everyday happenings

 Yesterday, we took a photowalk around the neighborhood, and around town. Here are the results.

This little old fountain is at the end of our block.  I'm pretty sure it is spring water.  I need to remember to ask our landlord about it.  Our landlord is this über-nice middle aged man who built the complex we are living in.  He has the cutest 60-70 lbs. puppy, brings us fresh towels and bedding on a regular basis, and has left bags of kleiderbügel (clothes hangers) at our door for me, even though he seemed to be amazed that I had enough clothes to need more than the 5 or so that he had left in the apartment before we moved in.

This is a view looking up the hill on our street. I love that we live in town, but there is still so much greenery around.

And speaking of greenery, I am surprised at how green everything still is even though the weather has been at or just above freezing most of the time we've been here. People around here have all of these lovely cold-weather plants that are still very colorful, and even blooming right now.

Just up the street from us is a church whose bells chime at 7:00 each morning (perfect, since that is when we like to wake up!) and again sometime in the evening.

Here's a little known fact about me: I love shortcuts. I like to wander around a new place and find the most direct route to where I need to go.  If that shortcut is hidden, that makes it even better.

This is the shortcut to the grocery store.  The stairs go straight up between some houses, and I'm not really sure if the occupants appreciate the shortcut as much as I do. The first time we used the stairs, an old man came outside just to glare at us.  I try to tiptoe my way down now. =)

On Sundays, most everything is closed (which we weren't expecting during our first week here when we planned to go shopping on Sunday).  Except for our neighborhood flower shop, apparently.

To get to the downtown area, we either take the bus or walk along the river bank.  About halfway to town, there is always a herd of swans in the river. Swans always make me think of The Blue Danube waltz (by Johann Strauss II), though I'm not sure why. Bet you didn't realize that we only live about an hour from the head of the Danube river! And if you check out the Google maps satellite image, it really does look blue!  I'm foreseeing a nature trip in my future.

I took some pictures in town too, but my camera is not so great in low-light conditions (hence the digital SLR on my wishlist!). These are the ones that almost came out. Tübingen is all decked out in holiday spirit, and this week was the annual chocolate festival!

 

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So that's it for the great outdoors for today. Here are a few miscellaneous indoor commentaries:

I'm sure you've all been curious about the beer out here. Well, so were we.  Here is a sampling of what we've tried from our neighborhood grocery store. There are a lot of pilsners here, which I am not a big fan of, but D says that they are much better here than in the States. In fact, I think he would say that some of them are quite lecker!  There are a lot of dunkel (dark) hefeweizens that I've found and that I love.  We also love the resealable pop-tops on these beer bottles.  Double bonus: D fills them up with water and uses them as free weights (at least until we join a gym). =)

Apparently, clothes dryers are fairly uncommon in Germany.  So, we've had to learn about these newfangled things: clothespins!  At least I found some pretty ones.

Something else that I've liked about Germany from my first visit is the bedding.  I'm not sure why I like it, but I do.  They tend to use duvets and duvet covers in place of top sheets.  And the pillows (oh, and I love the word for pillow - Kissen!) tend to be giant square things. However, my pillow here in our apartment has got to be the floppiest, lumpiest pillow I've ever slept on.

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In other news, the first week on the job went well.  But this blog is not really about work, it's about play! Feel free to email me if you want to know about the boring stuff. =)

Well, that's it for this week.  Stay tuned for next week's post... we're hoping to go exploring out of town next weekend!  We've just discovered that we can get flights from Munich to places like Barcelona for like 10 Euro! (Though we'll probably stick closer to home for our first trip.)