not bad for an unplanned trip!

UPDATE (with pics):

The lower cascade of Triberger Wasserfälle

Carissa and Celia at the Waterfall

The girls on the lower bridge; as seen from the upper bridge

One of the many friendly squirrels

A view of Triberg from near the falls

A sign on a local restaurant

A view in Triberg

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Since we are trying to learn to speak German, we spend a lot of time quizzing Carissa with “Do you know how to say ‘insert word here’ in German?” and then telling her how to say the word.

When we went to the old city in Villingen on Saturday, we bought pretzels (the big, soft German kind) from a bakery as we were leaving. When we arrived home, we gave one of the pretzels to Carissa. Carissa came up to Sandi and said, “Mommy, do you know how to say “pretzel” in German?”

“How?” said Sandi.

“Delicious!”

Update, May 2009:  It seems that this post attracts several hits a month from people actually trying to find out how to say “pretzel” in German.  The answer is “Breztel” and the plural is “Bretzeln”.  The German pronunciation is very close to the way you would pronounce those words in English.

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When we arrived at the vacation home in Unterkirnach, Frau Weißer (the owner) gave us four passes to a local place. She tried to explain what it was, but since she spoke no English, and we speak only (very) limited German, we didn’t really get the message.

On our walk through Unterkirnach on Saturday evening, we accidentally discovered the place she was referring to. It’s called a Spielscheune (play barn), essentially an indoor park for children. It’s open everyday from 10:30 to 19:00, and judging from the parking lot, a very popular place.

After the kids took their naps on Sunday, we took them to the Spielscheune. We were amazed by the place for several reasons:

The good: There are a lot of things to do. There is a ball pit (a zillion little plastic balls to roll around in), which Carissa thought was as much fun as a swimming pool. There is a rock pit, where kids could dig, pile, throw, and whatever else you can think of doing with a pile of pebbles. There is a giant air trampoline. There is a long slide made of rollers that the kids can ride down in a bucket. There is a disc-shaped swing that can hold 4 or 5 kids and a hammock. There are dozens of little cubbyholes along the walls painted to look like various playhouses. There are various contraptions designed for climbing. There are rope ladders leading to a web of netting across the entire ceiling on top of which kids can crawl.

The bad: Many of these activities are dangerous, and the parents were arranged in little groups talking to each other and paying little attention to what the kids were doing. The ball pit is relatively safe, except when the kids climb on top of the entrance and dive into the balls. The rock pit has a device in the center that is like a manually operated backhoe. One boy I saw would spin around and whack other children in the head with the shovel, then yell at them for not getting out of the way. Many of the climbing places were surrounded by hard flooring which could serious injure a child that falls.

The ugly: The rock pit kicks up enough dust to choke a… well, something that’s hard to choke anyway. I don’t know whose bright idea that was. Even worse, it’s hard to be in a room full of four-year-olds that assume you can speak German!

I don’t want to sound like we didn’t like the place, because we did, and the kids loved it. One just has to be careful.

On the lower level, there is a game room with pool, darts, foosball, and video games. More importantly, there are computers where you can pay for Internet access. Sandi thought this was a great idea, since she would be able to get to her Hotmail account. It worked– until Celia flipped the switch that turned off the computer! When the computer restarted, we couldn’t get back to Internet explorer, because we didn’t know how to log back in!

At the very bottom, there is a skate park, full of half pipes and other places to perform dangerous stunts on a skateboard. Looking out from the overlook where the computers were, Carissa enjoyed watching the kids skating down in this area. She now wants to buy skates so she can practice too. Oh boy.

We finished the day off in the park outside the Spielscheune, where Carissa and I pulled ourselves across a shallow lake on a raft attached to a rope. It was a fun ride, we saw fish splashing, and altogether had a wonderful time.

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Monday was moving day. We got to move into the place that will be our home for next 2 years.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Let me give you some background:

Thomson Multimedia and I signed a contract for the apartment on March 14th with Sabine. The contract is effective as of April 15th, 2002. The apartment, which is the upstairs of a two family home, is owned by Ms. Weis, and has been her place of residence. She has planned to go to Austrailia for two years, which corresponds almost exactly with the time we plan to be in Germany. So far so good.

