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Here in Frankfurt already! Gotta love Starbucks!
We don't have internet in our apartment yet and won't for about another week or so and there is no internet cafe in our town (that I've seen). Just wanted to let all of you know that we moved into our new apartment on Tuesday and things are already looking good.
It's been a stressful, but great week. Thankfully we had a lot of sunshine all week and got to really enjoy our new balcony. Woohoo! We also already found Ikea and bought some large shelves/cabinets that we needed. All in all things have gone much smoother than I expected.
Oh, and DH started his new job Wednesday. He has to wear a suit now! Funny story...the first day he almost walked out the door wearing the jacket of one suit and the pants of a different suit! I died laughing. They did look similar, but really...how did he not notice? 
Finally, ladies in Germany, why did no one warn me about the complicated trash situation?! I have no idea where to take all the paper we have from the move so it's sitting in our storage downstairs...thank goodness it's big.
Well, I probably won't be on again for a week or so, but I hope everyone's doing well (congrats Bail on the new addition!!) and just wanted to update everyone.
Re: Here in Frankfurt already! Gotta love Starbucks!
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
I am about 15-20 minutes west of Wiesbaden. We've only been here for about two months, so I'm not much farther ahead in the getting settle situation (in fact, we JUST got our household goods on Wednesday). I'm happy to help in any way. Maybe meet up for a play date.
Have fun settling in! I wish you lots of luck navigating the trash bureaucracy of Europe.
We passed through Frankfurt with the kids last summer and they had this great little kids' fair set up along the Main. It seems like a nice city to raise kids in. Enjoy it!
It's great that you got a nice week of weather- this week was super!
Oh yeah- the garbage situation. For some reason our building doesn't participate in it. We just do Paper and Restmuell. We also do Glass in those special colour sorted bins you'll find all over. And we do our Pfand also. I'm not sure if you know this, but when you buy plastic bottles and certain glass bottles (I've found it's mostly beer) you pay extra at the register, or any place you buy a drink (bakery etc.). It's 25 cents for the plastic and 8 cents for the glass bottles. I think it is also on cans too.
Here's a link so you can look for the pics on the bottles:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einwegpfand That's the symbol for the plastic ones.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehrwegpfand That's for the glass.
It's a bit confusing at first.
Anyway- bring them back to the supermarket. There's a recycling machine. Sometimes there are two- one for glass and one for plastic. After you recycle them you get a ticket. Bring the ticket to the cashier when you pay and this amount gets deducted.
We've had some problems with some products in that you have to bring the container to where you bought the product to get your refund. But that's pretty rare. I always shop at Rewe anyway. It just makes it easier.
So don't throw them out! You'll also notice people digging in trash cans and they really don't look homeless to me. I assume they are digging for Pfand.
Hope I explained that well!
good luck settling in - glad to hear you made it ok!
I agree - gotta love starbucks
it's my special treat every time I go into the city!
I went to Starbucks more in Zurich then I ever would in the US. Been once in 6 months in Chicago so far. I would always go to get cheesecake as it would give me a moment of clarity. haha!
2012 Reading Challenge
Now Nesting from Chicago, IL My nail blog:
Yeah, sorry, it's a huge PITA, but kind of second-nature by now. By that I mean DH takes care of it because it sets me off on a rant about how ridiculous the trash system is every time I do something wrong.
As for the dates the pick-ups occur (and as others have mentioned - you don't want to miss them!), you should be able to get an "Abfallkalender" which is a trash calender for your city. It's like your trash Bible. It will tell you what to put in which kind of trash (and all cities are different - our diapers just go in the "Restm?ll", the "everything else trash" and not this "grey day" others spoke of), and it will also give you the pick up dates for your house. It might take a PhD to figure out, but if you ask a neighbor to show you what trash district you're in (at least that's how my town is divided up, and the trash districts have nothing to do with any other sort of real districts your town might have), then you can highlight your dates, write them in your calender, and you're good to go.
In Madrid it was so easy! We had recycling and trash bins down on the street in front of our apartment and just took it out whenever we needed to. It was picked up every day. So no problems there. The trash calendar in my town is so confusing! And some days they only pick up on certain streets..? Ugh. We have all our paper hoarded in our storage locker downstairs...I think we'll be making a big trip to the recycling cetner this weekend if it's open (which it probably isn't).
Yes, let's meet sometime! I am about half an hour from Frankfurt. If you PM me we can try to plan to meet somewhere in the middle by train? I still only have a Spanish phone number, but let me know if you want that too.
It was seriously not this complicated in Spain! Must be certain parts of Europe...
Got the calendar (luckily the people in the house before left it behind) and it has our trash district written at the top (score!). I had to study it and read all the different kinds of waste for about half an hour before I realized i will never get it completely. Hahaha. I will try to ask a neighbor, but with my limited German I doubt I will get answers.
I just can't believe they only pick up certain things twice a month. Seems so crazy!
From the sounds of it Austria is even worse... we went on holidays to the Tirol a few years ago and there were 8 different categories for the trash!!!
Glad the move went well for you and that you are getting some sunshine... can you send some over to Ireland - nothing but rain recently!
Where I live, they only pick up paper once every 6 weeks. We've missed it before and could have started our own recycling plant in our cellar by the time the next one rolled around.
And if you take the trash to the recycling center yourself, there's a good chance you'll have to pay for them to take it. Before we left for the States we had to take all our trash there because the pick-up dates were like a week after we left and we didn't want to leave our subletters with all of our trash to put out. We had to pay them to take it. It wasn't unreasonable, something like 12?, but still, it's best to figure out the trash system on your street and use that.