Simon's castle

Supposedly a day of rest and family activities in Deutschland. But not for us. More unpacking…

Simon took me to see his work place as well. It’s an office in the grounds of a moated and walled Bavarian turreted ‘castle’. Simon’s desk is by a window that looks out on to the moat. The moat is inhabited by some rather inactive ducks, which Simon can see (and hear) from his desk. I met a couple of his colleagues who were also in that day.

Ikea hell

The interesting thing about Germans is that they usually take their kitchens with them when they move. Unfortunately the previous tenant took his. And so with that we found ourselves joining the crowds at Ikea, with the mission of getting hold of a kitchen ASAP. Now, shops in Germany tend to close on Sundays and Ikea is no exception. So everyone has to do their home improvement shopping on a Saturday, heightening the pressure. We spent a full 5 hours in the store, which we spent like this:

• Viewed the kitchens on display – despairing at the price (we only bought a kitchen for our UK home 10 months ago so this outlay was upsetting) and trying to decipher the meanings of the display captions
• Retired for lunch with catalogues, pen and paper to draw up our design
• Queued up for a very long time to discuss our requirements with the kitchen advisor
• Pit stop for kaffee und kuchen (German for coffee and cake, which is their version of doing ‘afternoon tea’)
• Queued to pay
• Queued to speak to the department responsible for transportation of said kitchen
  
  

So, that was fun. To top it all, the kitchen cannot be fitted for at least two weeks. This means we have to live with no oven, fridge/freezer, or washing machine. V. inconvenient. (Did I add that we also do not have: TV, internet and telephone?)
We had wanted to buy other items from Ikea, including light fittings and a desk, but were too beaten down to bother. So guess what we’re doing next weekend?!

Is it Christmas yet?

The first day of December is normally the day I deck the halls for Christmas. Today I was slightly indisposed, what with being in another country, so the tree and baubles will have to wait a bit.

Awoke in Simon’s temporary flat where he had been staying for the previous month. We packed and settled the bill then headed for our new flat in Barbarossaplatz.

We were initially met by our relocation agent and the estate agent for the property = 4 people in the flat. But then we were joined by the flat’s manager; then two cleaners; then two people to fit the water = 9 people at one point! It all got a little bit crazy. I think they eventually left us to it at 2pm – at which time the removals company men arrived with all of our stuff. Weak with hunger and from standing since 11 (no furniture see), we left them to unload and went off to find our first meal in Cologne.

Unfortunately our depleted state meant that we were not feeling adventurous. The golden arches of McDonalds beckoned and our first meal was a McMeal.

The removals people left about 5. We were left with piles and piles and piles of boxes. Knowing that it wouldn’t get any better if we just left them unopened, we started to unpack.

We were slightly scuppered in this plan by the fact that the previous tenant had taken most of the ceiling light fittings and left dangling wires in their place. With the setting of the sun we didn’t have much light to go on. Plus we couldn’t find where we’d packed our plug adaptors, so plugging in lamps wasn’t an option either. Still, I managed to locate the torch!

What an adventure

And so begins our adventure…

The removals company didn’t turn up at our house in Essex until 2pm – two hours late. As we had to be at the Eurotunnel terminal by 5pm we just had to quickly show the removals guys round the house giving them instructions about the treatment of our precious possessions. I was a bit anxious as their English wasn’t great and my German was non existent. Having given instructions we left our house and all the packing in their care then zoomed off on our long car journey to Cologne. The journey was a very long one and I am glad it was Simon doing the driving and not me. We arrived at Simon’s temporary flat just before midnight.