It turns out that Sabine is a bit of a free spirit, however, and has not done a very good job planning for her departure. In the first week of April, she called Thomson and requested that the turnover be delayed until April 29th. We agreed to this, because I had been in the hospital, and we knew we weren’t going to be in Germany on the 15th.

On April 22nd, she calls Thomson again, asking to move the turnover date to May 6th, because her plane didn’t depart until that morning. Again, we agreed, because Sandra, our HR representative, told me she could find good temporary housing.

On May 1st. we attended Sabine’s going away party, and it became pretty clear to us, looking at the amount of crap left in the apartment was going to be impossible to finish cleaning/moving/storing/burning by the 6th. And I say that with apologies to crap everywhere for sullying its good name by associating it with the clutter in the apartment.

Joking aside, Sabine’s real problem is that she is a collector (and making fun of her for this is kind of like me, the pot, and calling her, the kettle, black). German society probably encourages this behavior with all of its complex recycling rules—it’s easier just to keep something than try to figure out how to throw it away. I think she probably has every piece of paper that’s been mailed to her in the last 10 years. It’s all arranged in piles, but the piles are all over the house.

The other element of this is that we are supposed to make a deposit of three months rent into something the Germans call a Mietkautionkonto. It’s a special account held by the landlord that is used specifically for a rent deposit, has special rules about when the landlord can make a claim against it, and the renter gets to keep all of the interest earned on the account at the end of the contract. I was told that I needed to set up such an account and then give the passbook to Sabine. When I went to the bank to do so, the bank told me that the landlord is supposed to create the account, and showed me the place in my rental contract that says this.

So I called Sabine on Saturday afternoon to ask how she wanted to handle this, and she acted like she had no idea what I was talking about. She told me she would talk to her parents to find out and that I should call her back Sunday evening. It’s pretty obvious to me that if her parents weren’t around, Sabine would have difficulty functioning. I wonder how she is going to survive in Austrailia by herself. (Actually, I think I know– she is going to be living with a friend in Austrailia. I hope her friend knows what she has signed up for!)

I called back Sunday evening, both to talk to her about the deposit, and to ask her if we could bring over some of our suitcases since we had discovered that there was no way we could take all of our stuff in one trip using the tiny amount of trunk space we have.

When Sabine answered the phone, it was clear to me that she had been crying, and she indicated she had just had a fight with her parents. They had apparently just stormed out.

However, she did say that she would go to the bank with me on the 6th to set up the account, and that we could bring our stuff over and store it.

When we arrived at the apartment, it was, if anything, even more cluttered than it had been before. Sabine explained to us that her parents had fought over a set of double doors separating the dining room from the family room that Sabine had taken down some time ago and her father was now insisting be put back up. She also explained that she would not be leaving this week as planned, but she was not going to stay with her parents, which was her original back-up plan. Instead, she would stay with a friend, and we would still be able to move in on Monday because she was going to work through the night if she had to in order to get ready.

When I arrived at work Monday morning, I had received an email from Sabine that she had sent to everyone on her mailing list at midnight the night before. Clearly, she had spent some time not cleaning the apartment! I’ll attach a copy of the email, because it indicates that Sabine may not leave Germany until the end of the month!

So yesterday, we arrived at the apartment to find that our stuff had already arrived (good news), but as we suspected, Sabine was still a long way from being finished (bad news). She had gotten the bedrooms mostly finished (good news), but she hadn’t even started on the kitchen really, so there was nowhere yet that we could store groceries (bad news, especially with hungry toddlers).

So we cancelled the appointment at the bank to make the deposit, and Sandi, the kids and I left for a long drive to give Sabine some time to work.

Fortunately by late last evening, we had enough done that we could live in the apartment, although somewhat tenuously. The apartment is far from childproof at the moment, but there’s nothing we can really do until Sabine is finished with her tasks.

Sabine will be back today to continue cleaning and packing, and maybe for several more days to come.

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