Day 188: Household Shopping!

Today was a big household shopping day. We finally decided to buy drapes / curtains for our apartment. I don't plan on putting drapes or curtains in either the third bedroom or the bathroom. The third bedroom which is very small is being used as an office and with the shields, it's really not necessary. And the bathroom window is opaque so no one can see through it anyways so why bother?

So off we go again to Reutlingen but this time we're going to another super department store called Rieger. I have the sizes of the windows written down in my handy-dandy Lil' fat notebook and I'm ready to go.

We get there using our friend "Julie". For as many times as we've been there, we should know the way but it's tricky when you get into town. It's only about a 30 minute drive from where we live so it really is an excursion!

The store is lovely and we park under ground and take an external escalator up to the entrance (which I found to be very weird). Why not have the escalator or elevator INSIDE where the parking garage is? Oh well.

We find a store clerk to help us but unfortunately, she does not speak English. She calles one of her colleagues that does and we ask her about the drapes. The first thing we got were these really cute curtains for the kitchen. There are three windows with rods and I want the curtains to go half-way down the window. It turns out the ones I really wanted, you have to sew. That isn't happening here in Germany. I don't have a sewing machine and even if I did bring mine, I'd have to use a transformer and it's incredibly expensive so it's not happening. Anyways, I settled on these curtains that are white-on-white blocks with triangular-shaped holes where the rod goes. What's really neat about them is that they are cut to size width-wise. The way they are constructed, every block has a double set of closely sewn together zig-zag stitches that allows the clerk to cut them according to the widt the customer wants. I had to get them just a wee bit bigger but who cares, they are cute. What I didn't realize was how expensive these curtains were!!! They were close to $40!! But they are cute and I like them. And if I can't use them when I return, I'm definitely going to make pillows out of them because they are so cute!

Next are the bedroom and living room drapes. They are INCREDIBLY expensive!! I went to the sale table and got our bedroom sheers(six panels in a brown and white vertical stripe) and the second bedroom sheers (2 panels in green with a little design)and they were STILL expensive! The Living room sheers (four panels in a horizontal stripe) I didn't buy on sale because they didn't have anything on the sale table that would match our living room. All of them are nice but more modern than I'm used to. No matter though, they could come in handy back in the states. The rods that are in the apartment are these narrow rails. The sheers have these tabs at the top which we found out afterwards, we cannot use. The clerk suggested I cut them but I was reluctant to do so because I may want to use them in the states. So I pinned them down and it just looks like they are supposed to be there!!

The clerk explained that the drapes are U-band drapes...whatever that means. She brought the hooks but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how they are attached. Then she showed me. Voila! They are plastic safety-like pins with these round balls that probably go in the groove in the rail. She showed me that there is a clear strip sewn at the top of the sheer (where the tabs are) and that strip is sewn vertically at intervals. You put the plastic pins through the U-band and hang! Very simple!

She also showed us some tiebacks. We got one that looks like a circle and two knitting needles. She showed us how it works and we bought one. She also showed us another set that use magnets which is also cool and we bought those for the bedroom.

Unfortunately, though we didn't have enough cash on us to buy everything. And since they don't take VISA we asked her to hold some of the stuff for us. She never asked us for our phone number or a deposit or anything. Just our name. Go figure. She was incredibly nice and helped us ever step of the way.

On the way out, we noticed they were having a sale on rugs. We found a nice 5 x 7 rug for our living room. Again, it's more modern than I like but it's nice and the pile is very thick. Again...even with the sale, it's more money than I would normally spend.

We decided to go to the Geldautomat (ATM)and get the rest of the money so we could buy the rug and the rest of the stuff. We didn't know when the next time would be that we could come back. And unlike that nice clerk in the drapery department, the guy in the rug department would not hold the rug for us. So off we go to the geldautomat to get more money to buy everything we needed.

It was back to the store and we purchased the rug and the rest of the stuff we left with the clerk in the drapery department.

Now it was time to stop at Obi (like Lowes or Home Depot) because Ted needed a tool. While we were there I wanted to check out a new faucet. I'm tired of buying water to use to drink and to cook. They were more expensive than I imagined but it's going to have to wait. I already blew this week's budget on the household stuff! While there, I also checked into other types of hooks for the rails. I bought 6 or 7 packs to see how they worked. And if I don't like them or they don't work out, I can always return them.

We decided to go to the Flying Ship for dinner because it was just down the street from OBI. We also thought we would eat outside because it was SUCH a beautiful day and we didn't know how much longer it would be before we would have to eat inside all the time until next spring / summer.

Of course, while sitting there waiting for our food a group of people came out of the restaurant and sat at the table next to us and started puffing away. It turns out they were Italian (doesn't surprise me because the restaurant is Italian). They puffed and puffed and I hated it because I had to smell that awful smoke while I was trying to eat. They finally went back inside but by this time, I was already done with my dinner and we were ready to get our check and leave. By now the sun had gone down and it was getting cold. I'm glad I brought my sweater along.


When we returned to our apartment we toted all the "stuff" upstairs. The first thing I did was to put up the curtains in the kitchen. They went up without a hitch. I'll take photos when I have all of the rooms completed.

It turns out I don't have any safety pins. That means another trip to the store and it won't happen until Monday because there are no stores open on Sunday. So the sheers are on hold until I can get the pins. There's not much more I can do with this.

Today is my eldest daughter's birthday. I called to wish her a Happy Birthday but I only got her voice mail. I will certainly speak with her tomorrow or next week for sure.

We spent the rest of the evening playing on the computer.

Saturday 09/26/09