Quiet Weekend

I thought I would write a little about daily life in Germany this week and some of the things that are a little different here. First off I have a German washer and dryer which means I can’t read the labels for making sure I have the correct settings for the laundry, but I seem to have figured out the ones I need. One thing that makes it easy is the washer only has a cold water hookup, it heats its’ water so I know that if I set it at 30 Celsius it will be a warm water wash and I put the whites in at 60 Celsius. The dryer is really interesting, at least to me. It is a condensing dryer. What this means is there is no exhaust hose on the dryer venting it to the outside. It has a reservoir that collects the water removed from your clothes when they dry. I empty it about every two loads. You’d be amazed how much water is removed from your clothing during the drying process. I figure it is basically distilled water at this point so I recycle it in my Iron.
Speaking of recycling the Germans are serious about it. I have three different garbage cans and yellow bags. The garbage bins hold either paper and cardboard, compost type material and pretty much useless trash. The yellow bags are for plastics, metals and things like milk cartons. They do not pick up each type each week, there is a rotating schedule. I just wait until the neighbors put theirs out so I know what is being picked up the next day.
Homes in Germany can develop mold problems so I have to open several windows everyday to ventilate the house properly. No matter what the weather. The window a really well designed and I can either swing them fully open or if I rotate the handle 180 degrees the bottom of the window locks in place and hinges so the top tips inwards opening the window for ventilation without letting rain into the house.
I hope this is not a boring blog entry. I meant to get out on a hike Saturday, but it was just cold enough and muddy enough from two previous straight days of rain to keep me off the trails. My big adventure was buying a lamp. Which is pictured, along with a few photos of the house with the boxes and loaner furniture gone. I also snapped some pictures of the church.
Monday I fly to England to visit the fuel accounts I audit there. Expect pictures of that trip next weekend.
Don