Why I love Sundays

In Germany, you're not allowed to "work" on Sunday. Sure, I can run the washing machine or the vaccuum cleaner. But say I decide to mow my lawn (I don't have one, but others do). If my neighbor finds it annoying, he can call the police. And as far as I understand it (honestly, I haven't read the law myself), the police can write a citation with a monetary penalty. So Sunday truly is a day of rest here. I think it's wonderful!

Church starts at 10 on Sunday and my cats can't go past 8 without eating. So I get up early, make myself a coffee and check my email. It's totally relaxing, unlike rushing around on weekday mornings to get to work.

Almost inevitably, someone from church will suggest something interesting to do on Sunday afternoon. Two weeks ago, we walked through the city center. Last week, we went to the Monet exhibit.

For all these reasons, I love Sundays!

On Thursday as I came home from work, I found several of the books I had ordered (but none of the textbooks) waiting outside my door. One of my neighbors has signed for them. I read one whole book yesterday (told you I'm a nerd)! It was great, because I haven't done that in ages. Then last night, I went to the movies with one of my co-workers and her husband. The movie wasn't good, but we had fun afterwards sitting and talking in a cafe.

Here in Germany, you have to pay to park pretty much everywhere. When parking in a parking garage, you take the ticket from the machine at the entrance, park and then go on your merry way, with your ticket. When you come back, you put your ticket into a machine, BEFORE going to your car, like at Detroit Metro (very important lesson that I learned via trial and error in April - well it was more error and less trial, to be honest). The machine tells you how much you owe - 6 Euro for less than five hours last night!! (It's expensive here.) - you put the money in and it spits your ticket back out. Normally, you should be able to go get your car, drive to the exit and put your ticket in the machine there and the gate blocking the exit lifts and you drive away. Well, why should things should work "normally?" It's 12:15 a.m. and I'm not so happy about having paid six Euro. I put my ticket in the machine at the gate and instead of the gate opening, the ticket comes back out - "your ticket is not valid or could not be read." Hmmm....I turn it over and stick it in again. Nope. I turn it around and stick it in again. Nope. I must have tried like 10 times. Someone behind me honks and I think, great, I'm stuck in the parking garage. Maybe I owe more money in some odd and unreal way. So I back up (don't you dislike people who do that at a parking garage? That used to happen at Wayne State all the time and it was so annoying....), park again and go back to the machine where you pay. I put the ticket in and it spits it right back out. Well, either there's an error there, too, or it's all paid up. So I go back to the car, drive back to the gate and try again. Error. So I press the little call button and tell the disembodied voice that I've paid my ticket, but it won't work. He says to try it again. I do, but it's still not working.

He opens the gate and I drive away, freed from the confines of the parking garage!!!!!!

Then it took me twice as long to get home, because they're doing construction on my normal route and had blocked it off (I heard on the radio that alone in the state of Germany in which I live, there are 55 construction sites going. When you consider that all of Germany fits into like Minnesota or something, that's quite a lot for my little state. It means that you're almost always caught up in construction traffic....) So I had to take a detour, which took me quite a way out of the way. But I got here eventually....

Fun times! But it's not so bad, because I have a four day weekend!!!! Did I mention that already?? :o)