Everything Germany is Italy Isn't

We just spent the week in Sicily, Italy and although we've learned to follow the rules EXPLICITLY in Germany we found they aren't quite as strict in Italy.

We arrived at the airport and were making our way to Taormina.  Greg approached a police car with it's lights on and asked me if he should pass them.  I replied, "It's Italy, I don't think it's a problem."  So he just sped up and drove on by.  They didn't care.  They carried on.  The next day we passed the ambulance with the driver in the front seat smoking a cigar.  In fact, most of the cars on the freeway (yes, my east coast friends it's a FREEWAY, just in Italian) just drive down the center of the road.  When you want to park in Italy you just pull over and turn your hazard lights on.  We didn't figure the hazard light thing out right away so we had a few italian parking tickets that we got to take home as souvenirs.

We spent our first day exploring Mt. Etna, the active volcano in Sicily, while the boys (John and Greg) spent the day in bed with a cold.

The next day we went to Randazzo where Greg was successful in finding the wine shop and the butcher/cheese shop.  In true Swafford style we spent the evening dining on red wine, cheese and prosciutto.

While we were out the first day Greg went on a walk through the area we were staying and found a road  that had an old faded sign that said "Taormina".  We decided that we should follow that the next day and see if we could get there.  As you can see it was a true "goat path".

We couldn't leave Italy without visting the wineries, I know, you're all COMPLETELY surprised.  Greg bought his standard 50-60 bottles of which I'm sure we'll have to find some German friends who will store it in their basement when we come back to the states.  Wine is kind of like his teddy bear.  He just needs it near him and he feels better.  

At the last winery we visited we were joined by a famous Italian singer who got Greg to sing along with him.  Sorry I didn't get the audio of that.  You'll just have to trust me that it wasn't pretty.

We arrived home full of pasta and once again I found a way to carry a case of wine home in all the suitcases.  I posted more pictures on Facebook.

Garrett & Greg's Master of European Languages

As you all know Garrett is a very self confident child.  He doesn't necessarily have to be great to  know that he's the best at anything.  This has proven to be true even in Germany.  Garrett met a new friend from Indiana and spent the day with them on Saturday.  The dad, Garrett, Elliott and his brother Ian wanted to go to lunch so Garrett told them about his favorite restaurant.  They serve french fries on pizza which is every child's dream.  Garrett showed them all the way to walk there from where they live.  Now Elliott's dad was raised in Germany and speaks fluent German.  Garrett has been here 1 month and knows how to say Ich bin (I am) and Sprite in German.  Upon entering the restaurant Garrett leans over to Elliott's dad and tells him, "You better let me do all the talking, they only speak German in here."

Like father like son.  Greg is in Italy last week and is in a meeting where he responds to someone with, "That Sucks!"  No one said a thing and as they left the meeting, the italian sales person that works for Greg asked him, "Why you talk about socks in the meeting?"  I guess "sucks" isn't as universal as we all thought.  Later the same day Greg is with the same sales person and tells him "That's Awesome!" to which the sales guy says, "What's awesome?  Is that like ass?"  I guess awesome isn't universal either.

WHAT?

Went to the movies tonight and they asked us where we wanted to sit, in the back or more towards the middle.  I thought, wow, there must be different prices depending on where you want to sit.  No....they have assigned seating in the movie theater.  Worse than that is that people actually sit in their assigned seats.  Even if there are whole rows empty they will come and sit right next to you because that's their assigned seat.  UNBELIEVABLE!  You would have thought that the Germans got tired of people telling them what to do 50 years ago.  The good news is that they serve alcohol in the movie theatre so all is not lost if the movie is really bad.

I know I told most of you this one but for those that I didn't, here you go.  Our land lady told me the electrician needed to come over to fix the hood/exhaust over the stove.  Not sure what could be wrong with it, because the house is brand new but okay.  For 3 hours the guy is here.  When they are all done they want to show me what the fix was.  Apparently there is a law now in Germany for all brand new homes that says: if you turn your fan on over the stove then you must open a window so that you don't suck all the oxygen out of the house.  The hood now has a sensor as well as my kitchen window.  The exhaust now does not turn on unless I go over and open the window.  Just writing it I'm laughing.  I guess if this is true then I should limit the number of guests that I allow in before opening the windows.  I don't want them breathing up all the oxygen.  Did I mention next week they are coming to install one for the fireplace?  The same is true for fire.  Since fire takes oxygen to burn then we will need to open a window before the glass will open on the fireplace.  Don't want the fire sucking up all the oxygen and killing us all.  I guess there must have been a HUGE epidemic of people dying from their range hoods sucking all the oxygen out of their houses and they suffocated.  Going to Google it right now!

