How do you say “AAARRRGGGHH” auf deutsch?

If a cat cries miau, miau and person yells Aua! when he stubs his toe, what German sound should I make when I want to SCREAM?

I'm no Edvard Munch, but I think I at least captured my fondness for purple wigs

Now, you may be asking yourself what this Ami in Munich has to be frustrated about. I’ll admit I have little to complain about these days, what with not having to work at the moment and living in Europe.

But residing in a land where your language skills are (depending on the day) somewhere in between those of a half-baked pretzel and a four-year-old can have its ups and downs.

Today, for example, was no red letter day in my quest for German fluency – unless of course that red letter is a big, fat F (for those not familiar with the A-F grading style, that’s failing…miserably).

It was another one of those days where it seemed like every question I asked in my German class elicited something like: Haben wir das nicht schon in Kapitel Blah Blah gelernt? (English translation: Didn’t we already learn that in chapter blah blah?)

Just half way through the lesson, I was beginning to think that any question with enough audacity to leave my mouth hole would be met with a similar response:

Me: Entschuldigung, I seem to have bitten my pencil in half and am unfortunately chocking on the eraser. Would you be so kind as to perform the Heimlich maneuver

Response: It’s pronounced HEIM-lich! Didn’t we already learn the proper syllabification?

Okay, okay, so now I’m just being snarky. But on days like this, I get the feeling I’m condemned to a life of toddler-speak and charades.

On the other hand, perhaps I would do better to stop complaining, and open my textbook instead.  Good advice from the more articulate, English-speaking side of my brain. Of course, the immature four-year-old, German-speaking side thinks watching cartoons and eating chocolate might be a better solution. Guess which one the rest of me is going to side with?

Hello neighbor, could we borrow a cup of … crowbar?

Every few days we’ve received deliveries of furniture, dishware and electronics from local and online stores – replacements for things we chose not to ship. Amazingly, each item has made daily life so much easier. Who would have thought crisping bread in a toaster would ever feel luxurious?

And last week, we got word from the company delivering our household goods from the states that they’d be here on Friday. Great, we’d climb a major rung of domesticate living ladder, we thought.

But as the saying goes, anything worth having is worth the work (or something like that). We had assumed we’d ordered a full service delivery to our apartment. But here’s what we got:

Enter the wooden crates...yes WOODEN CRATES.

At 5:30 p.m. - just after dark - the crates arrived. And here I thought only vampire coffins and cursed museum relics came in wooden crates.

The crates were about 2,5 meters (over 8 feet) tall...and a gazillion pounds

The “movers” turned out to be a freight shipping company. So after they helped Thomas wheel them to our apartment entrance way, they left us with the sealed, metal-band-reinforced crates. And to adding to our stress level was the German concept of Ruhezeit (where you shouldn’t make noise after during certain hours, like after 8 p.m.). Yeah…busting splitting timber and carting boxes and furniture up several stories won’t make noise.

Crate 1 of 2.

So, we stood there for a few minutes looking up at the rectangular monsters blocking half the sidewalk. At least it wasn’t snowing.

Then it started snowing.

I knew our neighbors across the hall had been doing a lot of interior construction, so what better time to introduce yourself than when you need something…especially something as common as a crowbar…or better yet, a chainsaw. Unfortunately, they had neither. They also probably think we’re insane now. Super.

But somewhere along the way, we must have earned some moving karma points. Another neighbor (the husband of Thomas’ co-worker who also lives in our building) had a small, manual handsaw and – more importantly – a willingness to help.

For the next two hours, Thomas tore the crates open, board-by-board. Then the three of us hurried all of the long-awaited contents out of the snow and into the building.

One down...one to go

We finished around 8:30 (slightly breaking the sacred Ruhezeit, but too tired to care).

The next day...

Even though our belongings were safely inside, we still had to deal with the empty and now unstable crates looming outside. Unlike in the U.S. where we usually just pay someone to cart of large amounts of waste, in Munich, you’re on your own…unless you give at least a week notice. And don't even think about taking wood to the regular trash. There's a special handling facilty for that, of course.

The morning after

So while I spent most of Saturday unpacking boxes inside, Thomas spend about seven hours tearing down the crates and stashing the wood in our underground parking spot. It's a good thing we don’t have a car. But maybe now we can build one…out of wood. Oh wait, I just remembered, we hate wood now.

Karma of ill repute

Stuck between a rock and a hard stressful place

As a continuation of my last post, I should say my day started off pretty well, before taking a sharp turn south to O'Crapville.

I called the Metro office first thing in the morning, and to my relief, someone had turned in my license plate and documents. An hour later, I attended a weekly meeting where nearly everyone was wearing a tie in honor of Tie-Tuesday, a totally random fad of which I am the only female advocate for at work. Sweet!

But mid-morning, I received a large helping of stress, with a few near-tears on the side. What could be so bad? Let me give you a numerical list in chronological order:

1. My friend who's giving me a ride across town for my USDA appointment tomorrow morning  (required to bring the cats to Germany) told me he might not be able to give me a ride back due to a scheduling conflict at work. No biggie I though, I can take the bus or cab worst cast. Getting there on time was, after all, the most important thing. And I really should mention that he has been absolutely awesome in constantly helping me out/putting up with me these past few weeks.
2. Twenty minutes later, the guy who bought my car last night emailed me complaining about "some noise the car was making." What noise?!? I emailed him back and explained that when I handed him the keys last night, the car was running fine. Plus, it's had two clean inspections in the past month and half. His response, "I'll look into it and let you know what the problem is." Great. I hate to sound callous, but it's really not my problem now. The car was fine; he took it over, and supposedly now it's not. Plus, I've been super nice to this guy. He got the car for a couple thousand below blue book, I put up with his continual tardiness and, because he's new to the U.S., I explained (several times) how the registration process works. Can't wait for his next email...insert eye roll here.
3. Five minutes later, my vet called. They mixed up the cats' microchip numbers on the paperwork yesterday, and they needed me to come back in to get new forms -- a big problem because I was now car-less, the vet's a 45-minute drive from my work and my I needed the papers for my USDA appointment TOMORROW morning. Fortunately, they called the USDA office and learned they could fax the corrected papers. Whew...I think. Let's see what happens when I show up tomorrow morning for the endorsement appointment.
4. Two minutes later, as I was telling a co-worker friend of events 1-3 when my phone rang. It was my credit card company. Long story short, my card number was compromised, and I had several fradulent transactions trying to post to my account. Because the credit card company had to now close the account, the representative told me they'd send me a new card "within the next week or so." But, I won't be here for another "week or so." I more or less explained my relocation to the rep, and he promised to overnight the cards to me at work. So here's to hoping they arrive tomorrow as promised. 

A short while later Thomas called me. I'd forgotten to let him know how the car sale had gone. And then he received a message about fraudulent credit card activity so he began to worry that something terrible had happened to me. Oops! After I assured him as I was still alive, I explained events 1-4. Funny thing is that before I spoke to him, I seriously felt like breaking down into a sopping pile of tears at work. But just hearing his voice again made me feel like everything would be OK...as improbable as that notion seemed just moments before.

As we neared the end of our conversation, he asked if I would call our moving company to check the status of our shipment. I decided that based on my luck today, I'd be better off calling tomorrow. At the rate I was going, calling now would probably end in the words, "What?? We're moving to Munich, not Monaco!!"