Mark has tried to claim responsibility for this one since he claims he may have left the car door unlocked, however, I believe, I also have a part to play...
It all started when we moved in. For 60 Euros/month our apartment comes with one parking space. The space just happens to be rented in a garage around the corner. To open the garage, you drive up to a little lock outside the door, insert an odd looking key that looks like it should be for a safety deposit box in Zurich which contains millions of dollars in foreign currency and Jason Bourne's passports, and when the door opens, you head down the drive to the safety of covered parking. (Someone please bring the garage door opener to Germany...it will make my life easier).
Of course we were only given one such mystery key, so it needed to be shared depending on who had the car. In order to make the hand off as easy as possible, the key was placed on its own easy to use (IE loose) key ring. Mark, having more experience with said key ring than I did, had come home on occasion to exclaim "we have to do something about the garage key. The ring keeps sliding off my key ring and I keep dropping it. We might lose it one day." I think you know where this is going...
So last week, when I had to take Stormy to the vet for his ultrasound, I was trusted with the car and the sacred key. Somewhere between lugging a crying cat into the car, out of the car, into the vet, out of the vet, to the first pharmacy, to the second pharmacy (apparently Prednisone is not readily available), to the pet store and finally home - the key took a dive off my key ring and is no more. Despite frantic phone calls to the vet, a trip to the pet store and a phone call to Mark containing strong language only found in R rated movies, it's gone forever.
The landlord has said he can order another key, however, the building manager is on vacation so it will be a while. With our landlord, this likely means we will have a key about a month before we move out (which should be 2 years, but with the rate things are going may be a lot sooner!)
Needless to say, the car now has to be parked on the street. So, last week, while Mark was in Scotland and the car was resting comfortably on the street, the brand new Garmin GPS which was purchased upon arrival in Germany, decided to also go AWOL. Mark assumes the door was accidentally left unlocked, however, none of this would have happened had we not had the stupid garage key. Regardless, I am very annoyed that someone decided to help themselves to something that didn't belong to them, locked car or not. All I'm saying is I want 5 minutes alone with them. I can be very scrappy when I want to be...
The absence of said GPS was realized on Friday evening as we headed out on this weekend's road trip - Luxembourg to see the Pogues play before Shane McGowan bites it. After a quick detour to MediaMarkt for another GPS, we were off. We needed to stop for a quick bite, and were running late, so we hit McDonald's. I've gotta say, it was surprisingly nice. There was wicker.
Luxembourg is a beautiful city and our hotel (the new Sofitel) had a beautiful view from the bar upstairs. Apparently, the band was staying at the same hotel, because a bloke we met at the concert said that Shane was sitting at the bar on the Thursday night drinking pints of gin and signing autographs for fans. Apparently, he wasn't saying much (probably because at this point, I don't think he can!) but he was very nice to fans. Wish we had seen that!
Regardless, the concert was great fun and we sat at the bar at the hotel afterwards for a quick drink. I was even able to speak what I think was superb French to the locals (although apparently, after a few vodka tonics, my French isn't as good as I think it is).
Saturday was a day of shopping at Ikea - an adventure for another post - but I will say that after a month, I'm sadly disappointed that we are still having to make a lot of purchases for this apartment of ours in order to make it livable. It also means many more Sundays spent putting together furniture, putting up shower heads and installing towel racks.
Doesn't make a lot of sense to me for 2 years but what do I know...
One good thing about having to run errands around Germany however, is you get to see a lot of characters. We actually saw someone (with a mullet I might add) drive up to the pet store in the General Lee (which has a for sale sign on it if anyone is interested).
It takes all kinds...
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