The Missing Page of The Declaration of Independence

After being here a month now I've decided that there must be a missing page of The Declaration of Independence.  Yeah of course the founding fathers wanted a democracy and a better way to define their new government but here's the stuff they forgot to mention.

1.  No 24 hour clock for us.  We're going to go from 1-12 and then start all over again.  That whole 23:00 o'clock is just too confusing (unless of course you are in the military and then we stick with the 24 hour clock just to mess with those guys.)

2.  220v......no...no...no  Let's make all new plugs so that we can identify any of those foreigners that come in to our country.  We'll cut them off at the pass and blow up their hair dryers.

3.  From now on all the light switches will be pushed up to turn on and down to off.

4.  All bed sizes will be different over here so that when the Europeans arrive they'll all have to buy new beds and new linens.

5.  Okay, maybe they weren't thinking that far ahead but a later amendment to the Declaration of Independence were the TV standards.  If Europeans want the PAL video standard then we are going to use NTSC just so they have to buy new TVs over here as well.

6.  If the rest of the world changes to a different form of measurement (i.e. metric) we won't.  That way, no one will know how fast they are going, how far it is to the next exit, what temperature the oven is on, how much butter to put in their cake mix or how much material you need to make drapes

Stopping To Smell The Roses

I was told that everything takes longer in Germany and you really have to plan your days/weeks.  I was good with that.  You all know that I'm nothing if not a planner/organizer.  We all know I can make an itinerary for anything.  I just didn't realize the extent of the slow down until I got here.  Here's a peek.

1.  We finally got our ATM card and I figured I should go get some cash so I did a search as to where all the ATMs were so that I could stop by one and get some cash.  Most places here don't take credit cards so you need to have cash available at all times.  I went on Deutsche Banks website, did an ATM search and it came back with just 1 listing in Bad Homburg.  Knowing that there are ATMs on every corner, WaWa or gas station I knew this certainly must be incorrect.  Nope...that's it.  All the banks are downtown and you need to plan a stop at least once a week and don't even think there's a drive through or a place where you just pull your car up, jump out and do your business.  You must park in one of the three parking garages, take the elevator to the top floor, walk to the pedestrian zone and go inside the bank.  I now carry cash in my wallet and rob Greg's every time he comes home.

2.  Everything is closed on Sundays except restaurants.  No grocery stores, no malls not even a 7-11 for emergency milk purchases.  As many of you know Greg doesn't like to run short of anything so a list of all possible consumable items must be made on Friday because there is no Tanner's open at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday should he decide he needs bacon with his breakfast.  I've had to warn him that even though it may be on the list that doesn't mean the store is going to have it.  Everything is very fresh here and they don't use preservatives like we use so there is only a finite amount of goods put out at the store so when it's gone you must choose something else.  Yesterday I went to the store and they were out of eggs.  Eggs aren't refrigerated here (it's okay, they aren't refrigerated inside the chicken either) so I stood in front of the empty shelf for at least a minute staring at the place they were last week wondering if I was in the wrong place, but the shelf was labeled eggs, there just weren't any.  It's hard to believe but I will make note on future itinerarys that there may need to be a back up option for grocery shopping.

3.  No drawer of "To Go Menus" anymore.  You must go in, sit down and enjoy a leisurely meal.  When you make a reservation for dinner it's expected that you will be at the table all night.  This is forced patience and relaxation for my poor husband.  He really liked the California way of having dinner where you could be in and out in less than an hour.  So I've really become a lady of leisure.  It's not my fault.  It's just the German way.  I'm just doing what I can to fit in.  An appertif before lunch, lunch, and then a leisurely coffee afterwards.  Lunch could take a few hours.  Not to worry, I've planned my days accordingly.