Monday in Germany

Today I bring you the blog from our HOUSE! No more hotel!!! What a joy!

It finally feels like we actually live here now. No more vacation!

I made my own breakfast today, for the first time in 3 weeks...and it was amazing.

Last week we went to the laundromat. Boy oh boy, what an experience! Seriously. We put all of our clothes in what we though was a washer, even poured in the soap. Only to realize 10 minutes later it was a dryer. After we finally figured out how to somewhat make sense of the machines we were stylin'!

Our clothes being washed... how exciting! The washing machine was HUGE. It was a bit expensive though. 8 euro to wash, .70 euro cents to dry. We had to dry 3 times before the clothes were no longer wet. We mixed, darks and whites (my mother would be so disappointed, sorry ma) all went together. So we did manage to wash 3 weeks worth of clothes for about 10 bucks! And we will be making a few more trips there. Our washing machine at our new place will be out of commission for 4-6 weeks! Aye aye aye. But at least we have a kitchen.

Friday we went to apply for my visa. And... drumroll please. All went well! They were fine with all my documents and they gave me a one year visa! They are waiting to process it just until we are able to get a letter from the bank. So there is one small piece still missing but nothing that involves a decision! The decision is already made. :) 

The front of our building! We are on the second floor. The building has a paging system? Is that what they're called? I am not sure, as I have never had one. But there is a button with our name and if it is pushed, we can ask who it is and buzz them in :) so that is kind of fun!

Our new landlords are so very sweet! They got us champagne, and painted us a picture that has USA to EU on it, it is very cute! 

Friday night we stayed in. We needed to rest up for our big day on Saturday! ;) Not really a big day, but a trip to Ikea - so that requires rest. 

I am bad and took NO photos at Ikea. Maybe I am not actually bad, I don't know what there is to see! If you have been to one Ikea, you have been to them all! The process was the same. And even though everything was in German, we could still figure out how to get around. There were arrows - a universal symbol :)! There was not a whole lot of differences. Many of the things I have seen in the US were there. The only difference I saw was more of some things and less of others. In the US, Ikea's selection of kitchen tables is awful. Well here, it is lavish! There were tons, and a lot nicer than the ones in the states. But everything else, pretty much the same!

Since we will only be here a year, we didn't need much. We set out to Ikea to buy some pillows, an ironing board, a drying rack, a few things that were missing from the kitchen, and any other random inexpensive thing that we felt we might benefit from (like an ottoman tray). 

After that we headed to Real. I would consider this like a Walmart or a Target. It was huge and it had everything from produce to TV's. We needed some staples - food for Sunday's dinner only, hand soap, toilet paper. Things like that.

A cart ramp at the Real! This thing was neat! An escalator for you and your cart! The cart wheels had little magnets on the bottom and off it went! (See that Haribo! I wasn't joking when I said we eat too much of it!)

Saturday night we were invited to a BBQ and Beer Tasting at our friend Vanessa's house. She lives in the town right next to Braunschweig. Her brother picked us up and drove us over there. Her family was incredibly sweet and generous for welcoming us over with a wonderful meal! Her dad had over 20 German beers for us to try! We had a great night, and headed home in a cab at 2 in the morning. Let that be an indication of how we spent Sunday. We didn't do a whole lot. It was relaxing and wonderful. It was almost 90 degrees here. And no, we don't have air conditioning. Our apartment stays surprisingly very very cool!

We did cook our first meal though. I was making baked potatoes. I never knew how difficult it would be to read the oven signs.

 

Even with the help of this site I still am not sure I know what they mean. But any who, I have never had a brand new oven, so I was not entirely aware of what was going to happen after I turned the oven on. I let the oven warm up like normal, and then I open it to put my potatoes in and the BIGGEST gust of smoke comes pouring out. And the smell. The smell was awful. I googled, and apparently the first time you turn the oven on this happens, and it's normal. #thankyougoogle

Blake opened all the windows and we went on with our dinner! I am hoping tonight the oven isn't so bad! 

Come back Wednesday to read about my first solo trip to the market! I am off to get the house in order and find spots for our things. :)

Day 2 in Braunschweig

Good Morning!

Friday I had a mission. To buy a hair straightener. I didn't bring mine because of the plug situation. After going to numerous stores, we finally hit the jackpot!

We set out to Rossman, which is similar to a CVS without the pharmacy portion (because Pharmacy's are their own thing here, Apotheke's is what they are called), and we struck out! It was okay that we didn't find the straightener, because we also needed shampoo, body wash, face wash, all that good stuff. We literally ONLY brought clothes and shoes, and were prepared to need to buy these things.

German shampoo! I only knew what this was because I recognized the brand and color bottle from home! They had other brands too, like Dove, John Freida, L'Oreal and a few others! It was really hard to pick a hairspray, as I didn't know what any of it meant! After 10 minutes I just grabbed one!

In the same plaza as Rossman's was a butcher, and a small farmers market that sold veggies!

Cheap wine at the grocery store! And miles of Haribo :)

Since I still needed a hair straightener, we thought we would try our luck at the mall! The mall is in the city center and it is HUGE! Like bigger than any other mall I have been to, including Somerset in Troy, MI! It had 3 floors that were accessible by elevator, then it had an additional 5-7 floors that were accessible by escalators. It had everything you could possibly EVER want your mall to have. Clothing stores, make up stores, department stores, jewelry, etc., oh and a bakery, a butcher, a fruit store, a grocery store, a flower shop and another Rossman's. It also had a Saturn - which I would say is similar to a Best Buy!

Saturn selling washing machine's and refrigerators!

Bakery!

The butcher! It was hard to get a good photo because there were so many people there!

Fruit! It looked so pretty!

Blume 2000! Flower shop. 

Build - A - Bear and Donuts!

This place was very neat! It is a wine and spirits store in the mall. For the spirits, you buy a bottle (all sorts of bottles, from big to small, normal shapes to odd shapes), and then you fill it up with whatever you want! They had a lot of whisky, as well as many other liquors. 

Cosmo! The wonderful store that had my straightener! YAY! This is similar to a Sally's but on the much smaller end. I was very happy to find one that didn't cost 200 euros! We had went in to many other salon-esq stores and they had straighteners, but nothing under 200 euros! I was really regretting not ordering one online before we came. But then we found this little gem and I was in heaven.

After walking around the mall for a bit, we decided to head to a little restaurant Blake had to been before to get a little lunch. Well... We forgot where we parked. 20 minutes later we found it and were on our way to lunch. ;)

Schadt's Braueri! They brew their own beer. And it was delicious!

Pork schnitzel for lunch. YUM YUM YUM! Can't express enough love for this meal. I have dreams about it! I look forward to going back. I have a feeling we might become regulars here.

The meal came with a salad and cost only 5,50 euro. Worth every cent.

After our lunch and mall adventure, we went home and took a nap, on accident! Apparently we were exhausted! We woke up in time to get to our evening outing! We had been invited to a BBQ in the park. The park was in the student district of Braunschweig. Our friend Vanessa invited us to the BBQ that she was going to with her friends. We know Vanessa from the US and we were very grateful she extended the invite to us!

Vanessa pouring us beers!

German BBQ-ing! Yes, you can drink and BBQ in any park! It is great!

A German drinking and ball throwing game! Blake, Vanessa and I were on a team! 

More German drinking games! I just watched, but Blake figured it out and his team won!

That is all for our Friday! :) Tomorrow I will be talking about our weekend, which involved a Cabana, the #1 Restaurant in Braunschweig according to Trip Advisor, and the Zoo!

Guten tag!