We spend our days in a cocoon surrounded by the familiar: English speakers and LDS employees and Missionaries. It is a nice, warm & spiritual environment. When we walk out of the door...bam, we are in a strange world. We've noticed that many people just look at us and speak English to us.
We have been here one week now and are finally starting to sleep through the night, wake up when we are supposed to, and not become so sleepy during the day.
Working in the kitchen (or showering) has felt a lot like we are living in our travel trailer. The couples all have "one-butt kitchens!" Yes, the apartments are very small, as is everything in Europe, the cars, the streets, even the amounts of food you can buy...no Costco here). It almost seems we live in a miniature land.
We live on the 11th floor of a 12 story building. Interestingly, the 1st floor of any building is the 1st floor up from the ground floor (which in the USA is known as the 2nd floor). Most of the couples live in this building which is just a few feet from the Stake Center and the Europe Area Offices, but a few live nearby (within walking distance) in other apartment buildings. We spent our first 3 nights in the Greenwoods' apartment (medical doctor from Pleasant Grove) because they were out of town with family who were visiting, and enjoyed the sights as we walked to and from the office.
The Senior Missionaries have been so very attentive to us in helping us feel welcome, and adjust to the new time zone and new environment. On four different occasions we've found candy/chocolate left on our desks or outside the apartment door. We've been invited to have dinner with several couples, either going out (our first meal in Germany was Chinese) or at their apartments on five evenings (out of 8 that we've been here) and have another invitation for Sunday. That has surely helped since we are still trying to set up our apartment.
Our apartment was recently acquired by the Church for missionaries, so it has been completely refurbished (painting, flooring, new entire kitchen/bathroom, new appliances & furniture). This is a very nice situation for us, although we've noticed that the other missionary apartments have lots of little extras that have been left by former Missionary Couples that make it more homey & livable (curtains, pictures for the wall, extra shelves, appliances, etc). So now that our apartment is to be used by missionaries, it won't be torn apart between couples.
An interesting custom in Germany: when someone moves out of an apartment, they clear it out. Well, of course, they clean it out. No, they literally tear out the entire kitchen (shelves, oven, sink, refrigerator, everything) and put it on the street for the next trash pick up.
Elder & Sister Harrison (from Orem), the Real Estate Missionaries, in charge of making arrangements for housing for missionaries or places to meet for the congregations, have been our hosts for learning how to make our way in this vastly different environment.
Some of the things we need to get used to:
Money system (euro...thankfully, the "cents" is much like in the USA).
Garbage must be separated, which we weren't aware of the first few days.
Shopping bags are carried with you unless you want to buy a new one every time you shop.
Bedding: The very large square pillows look more like decorative pillows, double mattresses are pushed together, with no top sheets. Rather than a blanket we use only a down comforter on top.
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