an american expat in deutschland

The Grass is Always Greener…

Christina Geyer — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:03:33 +0000

You can imagine my surprise when I spotted this in the dairy section of my nearby Real supermarket:

Yep, that’s grated cheddar!

Not only that, over Christmas, in the baking aisle, there was real, honest to goodness, vanilla extract (I’m still going to make my own though). Dr Pepper is now available at the same price as other sodas, along with vanilla and cherry Coke. Pepperidge Farms cookies have recently joined the sinfully delicious chocolate-covered Oreos in the cookie aisle. Haagen Daaz and Ben & Jerrys are ever present in the freezer section. Sweet potatoes and Haas avocados are almost always in-stock (Haas avocados even occasionally show up in our tiny, local, village Edeka).

Things have changed a lot in the almost 10 years I’ve been in Germany. I remember when none of these things were around. Blocks of cheddar were hard to come by.

Even with these “advances,” I still long for trips to Italy and France to give me a chance to stock up on French and Italian goodies for my pantry. I’ve always thought that expats in France and Italy have it made, surrounded by amazing cuisines and able to visit gorgeous markets. Then, this winter, two of my favorite expat bloggers, David Lebowitz in Paris and Michelle Fabio in Calabria, Italy, both complained about ingredients they couldn’t come by in their countries. I don’t remember what they were now, but they were all items that I can pick up in the nearest city.

I’m starting to think that, as far as expat life goes, maybe I shouldn’t be so jealous of those folks just over the border. I think I’ve got it pretty good right here. Okay, well, maybe I’ll still be just a little jealous.

Do you miss anything that you can’t get in your area? I want to look into the possibility of growing Key lime and Meyer lemon trees here.

Family Bathroom: Before and After

Christina Geyer — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:11:07 +0000

When we bought our house, we knew we wanted to renovate the guest bathroom. Our wish was to update all the bathrooms, but a full bathroom renovation is very expensive, and we could only afford to renovate one full bath. There is another full bath on the basement level that was not in great shape. Eventually, even though this bathroom was in pretty good condition, we settled on doing the family bath, because it’s the one we’d be using more often. We did come up with an affordable solution for the basement bath and I am very happy with it now. I’ll feature that room sometime in the future.

Family Bathroom: Before

I didn’t like how dark the bathroom was before, with floor to almost ceiling navy blue tiles, but they were in good condition and were big, thick, expensive Villeroy & Boch tiles (from 1972). I also wasn’t a big fan of the gray floor together with the blue walls. The bathroom was okay, but I also felt a bit under water in there.

Problems, Problems, Problems

We went to a couple bath places and got estimates. Completely renovating a bathroom is about the same as buying a big Mercedes. We picked out tiles and contacted a tile layer from our village who was highly recommended by some friends. Our move in date was 1 month out from the day we took control of the house, so we figured all, or at least most, of the work would be done before we moved in.

The bathroom was emptied of fixtures and tiles by our plumber (another local, I generally recommend going with locals when living in a village, as they have the most to lose if they don’t do a good job). The heating guy came in and, although we hadn’t planned it, convinced us to add in floor heating as it would only cost 500 Euro more. We thought that sounded great. Unfortunately, that was only 500 Euro more for his part. The subfloor needed more concrete and the costs for everything else suddenly rose.

There were delays, and our move in date came and went. Now we were living in a construction site.

A day before the tiler was supposed to start, he emailed us that his costs were increasing by 500 Euro and if we didn’t transfer it to him that day, he couldn’t do the project. We thought this was fishy and asked him for an itemized list of where expenses had increased. Two weeks passed and we still hadn’t heard from him. I guess something more lucrative had come his way.

The tile needed to get done, so we got an estimate from the other local tile man, which was pretty high. He could see our desperation and there is, of course, a desperation surcharge. Rainer ended up picking some tile people off the site My-Hammer.de. They came out, gave us a fair estimate, and they had good reviews, so we said yes.

While I think they would have been excellent at your basic tile job, they complained that the stone tiles we had chosen weren’t easy to cut through. Then they didn’t know what to do with the turquoise mosaic tiles we had chosen, since they were quite thin, and the stone tiles were thick. They laid them flat with the bottom of the stone tiles, so the tiles had markedly different heights. Not good.

