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.

Week 6: Out Climbing

Jason and I signed up a couple weeks ago with the outdoor recreation department on base for a rock climbing trip. As many of you know, we've been climbing indoors regularly over the last year or so, but this was our first trip climbing outside. Our leader, Matt, is an American, but has been living in Germany for many years. He has also been climbing for many years and so knew of a good spot (cliff? hill?) to take us for our outing. Most of the folks in the group had not climbed before, so the place that Matt took us was at more of a beginner level, named Hochstein, about 2 hours south of us and very close to the French boarder. 

Me, with very sore arms

Since Jason and I more-or-less knew what we were doing (mostly in reference to belaying), we were set up on the harder of the two climbs, with one of us belaying and the other climbing. Jason went up first, making it look easy, while I was belaying him with a Munter Hitch (also a first). The Munter Hitch is good to know in case your ATC is eaten by rabid dogs--or just falls out of your bag--so you can still climb as long as you have a locking 'beener.

Jason mastering the wall

When my turn came, it was painfully obvious that I hadn't been climbing in almost two months. I got up maybe 10 feet, when my forearms decided to cramp up. Damn. I came down, stretched a bit, then tried again, managing to get up to maybe 20 or so feet. We each tried the easier climb a bit later--the pictures are of each of us from that climb. Jason, again, made it look easy. I, on the other hand, had completely tired myself out fighting with the other climb and couldn't get past the first section. Ah, well. If we ever go back, I'll get it then.

We were climbing on sandstone cliffs. It made for some interesting features and a lot of dust. There were lots of little stones sticking out of the wall that you could use as footholds, similar to the foot chips in the climbing gym. In other ways, though, it was very different from gym climbing. The biggest was that there wasn't a marked path up the rock to follow. I found climbing very difficult because of this--you need to look at the climb very differently. It is no longer a matter of how do I get to that very specific next hold, but where on this entire wall do I go. Granted, there are specific paths up the rock that considered a certain rating, so there is some general idea of where you should go, but the options outside are much greater than in the gym. Overall, though, we had a really great time and will do it again next time it comes around as an outdoor recreation trip. At some point it would also be great to get some rope so we can set up our own top roping for a day out--and further down the road get lead certified, that will be a ways off though. (We also learned about a good indoor gym about an hour away--we'll have to get over there soon.)

We also went out for a bike ride, finding some great mountain bike trails near us. They are close enough to us to get out during the week, which should be a lot of fun during these long summer days. That reminds me--lunar eclipse this evening!

Week 5: Our Stuff Arrives!

As I alluded to in my last post, we received news late last week from the shipping company that our stuff had arrived. Yay! Our movers were swift and unpacked the crates in under 3 hours on Friday morning. We spent Friday and part of the day on both Saturday and Sunday sorting through boxes. We are pretty much done unpacking and setting up, though we need a few more small pieces of furniture and to do a couple little projects.

A few things I learned from this move:

1. Movers pack everything. The amount of RI dust that has taken up residence in Germany is high.
2. Unpacking without furniture to put the stuff on is frustrating. We took a trip to IKEA on Saturday, but there are still a few extra items that need a home.
3. To better triage what I bring with me. What am I going to do with a set of candle pin bowling balls? (Yes, Mom, I'll think about putting them in a bowl on the coffee table.)
4. Putting together furniture should never be done on an empty stomach. Trust me on this one.

(Jason notes that despite #2 and #4 above, today is our 7th anniversary and we are still together.)

All-in-all, it was a successful move, as this stack of boxes and paper can attest to. Nothing broke and everything we thought was missing so far we've found in some out of the way box previously unnoticed.

Each box that is not broken down is full of paper

On Sunday we went out on our newly arrived bikes for a ride around the countryside. We checked out a number of the small villages nearby: Beilingen, Binsfield, and Herforst, having our pack lunch in downtown Binsfield. We also scoped out the series of paths that Jason will take to the base once he starts riding his bike to work.

Our bikes in their new home: the laundry room

There are numerous biking paths (Radwege) throughout this region of Germany. Unfortunately (or...not), there are so many that I can't give you a link to a map that has an overview of this area. Here, though, is one along the River Kyll, that is very close to where we are living. There is one along every river in the area and each village has one or more paths connecting one to the other. The paths are much welcomed, as the roads between villages generally have a speed limit of 60 mph (100 kph) and 2.5 inches of Styrofoam is no match for a BMW at that speed. The only bicyclists you'll see on those roads are the guys in the full kit and on the track-style bikes. I have a feeling they get up close to 60 on a nice, downhill straight-away.

From our cursory inspection of the area Radwege, and other biking options, we are convinced. We are particularly looking forward to Happy Mosel, where they close down the road between Koblenz and Trier, as well as other future biking adventures.