Just a routine week in Bonn

Looking South (upriver) on the Rhine

After watching Seattle weather reports in envy for the last couple of weeks, the sun has finally returned to Bonn. Rich took full advantage of the weather and went out riding this morning (without getting lost!). The picture above was taken while returning across the bridge to our apartment. It was a great way to start the day!

First chore of the weekend was Makayla's third driving lesson. Yes, we all know she's a pretty good driver (well....) but our car is a manual, and driving a stick is all new for her. I'm happy to report that we've seen great progress since lesson #1! Yesterday we ventured outside the block surrounding our apartment, found 4th gear, and practiced reversing out of parking spaces. All in all, we survived. We did stall a couple of times, and when the cars were piling up behind us Makayla did break out in quite a sweat (Pam, did you teach her those words???) Later today we're going to have lesson #4: driving on country roads, navigating round-abouts, and avoiding cyclists. Wish us luck!

Also on Saturday, in preparation for moving into our apartment this Friday, we took a trip to Ikea and another home store named Porta to buy some light fixtures. As mentioned previously, "unfurnished" really means unfurnished here...we'll be in the dark if we don't have some lights attached by Friday night! Ikea is as good a deal here as it is at home, so we're doing some furnishing on the cheap, like an outdoor furniture set for 99euro! Granted, we may have to invest in some cushions and duct tape...but still.

Big news: we made our last trip to the laundromat this week. We had a brief run in with Makayla's friend, the homeless crazy lady (who suprisingly speaks great English!) that she met on her first solo trip. No more buying bottles of water to break 20's into coins, and trying to time dinner so that we're back in time to secure a dryer.. Good riddance! (But we will be returning to that 'hood for the kebabs and pizza, yum). Oh, as a farewell, the local meter maid left us a 10 euro ticket that, after translating at work the next day, we found out it was for parking in a handicap spot. Uhh...there wasn't a sign!!!

We received letters this week from Telekom Human Resources, written in German of course. The only words we could make out were our titles, the word "Reorganization", and a person in HR to contact with questions. We're not exactly sure what this means, but we might be home permanently by the holidays...or promoted. Pam, I'm not sure which you're rooting for but just keep your comments to yourself!

That's it for now. Hopefully by next weekend we'll be blogging from the comfort of our living room. Tchuss.