Yesterday I went to the Aldi grocery store near work to pick up a few items that we had on the grocery list. I made one major mistake in my shopping experience.

I forgot that I was out of cash.

Not completely out of cash.  I had 17 euros and 72 eurocents. That SHOULD have been able to buy a lot of stuff. And there was a lot of stuff on my list.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize I was low on cash until I was in line, with my goods splayed out all over. And of course, stores don’t accept credit cards. And of course-of course, my German bank card doesn’t work (because I haven’t set it up because I can’t read the instructions, but that’s a whole different story). There was a lot of pointing and gesturing and “nicht”-ing until I was able to get out, leaving behind a big bag of potatoes, three red bell peppers, two heads of lettuce and a can of kidney beans. The cashier was NOT happy with me (nor were the people in line behind me) and I felt really stupid.

I’m surprised it took me 22 months to run into this situation, since I’m such a cashless girl back in the U.S. So, here’s to being back in the good ol’ U.S. of American Express in a few months!

Yesterday, one of the Germans came up to me and said, “I got an e-mail from Megan, and she said she was running late because her son is under the weather.” I nodded, not sure if I was supposed to be sympathetic to this Megan woman’s kid, or what the right response was.

“So,” he continued, “you know what that means? That’s a common phrase, that ‘under the weather?’”

“Yes,” I replied. “It means he’s sick.”

“Sick? Like sick, serious?”

“No, like sick, not feeling well.”

Thanking me, he wandered back off shaking his head at the weird Americans and their weird sayings. But it got me thinking how often we throw that phrase around and how funny it must sound to someone who understands the literal words but not the phrase.

Some of the words they have make sense “translated,” even if I don’t fully understand why. For example, goose bumps is equal to goose skin in German (even though I’ve never seen a goose get bumpy skin when it’s cold). The funny bone on your elbow is the music bone to them (not funny OR musical when it is hit). A lot of our sayings, like “cross your fingers” are also used in German, even though I have no idea where the saying comes from.

Apparently they have been missing out on “under the weather” all this time. I guess I have three months to fix that.

After returning from out of the country for three weeks, our cupboards were a bit bare and earlier this week we went to the grocery store. Just like we’ve done 100 times before.

Only this time it was weird.

In the produce aisle, I overheard two Germans talking about how many apples to buy and the guy said a kilo. But he pronounced it ‘key-lo’ not ‘kill-o’ like I normally do. I ran over to Travis and said “They say ‘key-lo’ not ‘kill-o,’” like this was some huge revelation that had never occurred to me before.

So we waltz up to the meat counter and I’m thinking I’m awesome and go to order 500 ‘key-los’ of stew meat. Only I meant 500 grams. Whoopsie, big difference. But at least I got to practice saying ‘key-lo.’ We ended up with one kilo, which is over two pounds, and so we’ll be eating stew meat for a few weeks.

And that wasn’t the only weird thing. I swear, it was like our first time in a German grocery store. Things looked so different and strange, and it was like we had been gone for three years, not three weeks. We made it out 130 euros poorer, but at least we’ve got enough meat to last awhile.

Waiting for this moment:

There is no other team in the world I would have gotten up at that ungodly time for, even the Broncos (and I’m a season ticket holder).

I was not disappointed.

But I am tired.

We finally made it to the Christmas market WITH working cameras, so here are some pictures.

There are lots of places to eat at the market, but say you can’t get enough brats. There is always a plethora of dried sausage to take home as well.

This is the main square with the giant carousel. Unseen but to my right is a church called Saint Nickolai - after the big guy himself. I guess there are a number of St. Nick statues carved all over the chuch.

There are lots of vendors selling gifts (as well as food) and I loved this candle stand.

There’s also a giant Christmas tree here. It looks a lot cooler at night, but even in the day you can see how huge it is. I wonder where you get a tree this size?

This stand had some gorgeous hand-made ornaments.

And we left walking out past the Dom. Ever since I’ve been coming to Frankfurt in about 2003 the Dom has always had scaffolding. Just a few months ago, they finished all of the restoration work and I finally was able to get my first picture without construction scaffolding! Of course, it looks MUCH cooler at night when they light it up, but it’s still a pretty neat church.

