Hot Date at the Waschhaus

We do not have a washer/dryer in our 350 sq. ft. apartment, so on Friday night, Art and I had a hot date at the local Waschhaus, or laundromat. We loaded our two weeks worth of laundry into two bags and set out to find this place, which turned out to be a 25" walk from our apartment. It was not as bad as we expected. However, the water is very hard here, so the clothes ended up pretty scratchy. What I wouldn't give for my Maytags. Oh well, it's only for five months! 

Here is the local laundromat

It took a while (and a young German woman who spoke some English) to figure out how to operate the washers and dryers. First, you load your clothes into one of the machines, then you go to this console and put in 3.50 euros/washer and push the green button that corresponds to your washer. Then, you go back to the washer and select the cycle you want and then push start. Same procedure for the dryers (red buttons). As usual, there are not enough dryers! The whole process took about three hours. 

Art has not been in a laundromat since his Navy days, more than 50 years ago. Here he is, protecting our clothes. :)

A Stroll Along the Kaiserstrasse

The Kaiserstrasse runs east-west through Karlsruhe. In the town itself, the strasse (street) is restricted to pedestrians and trams; it is a major shopping area and one which Art and I have become familiar with as we walk along it every day. On Thursday, I had strolled from my office to our apartment, because the tram operators were on strike. Here are some scenes along the way.

Peering out my office window, I saw these tram workers who were on strike and marching towards the Marktplatz for a large rally.

Parking lot outside the local high school. Susan, maybe Erin would be interested in this. :)

Here is our local grocery store. We have been pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality of the produce and meats; not so happy with the price, as everything is extremely expensive.  

This is one of the shopping centers, the Post Gallerie.  I included this photo to show you the construction along the strasse. The goal is to run all the trams underground eventually, so this sight is common everywhere. 

This is the front of the Post Gallerie. It contains three stories of shops and restaurants.

A typical eatery. Between my office and our apartment, I expect there are 20-30 of these establishments. I think every fourth or fifth store along the strasse is some kind of restaurant.

This is an advertisement for a local gym. A far cry from my Wellness Center, which I miss a lot. I don't think I will be working out here. 

Sculpture along the strasse.

More cool sculpture.

The Marktplatz, which is in the middle of town.

Turning 180 degrees from the Marktplatz, here is the castle which is the geographic center of town, and the reason Karlsruhe exists. More on this later.

Fresh veggies, anyone?

The local butcher.

The campus of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, which has about 20,000 students.  

More KIT campus. 

All German students take driver's ed, which includes learning how to park on the sidewalk, an essential skill if you live here. 

Sings of spring...edelweiss.

Out local pizzahaus...who needs Papa John's or PizzaHut!

Red Tape Round Two

After the debacle surrounding delivery of our Internet stick, I decided to cancel our order on Monday (March 6), after consulting with my colleagues (all of whom were appalled DHL would not leave the stick because I did not have a work visa). Jurgen Muthig, a colleague who has been extremely helpful, offered to order it for us and have it delivered to his office.  Sure enough, it arrived Tuesday, and was easy to install. So, we have Internet access at the apartment and Art is delighted. Me, too, so I can now blog (although I have to do it early in the morning, as the stick has limited band width).

Next up: the work visa. I had an appointment Tuesday at 11 a.m., in the same building as the office where I went to register where we are living. Amazingly, the visa appointment went quite well. Frau Klein, the woman who took my application, spoke very little English, but we managed to get all the paperwork completed, as well as get fingerprints of both my index fingers. All the paperwork gets sent to Berlin to be processed and in three weeks I will get a postcard saying that my visa in ready to be picked up, back at this same office. So, one more trip back here.

That afternoon I went to the bank to open my bank account, since I now have documentation that my work visa is being processed (required to open account; reason I was turned down last visit). Dr. Joachim Lembach, Director of International Programs, came with me in case an interpretor was needed. And, one was. The banking officer spoke quite good English, but wanted Joachim to translate. That way, if Joachim’s translation was incorrect, the banking officer would not be responsible for any misunderstandings. More paper to complete and voila, in three weeks the bank will send me a debit card and pin number.

So, the problem is now that we are not allowed to put our name on the mailbox. We did this on Sat., so DHL could find us. But, the rental agent pitched a fit, so we now have to put his name back on the box. No way to identify the box; no way to get my visa and bank card. Big sigh this time.

Resolution: I have contacted the bank and asked to have my address changed to my work address. We’ll see if that works.

