Apologies for the radio silence yesterday! Our internet went out unexpectedly. Lame sauce. And I couldn’t get myself with laptop in tow to the USO (land of free wifi) until today. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Mittwoch – pronounced mitt (like Romney) + vok (like volcano minus the lano). Translation: midweek or Wednesday. Look at that. You just learned something new! 
We were fortunate enough to have a very productive and work-free Mittwoch this week. Well, every day is work-free for me, but this particular one was also work-free for my husband. He attended some fancy schmancy US Army + German Army ball in Munich on Tuesday. Since it went until the wee hours of the morning (as apparently all his Munich trips do), he got to take the following day off of work. Huzzah!
First on the agenda: work-out! I did ab ripper x again. My plan is to do this abdominal DVD every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for as long as I can stand it. That meant I had to give 15 minutes to it yesterday.
Oh the difference a day makes. It still hurt like Hades, but I managed to do a much better job than on Monday. Improvement, I like it!
After getting some breakfast in our bellies, Stephen and I headed for our local T-Mobil store to pay our internet bill. It took no time at all, in and out.
Next stop: Car Registration building. Stephen described this place to me as “The DMV but way worse.” Going here is a must. We need to get my name added to our car registration so that I can gas up our car on my own. (Getting gas here entails putting money on a prepaid “Esso” card and showing your registration and ID at the pump. So annoying.) Upon our arrival, we took a number. Lucky 100! The customer they were currently serving: 55. The number of employees seeing people: 2. Oh, boy.
Instead of waiting around with the other sad-faced people, we took our number and left to go kill time elsewhere. We walked around the PX, checked our mailbox (we got a letter from Stephen’s grandma!), hit up the USO (which was closed), and went to the Education Center (so Stephen could use the computer). After all that (which ate up about an hour), we went back to the car registration place. Currently serving: 77.
Since we were still behind more than 20 people and the office was closed for lunch, we went home and got some lunch ourselves. (Sandwiches all around!) Then we went back on post and (for the 3rd time that day) back to the car registration center.
We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.
Currently serving: 5. Oh snap! We missed our spot. If we were to take a number at that moment, it would have been 45. With heavy hearts and a lot of frustration, we left without accomplishing our mission of getting my name added to the car registration. You win this day, car registration place, but I’ll be back.
Since it was still early in the day, we decided to attempt to cross off something else large and car-related from our to-do list. We need winter tires. Apparently, winter here can get pretty rad, and your car needs special tires. Needs, as in, not optional. So we went on our merry way to Amberg (a cute town about 30 minutes away) to a store called ATU.
We located an English-speaking employee, who turned out to be from/has visited Oklahoma recently. When we told him we were from Texas, he replied, “Oh! Six Flags Under Texas!” I got a good laugh outta that! (If you don’t know, Six Flags is an amusement park with locations around the country. The one near where we live is known as Six Flags Over Texas.)
The German-Oklahoman looked at our car, he put some stuff in the computer, and came out with a number near $800. Ouchie. Big ouchie. We need these effing tires before the winter arrives (which could supposedly be any day now), but we weren’t in the mood to drop that much coin on the spot. Back home we went.
Home, where the internet was out. Hmm. Perplexing. We tried every manner of fixing it, but it just didn’t want to be fixed. That meant getting in the car (again!) and making another stop (our second for the day) at T-Mobil. It seems that our internet was turned off because we didn’t pay our bill in a timely enough manner. (Pretty frustrating when there is no due date on the bill and we paid it within a week of receiving it. I thought that was extremely timely!) Wait time until it is fixed: 48 hours. Grrr.
After such a long and fruitless day, I was in need of some major de-stressing action. Once I was home again, I put on my running shoes, grabbed Geronimo, and pounded out 2 miles. I returned home feeling much better than when I left.
I am not used to doing so much darn stuff! We really ran all over town yesterday. But it was a nice treat that Stephen had a weekday off. Even though we didn’t get as much accomplished as we hoped, it was time spent doing stuff that is muy importante. And I have big plans for today: relax!*
Ugh. The DMV but worse sounds right to me. I”m sorry you missed your number; hopefully the next time you go there will be more than 2 people working. Except, that probably won’t happen, because….well….the DMV is a soul sucking establishment.
Also, so sorry about your lack of internet; what a bummer. But not nearly as bad as having to pay $800 for tires. Blech.
Yeah, it just feels wrong to spend that kind of money on tries when my current tires are fine! We are hoping to buy some tires for cheaper off of people who are PCSing outta here soon. Not as legit as going to the tire store, but I’ll do what I gotta do.*
Whoa, what’s up with the esso card? Big Eurobrother keeping tabs on fuel consumption? Yuck!
Haha! I guess we get to pay cheaper prices or American prices (Is $4.10/gallon average there these days), but heck if I know. It’s just one more thing in the process (put money on the esso card to pay for gas with that card) to just make me frustrated!*
I think it was around $3.50 last time I filled up, maybe
Maybe a little closer to 4, but definitely under 4. Those kinds of little naggy chores drive me nuts, too! Hang in there!
I’m exhausted just reading about your day. It’s great that you and Stephen could attempt that stuff together because if you had to do it all by yourself… whoa baby that’s a whopper. I bet you are happy for a new day
The good news about winter tires is that they’re only used for one season so they should last for a while.