It was kind of sad to walk through knowing this would be our last trip to a Christmas market. Somehow, it’s not quite the same as going to Target for Christmas shopping.

Today our nephew Dayton arrives along with two of his friends. These will be the final visitors of the year.

Last night laying in bed, I tried to count the number of visitors we’d had. I fell asleep somewhere around 16. And that was only June.

I think the final count is 21, unless I’m missing someone, in which case I’ll feel like a real jerk.
Kim, Reggie, Ryan, Kody, Lori, Kevin, Matt, Joe, Zach, Kari, Kari, Krissi, Mom, Sammi, Dorea, Chris, Denise, Mama, Dayton, Charly, and Alec.

That’s quite a tally! Thank you all for visiting us and bringing a little piece of home this way.

We’re both taking tomorrow off and going to the Netherlands with the guys. It should be a fun weekend!

Way back, long before we moved here when I was just an occasional visitor for work purposes, I picked up a CD called “Learn to Speak German in your Car.” I tormented my carpool partner with learning the phrases every morning. Well, not EVERY morning, but some mornings.

I remember on my very first flight here, I was so excited I stayed awake through the entire flight listening to the German CD on my iPod. Right off the plane, I walked up to the money exchange counter, and said, in my practiced CD-learned German, “Haben Sie deutsche marks?”

The lady kinda looked at me funny, and said “You mean Euros?” in English.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Germany had stopped using Deutsche marks a full 5 years before my visit. I guess the CD was a bit out of date.

Mom recently told me she and dad are learning German in their car, too. I just hope they’ve upgraded to the version with Euros.

I’ve mentioned before about how frustrating it can be to get things in the mail that you have no idea what they are. Yes, this is partially our fault for not keeping up on our German lessons. But yesterday, we got a bill for 837.26 in the mail, which tops it all.

We haven’t seen a utility bill since we left Denver. Our rent includes a certain amount (I think 45€ or so) that we pay every month for heat, the same amount for water, the same amount for trash, etc. which all totaled up to 230€ per month for these costs. I’ve heard rumors about how once a year you get dinged for whatever you used OVER that amount, but since our year came and went over four months ago, I thought we were in the clear. All those days of shivering in the kitchen paid off!

I brought the bill in to work and said “HELP!” to an unsuspecting co-worker. The poor co-worker was as befuddled as I am by the 7 pages of details regarding every last cent that goes on in the house. Not just water and heat and sewage, but also cleaning of the hallways, house repairs, raking, trash removal, fire extinguishers and a myriad of other charges are laid out.

So I guess 800€ isn’t so bad for a year’s worth of utilities (whoops, it was only for 2008, so that was 7 months worth). As long as we pretend that we weren’t already paying 230€ a month for these things.

Here in Germany, there is no warning about fall impending. We have no football season to usher us forward into fall. No pre-season games to prep us, no Halloween candy in the stores, no Thanksgiving-ish decorations going up in storefronts.

We do, however, have much shorter days and downright cold weather. I went from shorts one day, to shivering in a sweater the next. Boom. It’s here.

We are kind of depressed about fall this year, because that means our last summer in Germany is over, which means we only have icky weather to look forward to for the next eight months, and then this whole experience will be at an end. So I’d really like to stretch every last drop of summer possible, but apparently it’s out of my hands.

This note has been taped to our front door for almost two weeks now:

My only response is, “Sprechen Sie englisch?”

We’ve gotten a handle on most things and can’t be phased by much. But there’s a certain level of frustration with not being able to read your electricity bill or your bank statement every month. (Maybe that’s a good thing, though :).) In fact, it will be strange to go back to the U.S. and be able to understand every piece of correspondence that comes our way.

And we have no idea what that sign says on the door, in fact, I haven’t even glanced at it besides the “Dear house mates” part. It could say “We will be window washing on Friday, please keep you clothes on” or maybe “The first one to respond to this wins a brand new car.” At any rate, it stays up, possibly warning us of some impending danger, or maybe a dire mention of a swine flu outbreak, or it could just be saying how wonderful it is to be our neighbor and how much they love living here.