Next problem: someone who speaks fluent German will have to contact Frau Klein and see if my visa can also be sent to my work address. I’m hoping Sabine Lobach, the grad assistant, will be able to do this on Monday (March 12), when she returns from vacation. 

Here is the evidence: the mail box with our name on it (middle one in this picture).  Our name is not there any more!

I am really hoping not to have to post a Red Tape Round Three entry!

Weekend adventures

After spending most of Sat. waiting for DHL, we took a stroll around the neighborhood. We live in Karlsruhe Waldstadt, which is west of the town center. 

The Waldstadt is a fairly affluent section of Karlsruhe. Here are typical apartments.

Here is the tram stop, which is at the end of our street. Our apartment is several hundred yards on the left. From this tram stop, it is a 45" walk to my office, or we catch the tram and then only have to walk 20".

Here is our apartment building. We live on the fourth floor, facing the street. Note the white mailboxes. More to come later about these.

On Sunday, we took a 30" tram ride out to the Rhine River. It was chilly and overcast but lots of folks were out walking up and down the levee. We walked about 90" and then called it quits and headed home for pizza at our local Italian restaurant. We are starting to be more proficient at understanding German and ordering food. We have the wine and beer vocabulary mastered!

Red Tape

We are novices compared to the Germans when it comes to red tape. Today (Wednesday, Feb. 29), I had to go to the Registration Office to fill out paper work that documents where Art and I are living. Every German and every visitor who is staying more than three months must tell the Government where they are living. So, after a 10” walk, I found the Registration office and took a number and waited in the lobby until my number appeared on the screen. It took about 15” for the clerk to fill out the forms, which included our names, passport numbers, birth dates, date of marriage, and address of our apartment. (When we move next month, have to do this again to register our new address.) The clerk gave me my registration papers, which are needed to get a bank account.

So, I took this paperwork to the bank and tried to get a bank account. None of the tellers spoke English; good thing Sabine Lobach, the grad assistant, came with me. She gave the bank clerk all the necessary information, and we made an appointment for the next day (Thursday), to complete the paperwork and pick up my bank card.

A bank account is absolutely essential here. I will get paid by automatic deposit from the University to my bank account. Our rent will get paid by automatic transfer of money from my account to the rental agency’s account. Apparently, Germans pay all these kinds of bills via bank transfers; the rest of their transactions are in cash. I have only been able to use a credit card once, and that was to buy a monthly tram ticket. Even the equivalent of Best Buy, which is Saturn, takes cash only.

So, on Thursday, I went back to the bank, assuming that I would be able to activate my account. Wrong! I cannot activate an account without my work visa. That appointment is next Tuesday at 11 a.m. sigh 

The Sparkasse bank ( pronounced Shpar-cas-a; however, Art uses the phonetic pronunciation, which is exactly what you think it is.)

So, I need another appointment with the bank on Tuesday afternoon (and a translator) to activate my bank account. Am hoping for the best!

The Germans are very fond of appointments. Each of these meetings has required an appointment. It even took two appointments to get my faculty card, plus a third appointment with another University official to sign my contract. 

However, the ultimate red tape disaster occurred on Saturday. On Friday, with the help of one of my colleagues, I ordered a USB stick that would allow us to connect to the Internet. I paid extra to have it delivered overnight, so we hung around the apartment waiting for it to be delivered. At noon, our doorbell rang and it was the DHL delivery guy with our stick. Yipppee!!! But, not so fast!!. First, he had to see my passport. Then, he had to see my registration papers. The first hurdle was the mismatch between the birthdate on my passport (day-month-year), which did not match the date in the registration papers (month-day-year). After we got that sorted out (he had to call his supervisor), we moved on to looking for a visa. Well, I don’t have a work visa yet. So, another call to his supervisor and ….guess what…he could not leave the stick with me until I have a work visa. (All this conversation was going on in a mixture of German, English, and French.) So, I now have to call DHL on Tuesday after I get my work visa, and they will redeliver on Wed., but only to me personally since I am the one with the work visa. Sigh

I have a feeling that this is not over yet! All of this reminds me of the Southwest Airlines red tape commercial, but there is no one here with the scissors to cut me loose.....

While I was waiting for DHL, the regular mail got delivered across the street by this mailman. 

The Moving Saga and Our New Home

Art in front of our hotel waiting for the taxi.

