Day 80: More Painting.

Today Ted does not need to stop at the office before dropping me off at the apartment which means that I start painting sooner than I did on Monday. Oh Joy!

After I change my clothes and open all of the "shields", I get started on the slow process of painting. Painting isn't the most exciting thing to do but it's got to be done. And while I would have liked to complete one section before going on to the other, I had to change it up a bit just to rest my feet and legs. When I'd get tired of climbing the ladder, I would sit on the floor and trim out the baseboards. When my bum and hips started hurting, I would get up and do the trim I could reaching standing up then go back on the ladder again. It was a long, long process and I realized that getting some helpers to help with painting the big areas was a must.

There's a construction project going on beside our apartment and while the noise doesn't bother me, I'm curious about how they do things in Germany. Having been raised in the construction business, I wanted to see just what they were doing so at lunch time, I took my sandwich to the smallest of the three bedrooms and watched them work. There was an excavator there and he was digging out around these pilasters. And there were guys with carpenter's overalls walking around down there. What I found interesting is that they used that excavator to lift a load of what looked like 4 x 4 railroad ties into the hole. They took two chains, put them around the load of ties, hooked the chains to the bucket and then lifted them into the hole. They used a chain saw to cut the ties and the ties would be fitted between the pilasters to hold the wall of dirt in place. They used the old-fashioned folding ruler to measure the ties and the teeth of the excavator was used to remove the bands on the load of ties! It was an interesting way to have lunch!

But it was back to work for me. By the end of the day, I didn't get as much accomplished as I would have liked but, I would be back on Friday to try to finish the trim, at least. I was more than halfway there but it took me two days to get there so, doing the math, it would appear that I will only be three-quarters of the way there by Friday night. UGH!

Ted came home from work just after I finished cleaning the painting gear and washed and changed. We had to wait for Klaus to call us and he was famished (again). So we decided to try Mama Maria's Pizzeria across the street. They have sidewalk tables and it would allow us to watch the apartment and see when Klaus arrives.

The waitress speaks Italian so I was able to communicate really well with her. The owner then came to talk to me. He is from Puglia which is south of Bari. He asked me how was it that I could speak such good Italian. After the explanation, he asked if he could sit down. When I told him where we were living and how long, he welcomed us to the neighborhood and said that Frank and Vanessa (the former tenants) had told him that we would be moving in and that we were a nice family. What a nice community!

We ordered pizzas and they were terrific. But this restaurant doesn't serve Iced Tea either. I wonder why none of them do. But they DO have Aqua Panna which is my favorite Italian bottled water.

While we were finishing our Pizza, Klaus called and said he was in front of our apartment. Ted got up and walked over to the apartment while I paid the bill. It turns out the restaurant has a gardent terrace in the back but we didn't use it because of the delivery. It was pretty noisy on that sidewalk cafe with all of the traffic but it was only for a short while so we could deal with it. As I got up from the table, I saw Klaus pull into one of the three guest spaces at the apartment. I didn't see Ted and Klaus was looking around, kind of lost, so I waved and called his name as soon as I crossed the street. He wanted to know what floor we lived on. I wanted to help him unload the car but he wouldn't hear of it! Ted wanted to help him and again, he wouldn't hear of it.

We were SO surprised that a salesman would go to ALL that trouble to deliver our mattresses, it was unbelievable! When we got upstairs, he put the mattresses in the bedroom and we went into the kitchen to pay him. It turns out that he paid for our mattresses out of his own pocket!! We were dumbfounded. What salesperson would do that. We told him that we didn't expect him to do that but he waved it off and said he trusted us. WOW! That doesn't happen that often!

He had our VAT form completed (the one that allows us to NOT pay the German sales tax which is 19%)and it turns out we saved over 100 Euro by not having to pay sales tax! We were excited about that. We gave Klaus extra Euros for doing this for us. It turns out he spent some time in Canada and said that there were people in Michigan, Wisconsin and North Dakota that helped him out when he was in the US and he was just returning the favor. Thank you, fellow Americans! He also told us that he and his wife just bought property in the Phillipines for about 5,000 Euro! He told us that there was a house on the property but it probably had to be bulldozed and rebuilt.

We stood and talked with Klaus for over an hour. He got a call from his daughter during that time and she told him to stop on the way home and buy her Chicken McNuggets at McDonalds! UGH!

After he left, we shut the shields and went home. It was a very long day and I'm looking forward to hitting my comfortable German bed.

Guten Nacht! (Good night)



Painting
Mattress Delivery
Klaus
Pugliese pizza - sidewalk cafe across the street

Wednesday, 06/10/2009