Saturday, February 11, 2012
Gotta Improvise
One thing we do not like about our house is the kitchen sink. It's not deep enough, no sprayer, and there is only one side. Not only that, but you have to push a button to heat up the water before you use it. It needs to heat up for about 10 minutes to get enough hit water to fill the sink. We do have a dish washer but we still wash all of our pots and pans by hand. There isn't really a place to let your clean dishes dry. (We are buying a dish rack today!). James improvised though. He found a place to rinse off the soapy dishes and let the dry. We do not use this tub at all to bathe. I thought it was funny.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Euros
Aunt Carol asked how money works here. I will try my best to explain.
We use Euros here. The base facilities take both Euro and dollars as well as credit cards. However some places in town only take Euro or Visa. Our current bank account is only a MasterCard. We had to get a new bank account here that had both US and German routing numbers so that we could pay our German bills. Anyhow, that account does have visa card do things may be easier if we don't have Euro on us. We learned this lesson at McDonalds the other day. We ordered our food and tried to pay with our MC. unfortunately they didn't accept MC and we had no Euro on us. We had to leave. It was a bit embarrassing.
Not all places take Visas either but they do take Giro cards. We will have to get a Giro card eventually if we want to travel.
Currently the exchange rate is one USD buys you .73 Euros. Apparently that is low. Eventually it will go up a few more cents and then people will do an exchange so they can get more for their money.
Germany taxes are crazy! I may have posted about this before but I will write again just in case. Tax is 19% here. Instead if tax being added in at the end it is reflected in the actual price advertised. We are able to buy something called a VAT form that will allow us to receive that tax back. It's a nice little tax relief but not every store will accept a VAT form. And this is only available for Americans stationed here.
Excuse any typing errors. My spell check on the phone has a mind of its own and I always dont catch it if it changes it to something different.
We use Euros here. The base facilities take both Euro and dollars as well as credit cards. However some places in town only take Euro or Visa. Our current bank account is only a MasterCard. We had to get a new bank account here that had both US and German routing numbers so that we could pay our German bills. Anyhow, that account does have visa card do things may be easier if we don't have Euro on us. We learned this lesson at McDonalds the other day. We ordered our food and tried to pay with our MC. unfortunately they didn't accept MC and we had no Euro on us. We had to leave. It was a bit embarrassing.
Not all places take Visas either but they do take Giro cards. We will have to get a Giro card eventually if we want to travel.
Currently the exchange rate is one USD buys you .73 Euros. Apparently that is low. Eventually it will go up a few more cents and then people will do an exchange so they can get more for their money.
Germany taxes are crazy! I may have posted about this before but I will write again just in case. Tax is 19% here. Instead if tax being added in at the end it is reflected in the actual price advertised. We are able to buy something called a VAT form that will allow us to receive that tax back. It's a nice little tax relief but not every store will accept a VAT form. And this is only available for Americans stationed here.
Excuse any typing errors. My spell check on the phone has a mind of its own and I always dont catch it if it changes it to something different.
A short update
We are officially in our house and I live it. We have yet to get out Internet turned on so my postings will be limited or short. It's hard typing long notes on an iPhone. I have a few things I want to post about but that will wait till the Internet is hooked up. For now I want to share some pictures I took on our walk to Kylee's bus stop. Which, by the way, us up a few hills. The walk is actually good exercise.
The picture of Wyatt is him at the top of the hill close to the bus stop. Our house is WAY at the bottom behind the last row of trees.
The picture of Wyatt is him at the top of the hill close to the bus stop. Our house is WAY at the bottom behind the last row of trees.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
McDonald's
We have been so busy running around taking care of errands that sometimes we have to eat out. We happened to find the McDonald's close to Bitburg Air Base (the base closest to our home, but not where James is stationed) so we decided to grab a bite. Let me say that European McDonald's are nothing like the ones we are all used to. The ones here are nice... really nice, in fact. They had leather seats, nice tables with lit candles on top, clean atmosphere, and delicious food. The menu was pretty similar to the common foods you will find in the states, but they had a few different things I haven't seen before. Best of all, they have a REAL McCafe. The drinks are made fresh similar to Starbucks and they had a really nice dessert bar. I was pretty impressed that this fast food restaurant was still 'fast', but upscale.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Germany 101
Every so often I thought I would do a 'Germany 101' post, listing some of the facts and info I've learned or realized. If you have any questions and want me to answer them, comment and I will try to answer next time.