They had to come back out because the shower floor didn’t grade properly and the water would pool in spots. They removed the shower floor tile and redid it. They also put a second layer of mosaic over the first so that the surface was even with the stone tiles. I wasn’t happy about this, since the mosaic was very expensive Bisazza mosaic, but at least they came out and did it. They were nice about it too and didn’t complain. We were worried when we saw the problems, that we would end up having to sue them and wouldn’t have the bathroom done for months, so we were very happy that the bathroom was done without too many additional headaches. I imagine these tile workers are good at basic stuff (turns out their main work is drywall, but they also do tile, which Rainer neglected to tell me – I would have insisted on someone whose main work was tilework). Our job was a complicated one and they didn’t recognize their limitations.

The Finished Product

Bathroom: After

After the tile was done and the old straps for the outdoor window shutters were put back in place, we realized that they were poorly placed originally, which we hadn’t noticed before (one twisted around the edge of the windowsill). Since the windows were frosted, we didn’t think we needed to use the shutters, but this left big holes cut in the tile for the straps. We ended up getting these wall vases to cover the holes.

I like having them as decoration on the tile, and I probably wouldn’t have put anything up if there hadn’t been holes to cover. Also, if we have to sell the house someday, it gives the next owner the flexibility to put the shutter pulls back in if they chose.

Wall vases

“Extra-long” tub

Sink and open shower

Open rain shower whose floor proved so difficult

I love having an open rain shower. I liked the look, but worried a little about water getting out of the shower. It does just a little, but not enough that it is a bother.

Towel warmer

In it’s past incarnation, there was also a bidet in the bathroom. We decided to eliminate it to make more space. We had started out wanting to replace the bidet with a toilet, but then decided not to include a toilet. The guest toilet is next door and this way, you can really relax in the tub without staring at a toilet.

What we learned

While we were in the middle of renovating, we felt like it was a nightmare and regretted our decision to renovate. Especially the decision to put in in-floor heating, since that seems to be what started all the mess. In the end though, we love love love our bathroom and we especially love the in-floor heating. It was a major headache and cost more than we expected, but it was definitely worth it.

In the end, what I learned from this project, is to go with a bathroom company if you’re not able to manage the work yourself (and most people are not able to manage while looking after two small children obsessed with getting at the workmen’s tools) and/or don’t know anything about renovation (we had never renovated anything before, and although I’d seen my parents renovate and manage contractors, I had never done it myself, and building techniques are very different in Germany). The estimates from these companies are higher than if you go with getting estimates from all the various contractors, but if there are problems, the price does not go up for the companies. Their estimates include dealing with any unseen problems that come up.

It’s also important to know what you want and not change your mind, as I found changing your mind mid-project, even if you remove something, seems to raise all prices. We had originally wanted a built in bench next to the tub and decided to eliminate it mid-project so the floorplan is more flexible. I am glad we eliminated it, but doing so mid-project was a problem.

If you aren’t 100% certain what you want, wait until you are.

We made a lot of mistakes along the way, but we are happy with the way things turned out. Are you thinking about renovating a bathroom? Do you have any advice to share?

Kids’ Room: Before and After

Christina Geyer — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 06:57:33 +0000

The room we chose for the kids was the previous owner’s home office. Here’s the before:

and here’s the after:

The color scheme was mostly decided on by Oliver. He wanted a blue room, so I picked out a couple swatches and he chose the shade he wanted. He also picked out the bed sheets.

I got the wall stickers in the US from Land of Nod and brought them back with me. The clock is the Koziol PI:P Wanduhr, which is available in a variety of colors.

I got the idea for a chalkboard wall from a magazine. I wanted it to be magnetic as well, so I ordered magnet paint (1xMagnetFarbe Magpaint 2500 ml Dose) and chalkboard paint (6xMarabu Tafelfarbe, schwarz, 250 ml) off Amazon. If you ever want to get the paint off your wall again someday, it’s best to paint onto liner paper. This is a wallpaper used to provide a smooth base for other wallpapers or paints. We hung two strips horizontally. To really get the magnets to stick well, I used four coats of magnet paint, topped by two coats of chalkboard paint. The kids love it.

The poof is by RICE (a Danish design company that has lots of fun stuff for kids) and I got it at Takatomo.de. RICE also makes great, colorful, unbreakable, melamine dishware that we have for the kids, that is still nice enough that I would give it to adults too.

This wooden toy is a Kugelbahn by the company Drewa Holz.

