Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The dust is (slowly) settling…

We’re finally settling in to our new place. There are boxes everywhere and we don’t have our armoires yet (most German places don’t have closets so clothes are all over the place) but we’ve arranged our furniture and even bought a TV. Although we brought a TV from the States so the kids could watch their DVD collection, European television broadcasts in a different format (PAL, as opposed to NTSC in the States) and requires different voltage. Luckily, a fellow ex-Pat is moving back to the States and is in the process of shedding much of the Continental detritus his family has accumulated here.

B went to Ikea (with her Mom and Sandra) and dropped a small fortune (by Ikea standards) on our armoires and assorted other stuff. Ikea has an interesting pricing model. If you want them to get the stuff from the shelves for you, they charge 25 Euros, regardless of how much stuff you buy. They’ll deliver the whole store to your doorstep for a delivery charge of 80 Euros. Since we bought a total of 6 armoires (long story), we’ll pay our friends at Ikea to assemble them. The one for our bedroom is a real monster so, my near death experience installing lighting fresh on my mind, I’ll stay out the way this time.

On an unrelated note, I spied these two mini-cars parked near each other and though it was funny. One is a Smartcar (Daimler-Chrysler), the other is a Ford Ka. You’ll soon see Smartcars in the States (they’ve already invaded Canada). The latter has been common in Brazil for 10 years or more. I half expect to see the owners open the trunk, pull out big tin keys and wind them up before zipping down the street. You could literally park a Smartcar in many an American closet. We’re considering buying one to keep in the back of the van for emergencies. ;-)

Finally, I took some nice panoramic shots of our new neighborhood and a palace we went to last weekend.

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