Week 7: The Hardware Store, Happy Mosel and Marburg

This past weekend was rather busy. On Saturday we took a trip to the hardware store. German hardware stores are just like American hardware stores, except with far fewer 2" x 4"s and more shelf toilets. Those of you who had been to our place in Providence know about our projector, which serves as our TV replacement. In Providence, we had the projector shining on the big white wall in the livingroom. In our new place, the walls are yellow and textured, and thereby don't serve as well as a projector surface.

Once I realized that, I started hatching a plan. On our last trip to IKEA we picked up two Expedit shelving units. For a few weeks we had a sloppily hung old bedsheet between the two as an interim solution. The master plan involved the trip to the hardware store, where we picked up a few 3/4" x 2-3/4" x 6' pieces of wood (of course, I am translating--they were sold in metric), a bunch of hardware and some paint. I also wanted something akin to a drop cloth, one of the old-school cloth ones made out of tightly woven cotton, but no-such-luck.

The Projector Screen: In Progress

Back home, I proceeded to build a frame out of the wood, drilled out some holes in the Expedits and, using some leftover brackets from IKEA furniture, mounted the frame between them. Jason helped me stretch the old bed sheet over the frame and hold it in place with push pins. Ta-da! We have a more workable screen for watching our movies.

I still want to get a better piece of cloth, mount it with something other than push-pins and paint the surface with the bright-white paint I bought (suggestions on how to do this and what material to use are welcome--and w0z, yes, I will write this up for IKEA hacks once I am done), but this will work well enough for the time being. Hey--we have to keep up with SG-U.

Jason, Kitted out for Biking

We also got out and about this weekend, mostly on Sunday. Sunday did not live up to its name. It rained on and off for most of it. We went out for Happy Mosel nonetheless. As I mentioned in a previous post, during Happy Mosel, the road running along the Mosel river, known as the Moselweinstrasse, is closed to cars for a 50 mile stretch. Local vendors in the towns set up wine and food tents along the road and people ride their bikes for a section or the entire way. We did only a section of about 20 miles round trip due to the rain and other commitments, but the area was beautiful between the rain drops, with vineyards stretching up the hills away from the river. You can see them a bit in Jason's photo.

On Sunday afternoon we drove out to the Marburg area to visit with--here we go--Jason's sister's husband's brother's girlfriend. She is currently finishing up her studies in Marburg for her Master's and was nice enough to show us around the city. She took us by two of the main sites, St. Elisabeth's Church and the Landgrave Castle.

The View of Marburg from the Castle

There was a service going on inside the church, so we only viewed the outside, which was very nice, Gothic architecture. The castle was high atop a hill and from there you could get a nice view of the town...and the storm clouds. What you can't see from this view is the couple behind us who, in full view of all visiting the castle, were fiercely making out, like it was going out of style. Based on his balding dome, I was surprised at the vigorousness of the activity, but I guess every so often love conquers all--even public decency.

Next weekend I am off to Chicago for a week for work. We'll see how I do with the jet-lag. If anyone starts a pool, I want the square that says I fall asleep at 7pm all week.