When using color, I find it helps to repeat colors throughout the room, like the green in the lamp, bedsheet and leaves. I also repeated the black from the chalkboard wall with the black clock.

This ride on toy is a Wheely Bug, made by an Australian company and available in Bee, Cow, Mouse, Ladybug and more.

I’m quite happy with how the kids’ room turned out. Are you working on any renovation projects?

Still Daddy’s Girl

Christina Geyer — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:54:02 +0000

It’s been 10 years and I still miss you, daddy, every single day.

I miss our long talks. My dad was my best friend. He was an avid gardener and loved clematises, planting them wherever he could. Now that I have a garden of my own, I’ve planted three clematises so far. Every time I see them I think of my dad and smile.

He was an animal lover. Our yard in Virginia was filled with bird feeders and bird baths, he even put dog food out in the woods for the local foxes (whether or not this was a good idea, I don’t know, but the neighbors have taken up doing it now).

He read everything he could get his hands on, including the first three Harry Potter novels, and was a military history buff. His home office was filled from floor to ceiling with tank, plane, and battleship models he planned to build after retirement. He never got the chance.

He was the undisputed, undefeated family trivial pursuit champion.

After a 10 month fight against pancreatic cancer, he died on November 2, 2001.

He never got to see me get married. I never got to see how excited and proud he would have been to have grandchildren. He loved Germany and I bet he would have been here with us as often as he could.

You could always depend on him for whatever you needed, whether it was a laugh when you were sad, a talk when you were lonely, or being picked up from college in the middle of the night cause you were homesick.

My dad entered the Hospice of Northern Virginia the night before he died. The hospice staff told us that no one had ever had as many visitors as my dad. He was loved by everyone who knew him and his friends and coworkers made a constant stream of visitors on his last day. I remember standing outside his room, crying with dozens of his coworkers. I don’t know why, but it was unbelievably heartbreaking to see 50 year old men, many of them formerly or currently in the military, be so strong with my dad, then as soon as they reached the hallway, burst out sobbing.

He died in the evening surrounded by family. I was holding his hand.

Happy Zombie-Lovin’ Halloween

Christina Geyer — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:15:06 +0000

Some gory zombie fun from my favorite German band.

Junge (Boy)

Junge, warum hast du nichts gelernt?
Boy, why haven’t you learned anything?
Guck dir den Dieter an, der hat sogar ein Auto.
Look at Dieter, he even has a car.
Warum gehst du nicht zu Onkel Werner in die Werkstatt?
Why don’t you join Uncle Werner in the repair shop?
Der gibt dir ne Festanstellung, wenn du ihn darum bittest.
He’ll give you a job, if you ask him.
Junge…
Boy…

(Chorus)
Und wie du wieder aussiehst, Löcher in der Hose und ständig dieser Lärm
And look at you again, holes in your pants and this constant noise
(Was solln die Nachbarn sagen?)
(What will the neighbors say?)
Und dann noch deine Haare, da fehlen mir die Worte
And then your hair, words fail me
Musst du die denn färben?
Do you have to color it?
(Was solln die Nachbarn sagen?)
(What will the neighbors say?)
Wie kommst du nach Hause, wir wissen nicht mehr weiter
How you come home, we don’t know anymore

Junge, brich deiner Mutter nicht das Herz
Boy, don’t break your mother’s heart
Es ist noch nicht zu spät, dich an der Uni einzuschreiben
It’s not too late, to enroll at university
Du hast dich doch früher so für Tiere interessiert, wäre das nichts für dich, eine eigene Praxis?
You used to be so interested in animals, what about that, your own practice?
Junge…
Boy…

(Chorus)
Und wie du wieder aussiehst, Löcher in der Nase und ständig dieser Lärm
And look at you again, holes in your nose and this constant noise
(Was solln die Nachbarn sagen?)
(What will the neighbors say?)
Elektrische Gitarren und immer diese Texte
Electic guitars and always these texts
Das will doch keiner hörn
No one wants to hear
(Was solln die Nachbarn sagen?)
(What will the neighbors say?)
Wie kommst du nach Hause, soviel schlechter Umgang
How do you come home, so much bad company
Wir werden dich enterben
We will disown you
(Was soll das Finanzamt sagen?)
(What will the Finance office say?)
Wo soll das alles enden, wir machen uns doch Sorgen
How should this all end, we worry so
(Und du warst so ein süßes Kind) x4
(And you were such a sweet child)

(Chorus)
Und immer deine Freunde, ihr nehmt doch alle Drogen
And always your friends, you all take drugs
Und ständig dieser Lärm
And this constant noise
(Was solln die Nachbarn sagen?)
(What will the neighbors say?)
Denk an deine Zukunft, denk an deine Eltern
Think of your future, think of your parents
Willst du dass wir sterben?
Do you want that we die?

