Hello from Turkey!

This week my work travels have taken me to Bursa, Turkey. Therefore, everything on my screen right now (except for this text) is displayed in Turkish. Hmm, good thing I know blogger pretty well. The best thing is that the hotel in which we are staying has free wireless internet! That's not true in very many hotels.

The hotel is a very old building which has been renovated. The room was absolutely gorgeous. I took a picture, which I will upload when I get back to Germany. It's located on the edge of the botanical garden, so each morning we (my colleague and I) have been getting up extra early to go walking in the garden. It's cold here, but it's been sunny in the mornings, so it's a nice way to wake up.

Unfortunately, as is typical with work travel, I have not seen very much of Bursa. I have seen, from a distance, the mountains. But there is a lot of smog here, so the view of them is not very good. I have seen a couple of restaurants. The first night, I ate octopus (it was already cut up on a plate and didn't look like octupus at all). It tasted good. I let my Turkish colleague order for me, because he knows the food here better and could make a recommendation. So, the main course was fish and my fish was delivered in full body style, meaning that it still had it's head. I am proud to say that I ate it anyway (not the head of course, but a few years it ago, it would have been unthinkable for me to even touch a fish with it's head still on).

Yesterday, we ate a lot of various dishes, a lot of kebap. The meal was delicious! This afternoon, we will head back to Istanbul, about a four hour drive. Then tomorrow morning we plan to do some sight-seeing before flying back to Germany.

In Germany, it's nice and warm. In the 70s in April! We've already been to a beer garden.....

I have pictures of the new apartment, which I will also upload when I'm back. And in other news, I got a pretty major hair cut. My hair was below my collarbone and is now just below my jaw line. It's a little bit too short, but I remembered why I like it better short - less drying time in the morning!!

I just saw our driver pull up......more when I'm back in Germany......hopefully with pictures from Istanbul!!

By the way....

I tried out the new garage yesterday - absolutely lovely! I no longer fear parking in my own garage. :o) It's good.....

And there's an elevator from the (underground) garage all the way up to the fourth floor!!!!! No more carrying impossibly heavy things up 99 stairs. Imagine that...........

Moving Day!

Who would have thought that after only 8 months in my apartment, that I'd be writing that phrase already?....Wow and that means that I've already been in Germany for 9 months - I think that time really does fly!

Anyways, today is the big day. The cats already moved on Saturday and Jemma is totally freaked out in the new apartment, because she can't find any place to hide herself. It was so pitiful, when we went in yesterday, she was standing in the corner trying to make herself invisible. So I stacked some boxes on the kitchen counter and put her behind them, which made her happy until my friend starting drilling into the ceiling to make holes for the light fixture. Then she decided that the bathroom sink would be a good place. It was so cute.

So thanks to a very productive friend, all of the light fixtures were removed from the Feuerbach apartment yesterday and installed in the Fellbach apartment, along with a couple others that I bought at Ikea. (The old place already had some fixtures, the new place didn't have any, so I was short a few.) It's looking good. The whole time we were there, I kept expecting the neighbors to ring the doorbell and complain about the fact that we were drilling on a Sunday and until 9 p.m.!! But they didn't. They probably just sat there and thought evil thoughts about this new inconsiderate neighbor....Seriously, I think two or three drill bits were flattened by the ceiling, which apparently is made out of concrete or something similar.

Here in Feuerbach, almost everything is packed and what isn't will be in the next few hours. (Thank goodness for friends and a week of vacation!!) The infamous Kleiderschrank was disassembled yesterday and I think that (if I measured correctly) it should fit just perfectly into the Fellbach apartment. (If it doesn't, you'll be able to hear the grief I get from my "Engineer" friends all the way in Michigan.) (And I think I might cry if it doesn't fit.)

Yesterday we painted over a few spots in Fellbach, too, so the new place is looking pretty spiffy. Pictures are coming, I promise. The batteries in my camera are dead (if you looked at all the pictures I uploaded to Flickr, you can see why - overusage!). Plus it will look better/more interesting with furniture in it anyways. I have to get in touch with the moving guy today to see about getting my couch delivered out of storage. (yippeeeeee!!)

(I have to say how glad I will be when moving is over - so much to do, I am exhausted and the really hard work is coming this evening...)