- You cannot warm-up your car. If you are parked for more than three minutes you must turn off your engine.
- A lot of houses around here have solar panels on the roof.
- Bitburger Beer is brewed in a village where Kylee will go to school.
-They have these weird obstacles in the road.
-These are common in the older villages.
-They have Aldi's here in Germany. We have one just a short drive from us.
- I think the food tastes funny here, even the American food at the commissary on base. Sprite tastes disgusting!
- 'Bitte' means 'please' and 'your welcome'.
- 'Guten tag' means 'hello' or 'good day'.
- Traffic lights are not popular around here. Round abouts or traffic circles are everywhere, and I LOVE driving through them.
- People really do go super fast on the Autobahn. We were going 90 mph and people were still zooming past us.
-There are steep hills everywhere.
-It seems to be normal to have a bathroom as soon as you open the front door. European fridges are really small. There are no closets nor pantries in German houses. Kitchens are not built in. If a German moves they usually take the kitchen with them.
- German schools only go half a day.
- We have had one day of partial sunshine since we have been here. Apparently the sun is rarely seen and it rains often. The temperature has been in the 30's here.
-There are 'American' foods at German restaurants, but they taste funny.
- Thankfully, fast food places are not common around this area. We have seen a 'Subway' in the town close to our village.
- In Germany we drive on the same side of the road as we do in the States.
- You cannot warm-up your car. If you are parked for more than three minutes you must turn off your engine.
- A lot of houses around here have solar panels on the roof.
- Bitburger Beer is brewed in a village where Kylee will go to school.
-Most of the streets inside villages are narrow.
-Some village streets really are paved with cobblestones.
-They have these weird obstacles in the road.
-They have Aldi's here in Germany. We have one just a short drive from us.
-This means 'exit'. Americans will sometimes pronounce it 'Ass Fart'. I'm sure thats not too far off form the actual pronunciation.
- I think the food tastes funny here, even the American food at the commissary on base. Sprite tastes disgusting!
- 'Bitte' means 'please' and 'your welcome'.
- 'Guten tag' means 'hello' or 'good day'.
- Traffic lights are not popular around here. Round abouts or traffic circles are everywhere, and I LOVE driving through them.
- People really do go super fast on the Autobahn. We were going 90 mph and people were still zooming past us.
-There are steep hills everywhere.
-It seems to be normal to have a bathroom as soon as you open the front door. European fridges are really small. There are no closets nor pantries in German houses. Kitchens are not built in. If a German moves they usually take the kitchen with them.
- German schools only go half a day.
- We have had one day of partial sunshine since we have been here. Apparently the sun is rarely seen and it rains often. The temperature has been in the 30's here.
-There are 'American' foods at German restaurants, but they taste funny.
- Thankfully, fast food places are not common around this area. We have seen a 'Subway' in the town close to our village.
- In Germany we drive on the same side of the road as we do in the States.
We found a house
Here is our new house! We move in on Wednesday when our stuff will be delivered there. I cannot wait to settle in and make it our own. It has 5 large bedrooms and 2 large bathrooms, a backyard, garage, a river with a small water fall in front of the house and a lake at the bottom of the road. We live in Biersdorf Am See, Germany. (Translated to The Beer Village by the Lake.) From what I understood from the Landlord there will be a terrace built on top of the garage this summer.
Do you see those white things covering up the top half of the bottom two windows? Those are roladens and built into the house. They are metal 'curtains' that are on the outside of the window. Nearly every house has them.
Here is the pretty waterfall across from the house. Its right across the street. The kids cannot get into it, nor fall in it because there is too much foliage.
I will post more pictures this week. It took 20 minutes just to upload these two pictures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)