I love die Ärzte. Do you enjoy any German music/have a favorite German band?

Oan wunderschoenn guadn moagn !

Christina Geyer — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 06:38:29 +0000

This is the view I enjoyed with my coffee (the view when I woke was pitch black, as the kids decided 6:30 was a good time to get up).

7:30am

7:50am

8:15am

10:00am

Is it just me, or are the leaves not changing color this year? They seem to just be falling off the trees here. Fall is usually my favorite time of year, but it seems less beautiful this year.

Because of a slipped disc, I ended up missing the Whiny Expat Blogger Meet Up in Köln this weekend. Instead, I got to stay home all by myself, since Rainer took the kids to visit his mom (the plan had been that he would drop me in Köln). While it would have been awesome to see all the other bloggers attending, it was pretty great having a weekend to myself too, even if it was mostly spent laying in bed reading (I know, such a hardship!).

I’m hoping for a quick recovery so I can enjoy my upcoming spa getaway trip to the Czech Republic with some friends, and at some point this fall, we want to make a trip or two to Heidelberg.

Have you got any big plans?

Guest Bathroom: Before and After

Christina Geyer — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 12:02:48 +0000

When we first saw our house, we loved everything about it except this room. We knew that this room had to be renovated.

We just couldn’t live with baby poop yellow wall tile. A few thousand Euro later, here’s what we ended up with:

We found the mirror in the clearance section at Kare. Some of the tin was coming up on one section, which we easily fixed with a drop of super glue. Good as new and it ended up being a fabulous bargain.

The sun and the knick knacks on the right, I got just recently on a trip to Erlangen, in a very extensive shop called “Schönes aus aller Welt” at Dreikönigstrasse 3. It’s a tad pricey, but the selection is awesome and we did encounter a couple bargains.

I’m quite happy with how this room turned out. Originally, we had planned on using the dark tiles behind the sink as well, but the guy we first had doing the tiling in the bathrooms underestimated how much of the dark tile we needed. He also overestimated how much of the light tile we needed for another bathroom, so we used that here behind the sink. I wasn’t sure at first how the two tiles would look together, but I really like the look now. It highlights the sink, and I think it might have ended up too dark and cold with the other tile behind the sink. So his screw up was a blessing in disguise.

10 years after 9-11

Christina Geyer — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 10:50:51 +0000

I still remember it vividly. Turning on the television on the morning of September 11 and watching live as a second plane hit the Twin Towers. I sat stunned, unable to turn away, then I called my best friend, my father.

My father worked for the Department of Defense in the Inspector General’s Office. He was home sick at the time, he would die 2 months later of pancreatic cancer. We spent the day off and on the phone, as he would hang up to make more phone calls, not wanting to stop until he could locate all of the people who worked for him and be sure that they were safe.

His secretary’s aunt’s office was in the section of the Pentagon that was hit, and he spent much of the day trying to help his secretary get information. Luckily, her aunt had stepped out of her office just before the plane hit and was alive. No one close to us died, although two very close family friends had also been in the Pentagon for a meeting.

It was the last major world event I went through with my dad.

After moving to Berlin in May of 2002, I remember that for years, the first thing I did in the morning was to turn on CNN and see if there had been another attack. To make sure that my family in the Washington DC area was safe. (The DC sniper didn’t help things.)

A few years after 9-11, I tried reading Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. I didn’t make it far in, as the two main characters in the book are in an airplane breakup and spend quite some time falling through the air, discussing their predicament. As I read, all I could see were those poor people in the towers jumping to their deaths over and over. I couldn’t take it and the book has sat on my shelf ever since.

In the weeks after 9-11, our country stood united as a people, today it is us and the others. It is liberals vs conservatives, Democrats vs Republicans, “true” Americans vs the “unpatriotic,” Blue states vs Red states. I have never in my life seen Americans so at odds with one another.

The world stood with us after 9-11.