We had an appointment to meet the rental agent at our apartment on Georg (Gay-Org) Friedrich Strasse at 3:30 on Wed. Since we had no idea how “furnished” our furnished apartment would be, we decided to just move our heavy luggage over there and spend another night at the hotel.

We took a taxi to the apartment and met Rudi Jerger, the rental agent. Our apartment is very small, but clean. We have one room, with a bed, dresser, sofa, TV, and bookshelves, along with a very small kitchen and bathroom.

Art moved the remainder of our stuff over on Thursday morning, via the tram, while I was at work trying to get Internet access and do some work (not possible, yet).  He also went shopping and got us essentials, like wine glasses (grin), towels, food, hangars, paper goods, toiletries, etc.

Here are some pictures of our new home.  These were taken on Friday afternoon, after we had moved all our stuff over and unpacked. Can you say small?????

View from the front door. This is pretty much all of it. 

Our dining room table, which is opposite the bed. The door on the right leads to the kitchen; on the left is the bathroom.

Here is Art with our new wall art, a map of local area. We spend a lot of time looking at this map, trying to figure out how to get where we need to go. :)

The kitchen is so small that only one person can be in it at a time.  We have 2 pots, 2 pans,  4 plates and cups and some cutlery; the plan is to eat out as much as possible! The refrigerator is located to the left of the sink, under the counter. So, we go shopping every day for groceries as there is only room to store milk and a few other goodies (like white wine).

This says it all!!

Adventures in transit

So, the adventure begins. We spent the weekend packing and I thought we did well. We ended up with one large suitcase each, plus one additional bag to check in (my shoes; $60 for the extra bag…thank you Delta, but gotta have my shoes).   We also had one carry on bag each, plus a computer bag. This photo is of us at Groome, thanks to our friends Judy and Steve Bowden, who stuffed our bags into their trunk and dropped us off.

When we checked in, both Art and I were over the 50 pound per bag limit.  So, if you have been in the Atlanta airport and see folks unpacking their luggage at the baggage check in area and thought…what’s up with those folks? Well, that was us, trying to lighten our checked baggage and stuff it into our carry on baggage. (Sigh)

We finally got it all sorted out, checked our luggage, and did not have to pay the $75 overweight baggage fee, thanks to our now heavy carryon bags.

The flight was uneventful. We upgraded to economy comfort, which gave us an extra 4” of leg room; well worth it on such a long flight. Still not very comfortable, but we managed.

We arrived in Frankfurt on time and were able to collect our luggage without a problem, even though the baggage handlers in Frankfurt were on strike; apparently, the strike affected only Lufthansa flights.

However, we then had to wrestle our bags onto the train from Frankfurt to Karlsruhe. Picture this: two 50 pound large suitcases, one small red bag with my shoes, one medium size roll on bag with Art’s reading materials and other ‘stuff’, one soft sided black bag with my ‘stuff’ and our computer bag. We wrestled this load from Terminal 2, the international terminal, onto a bus, which took us to Terminal 1, where the Hbf (train station) is located. Down the escalator to where we thought our train might be, up the escalator because that was the wrong train, across the train concourse (maybe a quarter-mile), down the escalator to the right train track, and then onto the train. By this time, we were both questioning why we had so much ‘stuff.’ (Big * sigh*).

My first faculty meeting – Tuesday, 28 Feb.

After we arrived at Frankfurt on Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. (local time; 1 a.m. GA time), we checked into our hotel and had lunch. Then, we walked over to my new office, on the Kaiserplatz. This photo is over Kaiser Whilhelm riding his horse. Apparently, most streets (strasse) and squares (platz) are named after famous Germans.

My first faculty meeting was at 2:30 today. The technical communication department (Technische Redaktion) has 8 faculty members and 260 undergraduate and graduate students.  Here is a picture of my colleagues and the flowers they gave me as a welcoming gift. I am the only American faculty member teaching at Hochschule Karlsruhe – Technik and Wirtschaft (Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences) this year. Whew --- no pressure here.  The entire faculty meeting was devoted to curricular issues and was in German; 99% of which I did not understand. So, after an hour, I politely excused myself and headed back to the hotel.

This photo shows where my office is located. The entrance to the office building is between a wine store and an Italian ice cream store; how perfect is that?

My office is here; what a great view of the Kaiserplatz! Am working to get access to a faculty internet account. It is no easier here than at Mercer; seems like all universities have that in common!

Stay tuned. Tomorrow I have to register with some agency to let them know where we are staying, set up a bank account, get a work visa, and move into our new