It is good that the tires last a long time, but we won’t need them for long! I’m hoping that we can sell them to some other Army family before we move outta here.*
That “DMV but worse” place sounds awful! It’s crazy to me that there were that many people there on a Wednesday afternoon. Hopefully today is a more relaxing day!!
I hadn’t thought about that, but you are right – why weren’t all those people at work! You’d think the middle of the week would be a perfect time to go. My plan for our next attempt is to arrive before the place even opens so we an be first in line.*
What happened to paying cash for gas??? And toanswer ur question, gas here is 349 ish, varies on where u are in city as usual. Definately nothing wrong with used tires if in good condition!!! I can’t imagine something worse than the DMV uck!
Btw, new running shoes???
No new running shoes yet. They only have two pairs of Mizuno’s (my desired brand) at the PX and I’ve been dragging my feet on buying them. I need more options! I need running shoe specialists!
Yeah, the gas thing is a huge pain! Buying gas “on the economy” (aka without the esso card) is way more expensive, so I guess it’s worth the hassle, it just sucks.*
Wow! The car registration process sounds like a nightmare! All that just to be able to buy gas. At least you were able to spend time with Stephen while you were doing all that running around; probably would have been awful alone.
Where I grew up we always had to buy snow tires, super spendy. But you only use them a few months out of the year so they do last a long time. I hope you’re able to buy some at a much better price. And that it doesn’t snow for a while.
Good point! Running around doing errands with Stephen trumps running around doing errands all alone. At least I had someone to talk to while we took on each task.*
*Snicker* English speaking people never get the “ch” right, just like most Germans have a hard time pronouncing “th”. It’s actually not like the c in volcano, and it’s really hard to explain how to pronounce it without hearing it. The sound is made with the back of your tongue at the back of your palate. You can actually listen to how the words sound on google translator. I often use this when I am not sure how an English word is pronounced.
Have you considered opening a bank account in Germany and grant your internet company a direct debit authorisation so you don’t have to go to the store to pay your bills? I’d find that rather annoying. I had an account when I was in England so I did not have to carry loads of cash around all the time. A direct debit authorisation is a rather safe thing here (don’t know how this works in the States). If there’s anything wrong with the debit, you can just go to your bank and tell them to get the money back, you don’t even have to tell them a reason (it is of course advised to just do that if they really made a mistake…
). And lots of banks don’t even charge you for an account if you do most of your banking online.
I gave “Mittwoch” the old college try! I think my Germany accent is pretty decent, but then again, not so decent that I’m willing to attempt speaking German in front of an actual German.
We will not be getting any more accounts. We have way too many as it is! We had to get a few new accounts when we moved here since our bank isn’t here. I’m having trouble staying on top of them, thus my reluctance to get any more.*
Ohhh look at you and your teaching us new things! Love! Hate those days when you set out and have every intention of being uber productive then it’s like the world is against you! Y’all spent a nice chunk of that day in the car! Holy cow, but yes, a midweek free day w/your hubby is awesome!
Exactly! I pulled up my to-do list on my phone and was only able to delete one thing. And after spending all day working on that damn to-do list! Let down!*
HUGE let down! We totally get it!
I’m moving to Germany soon (other side of the country), and I’ve heard about the need for winter tires. I’m from Michigan, so I keep wondering why they would be needed, since we definitely get by without them here and I believe we get more snow than the region where I’m moving. However, MI is really good about clearing the roads in a timely manner. Someone told me that they don’t salt or plow the roads in Germany. Is that correct? It seems a bit strange to me because they keep up other things so well. Please say it isn’t so!
They do not salt the autobahn. My understanding is that the salt gets into the cracks of the road and ruins it. But in our neighborhood/town, they put gravel down and they plow. Our housemeister has a little tractor-looking thing that he drives to clear the snow from our streets and driveways.
We begrudgingly got the snow tires. I mostly didn’t want to mess with them because of the hassle and the $$$. But since they make random checks on post, we decided it’d be better to just follow the rules. It has snowed quite a bit since we’ve been here. My husband ended up having almost an entire week off of work because they roads were so bad.
Good luck with your move to Germany! The moving part is stressful, but living here is really incredibly. I hopped over to your blog and saw that you’ll be in the K-town area. Great location! You’ll be close to lots of great places for sightseeing! If you haven’t already, you might check out Michelle’s blog over at Run Eat Travel. She lived there for a year, I think.*
Thank you for the well wishes. I will definitely check out the other blog. From what I have read, I understand that all weather tires with M+S markings are accepted too. However, I am concerned about getting stuck . Funny; in MI our roads are usually cleared well of snow but they are crummy otherwise, probably from all the salt and frost heaving.
We have winter specific tires, but our friends have the M+S kind. Neither of us have had any issues. I don’t know when your big move is, but my husband suggested that you look into buying the tires into the US. Even with shipping, he thinks they’ll be cheaper than the ones bought here.*
I am totally kicking myself. I almost bought the tires before I got here but then learned that the warranty wouldn’t be valid when I moved here so I shipped my car with the intention of buying new tires here before hearing the feedback that it’s better to buy them in the States prior to moving. Darn! Oh well. I just got here and I have to tell you, it totally feels like cheating to live here (at least in the KL area it does!) because there are so many of us here and there is a lot of support. It’s definitely very nice but I also need to be a big girl and continue to improve my German and get out in the world that way