I wish we had been asked to sacrifice for the country, like we were back during WWII, when Victory Gardens, conserving and carpooling were encouraged as ways the individual citizen could help fight the war. Just think, instead of continuing to spend so much on foreign oil, we could have been asked to winterize our homes, drive less, get a smaller car, invest in solar or wind power companies, or other new technologies.

I wonder how the world would look now, 10 years later, if that had happened.

What are your thoughts on the last 10 years? How has 9-11 affected you?

Why is “Liberal” such a bad word?

Christina Geyer — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 08:54:13 +0000

I don’t get what’s going on in American politics anymore (and apologies in advance for the rant, they seem to be going around recently.

I don’t get the rise of the Tea Party. I don’t understand why it’s so “weak” to be a liberal. I don’t get that a fair number of my fellow Americans would consider me “soft in the head” because I would like for everyone to live a comfortable life and am willing to pay taxes to support those less fortunate, even if, occasionally, that person is just gaming the system (which I think happens FAR less frequently than conservatives seem to think, but that’s just my experience in volunteering for organizations like Meals on Wheels and Habitat for Humanity).

I find it interesting that liberals are often told, in comments to news articles, to “go read a book and learn something,” especially in regards to “what our founding fathers believed.” Being an early US history fan and having read hundreds of books on the subject, I really don’t think most of these Tea Party folks have any idea what the founding fathers really believed, and doubt they have read any history books on this era (unless the book was written by Glenn Beck).

I don’t understand what is wrong with being educated. Somehow, my 21 years in school have “corrupted me.” Is it that all those liberal college professors have brainwashed me into mindlessly following their teachings, or could there perhaps be another reason that increased education tends to correlate to increased liberalism?

My grandparents came from the midwest and I’ve gotten in touch with some distant relatives over email. Through these cousins, I’ve been forwarded some of the most hateful, disgusting emails I can imagine. One praised the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, claiming the Japanese should thank us for changing them from barbarians to civilized people. I used to just politely ask them to not forward these types of mails to me, but recently I’ve started calling them out on it.

The latest email praised the border control of Iran, in particular, how people caught illegally in country are detained indefinitely. The mail suggested the US would be better off with this kind of policy in place. I responded to the forwarder, suggesting that if that is the kind of system he would prefer, perhaps he should consider emigrating to Iran. He didn’t understand why I would say something like that to him, why was I being so mean???

While I’m sure it does happen, none of my liberal friends have forwarded me anything hateful. But I guess that’s just because we’re all softies.

What do you think is going on?

Living room: Before and After

Christina Geyer — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 05:44:15 +0000

It’s been awhile! In the meantime, we bought and moved into a house here in Germany. Unpacking and decorating takes a lot of time, which hasn’t left much for anything else. Figured I’d share my successes with you once I’m mostly happy with the state of things.

The first room I’m mostly finished with is our living room. There are still some bare spots that need photos, decorations or art, but mostly it’s done.

Our living room is two-story with a loft and the railing along the loft and parts of the stairs had to first be made child-safe, along with replacing the glass in the living room doorway with safety glass. It was somewhat of a challenge to paint a two-story room. Luckily, we had a friend with a scaffold who helped us out. I did most of the painting from 6ft high and down, he did everything higher.

Living Room: Before

Here you can see that the loft required a third rail. We also inserted plexiglass between the rails so the kids can’t climb up the railing, and again in the little corner of the stairs visible in the bottom center of the photo. We considered replace the railing completely with one with vertical wood slats, but it was a lot more expensive and we weren’t sure it would fit with the style of the house. (By the way, this is all the previous owners’ decor because I forgot to take “before” photos after they moved out and before we started renovating – hadn’t gotten the idea yet to blog about this.)

Living room: After

The ceiling lamps, cowhide rug (both Ikea) and table are new. We are so excited to have room for a huge dinner table and bench. This table is the SG/03 from Ante Neo, which we purchased online from Christian Holzfachhandel.com. The company is located in Bitburg and the salesman called me often to keep me updated on the order, check on the delivery and if we were satisfied.

The table top decoration is also new. On a recent trip, I was lucky enough to be able to stop in Ikarus in Frankfurt and Habitat in Köln. I love both of these shops. They’re great for finding cute, stylish decor.

My aim in decorating this room was to make it warm, welcoming, inviting and comfortable. I think, I’ve accomplished my goal.

an american expat in deutschland

The Grass is Always Greener…

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Family Bathroom: Before and After

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