First week of the year
Hallo!
One week down, 51 more to go. All in all it was a rather stressful week. I hope the rest of the year goes better. The source of the stress is my crazy landlord, who after learning of Andy's presence in my apartment, decided that he can't stay unless he pays rent for the time he's visiting. Of course this is ridiculous because common sense dictates that I'm allowed to have visitors. My lease says nothing about how long visitors can stay, but I didn't know what German law has to say about the subject. So after a couple days of freaking out everytime I had to go home in anticipation of yet another fight, Andy being the good law student that he is, found a book which clarifies German law regarding renting property. In short it explained that as a renter I'm entitled to visitors, and the landlord has no right what-so-ever to say who may or may not visit me and can not get in their way. As far as how long he can stay and still be considered a visitor, the guideline is 4 to 6 weeks, so Andy's two weeks is clearly within the span. Needless to say I'm a little irritated at his rampant disregard for the rules and laws.
Otherwise Andy and I have been having fun. Tuesday we traveled to Koeln. We visited the chocolate museum, the Dom, and even climbed the 509 steps to the top of the south tower. Afterwards we grabbed a quick lunch, had a Koelsch, and returned to Bonn. Wednesday we went the the Haus der Geschichte des Bundesrepublik Deutschlands (House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany). Like all german museums it's huge and we didn't manage to see it all in one day. Friday we went to the movie "Herr der Diebe", which is "The Thief Lord" or some such in english. It was pretty good. The story seemed very interesting at least, although I think the movie could have been done better. Saturday we traveled to Wuppertal to visit the Unger family. The Ungers were Andy's host family from his High School German exchange, and they hadn't seen each other in almost six years. It was a happy reunion I think. Saturday evening we went "kegeln", which LEO translates as playing "skittles". We'd never heard of it, but it's like bowling only better. First off there's only 9 pins, and the balls are much smaller (maybe 6 to 9 inches in diameter) and have no holes. The width of the lane starts out only about a foot wide dips slightly in the middle so the ball weaves back and forth some. And then shortly before it reaches the pins, the lane widens dramatically to the width of the opening (about three feet wide or so). What is really fun is that there are various games you play with it, not just who can knock down the most pins. I think we played four or five different games. By the time we were done it was past eleven, and we had no desire to travel back down to Bonn, so we stayed the night and enjoyed a lovely german Sunday breakfast and lunch. Now I'm here. All for now.
One week down, 51 more to go. All in all it was a rather stressful week. I hope the rest of the year goes better. The source of the stress is my crazy landlord, who after learning of Andy's presence in my apartment, decided that he can't stay unless he pays rent for the time he's visiting. Of course this is ridiculous because common sense dictates that I'm allowed to have visitors. My lease says nothing about how long visitors can stay, but I didn't know what German law has to say about the subject. So after a couple days of freaking out everytime I had to go home in anticipation of yet another fight, Andy being the good law student that he is, found a book which clarifies German law regarding renting property. In short it explained that as a renter I'm entitled to visitors, and the landlord has no right what-so-ever to say who may or may not visit me and can not get in their way. As far as how long he can stay and still be considered a visitor, the guideline is 4 to 6 weeks, so Andy's two weeks is clearly within the span. Needless to say I'm a little irritated at his rampant disregard for the rules and laws.
Otherwise Andy and I have been having fun. Tuesday we traveled to Koeln. We visited the chocolate museum, the Dom, and even climbed the 509 steps to the top of the south tower. Afterwards we grabbed a quick lunch, had a Koelsch, and returned to Bonn. Wednesday we went the the Haus der Geschichte des Bundesrepublik Deutschlands (House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany). Like all german museums it's huge and we didn't manage to see it all in one day. Friday we went to the movie "Herr der Diebe", which is "The Thief Lord" or some such in english. It was pretty good. The story seemed very interesting at least, although I think the movie could have been done better. Saturday we traveled to Wuppertal to visit the Unger family. The Ungers were Andy's host family from his High School German exchange, and they hadn't seen each other in almost six years. It was a happy reunion I think. Saturday evening we went "kegeln", which LEO translates as playing "skittles". We'd never heard of it, but it's like bowling only better. First off there's only 9 pins, and the balls are much smaller (maybe 6 to 9 inches in diameter) and have no holes. The width of the lane starts out only about a foot wide dips slightly in the middle so the ball weaves back and forth some. And then shortly before it reaches the pins, the lane widens dramatically to the width of the opening (about three feet wide or so). What is really fun is that there are various games you play with it, not just who can knock down the most pins. I think we played four or five different games. By the time we were done it was past eleven, and we had no desire to travel back down to Bonn, so we stayed the night and enjoyed a lovely german Sunday breakfast and lunch. Now I'm here. All for now.
posted by laura s at 11:35 AM
1 Comments:
Definitely a happy reunion!
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