Day 202: More household shopping!

I figured out I need 486 drapery hooks to put up all of the sheers. UGH!

We were going to go downtown to the main department store (suggested by the lady at the craft store on base last week). We had planned to drive to the train station and take the train down to Koenigstrasse (It's the big Stuttgart shopping street. But the word itself but because it was cold and raining, we decided that it would be more prudent to go to Ruetlingen to get what we needed. We decided to go to the store where we bought our mattresses because they had underground parking and we wouldn't be out in the rain. (One would actually think we didn't want to get wet!)

I was bummed out when we got there for a couple of reasons: 1) their drapes were less expensive and 2) they only had 350 hooks. This means I will have to make another trip at another time to get the other 136 hooks I need to finish the job. It is SO, SO frustrating. The clerk, who didn't speak much English, even checked her stockroom. It was a no go!

I wanted to find out if they had a tieback and I had NO idea what the word for tieback was. So I took the clerk to the drape samples and said "Haben si ??" (do you have ??) and I made the motion for a tieback. She knew exactly what I wanted. Ted was amazed and proud of me for thinking on my feet and showing her what I wanted. She took us to the place where the tiebacks were and they had a black and white circle but I wanted the wood one. I asked if she had a "brun" (brown) one. She looked in the stock room and she said only Schwartz und Weiss (black and white).

Ted had to use the restroom so I wanted to look at European pillows (they are square) and I have European pillow shams for our bed. They were on sale (15% off because the company has been in business for 30 years!). As I was looking for the pillows (I didn't want expensive ones, just something to put into the shams), I found a comforter that was SO soft! It was microfiber cloth and the interior was down and feathers. The clerk showed me what it was stuffed with and it was completely washable (although not at home because a home washer isn't big enough).

I was using the savings from the 19% VAT tax to buy what I needed. Ted wanted place mats so we got those as well. I let him pick them out. Lucky for me, I liked what he picked! LOL!

We also got a bread box because it was on sale as well. I was tired of seeing plastic bags with bread in them laying on the counter...not that the counter top is busy enough without it. Too much stuff on the counter right now. As soon as we get our entertainment center from the German Red Cross, then I can rearrange everything so that there's not a lot of "stuff" on the counter.

We decided to go see the guy that sold us our mattresses and tell him how happy we are with them and thank him again for selling them to us. We sleep SO well with them that we don't want to get out of bed in the morning! LOL! So we decided to put our "stuff" on the holding counter and go see Klaus.

It turns out Klaus was injured and had a broken hand. We stood and talked with him for about 10 minutes. At this point, we were ready to leave.

We decided that it was time for dinner and that we were going out again but this time we would go to Amalfi's for dinner. I'm glad we got there when we did because it was SO busy within 30 minutes of us getting there! Finally they had the broccoli and sausage Pizza that I had been wanting to try. It was on the menu but the sausage comes from Italy so I had to wait until it was shipped to them. Ted had fried calamari (his favorite) and a beer. I had water.

By the time we got home, I was totally ready to relax.


Saturday 10/10/09