Ventilation

This has become a bad word to me these days. Most apartments here are built so tight that no air can get in or out. All of the walls, inside and out, are made of solid brick, then plastered over. Good for keeping things insulated, but not good for the humidity build-up. When the temperature outside is colder than it is inside, every morning when we wake up there is moisture inside the windows. LOTS of moisture when we are drying clothes (which is all the time now that it is cold outside and things dry much slower) or cooking a lot. Sometimes the windows and the sills are drenched. The humidity is not a big deal in the summer time since it is warm outside and we open the windows up anyway, but in order to keep the humidity level down so you don’t end up with black mold growing in all of your windows you have to: A.) Wipe all the windows with a towel several times a day (not the best option since it can still build up on the walls, etc.), B.) Open wide all the windows in the house twice a day for 10 minutes to let the moisture out, C.) Buy an expensive de-humidifier and empty it all the time. I have been doing a combination of A and B. It is easiest to open the windows first thing in the morning because we turn the heaters way down at night and that way there is not a lot of built-up heat yet to escape. Luckily, all of our windows except the one in the bathroom have a wall heater directly beneath it to combat this problem. If we had an apartment with a different heating system it would be a bigger issue. At first I was wondering, “Why would they put the heaters right by the windows where the heat just goes right up the curtain?” After researching the humidity problem online, I figured it out.

I also dry most of our clothes in our bedroom and leave the windows cracked all day and shut the door so the whole apartment doesn’t get cold. We also have to leave the bathroom window open most of the day because of showering. One day I was hanging up the laundry in our room and told London, “Okay, we have to go out now because I’m going to open the windows so...” and London matter-of-factly finished my sentence for me, “So we can freeze our house!” The plus side to all this is the laundry dries a lot faster with the windows open, even when it is 20 degrees outside! Actually, if we don’t open the windows at least part of the time while laundry is drying, it takes so long for them to dry that they smell sour. So anyway, there is a little tidbit about our lives here in the winter!

Christmas Market

The Christmas Market is a huge tradition in Germany. It is like the fair in the middle of the winter. Vendors set up their booths to look like little gingerbread houses and decorate with trees and lights and set up kiddie rides. There are tons of fried doughnut-things and gallons of “gluhwein” (mulled wine with sugar and spices) for sale, Christmas decorations, nutcrackers, hats and scarves, and other delicious goodies to peruse. We have visited our local Dessau Weihnachtsmärkt set up in the square just a few blocks from our apartment a couple times now to take it all in. It was FREEZING cold so both times we stopped at the mall to warm up before we ventured outside again. Here are some pictures from our market:

Jason sampling the gluhwein.

London really wanted to ride on the kiddie train. It had Mickey Mouse on it. She looks like she isn't having a good time, but really she threw a huge fit when the ride was over and she had to get off.

Eating a cheap lunch of bratwurst and potatoes at the Christmas Market.

Boy, northern Europeans are tough. We thought we had it bad in the U.S. when we didn’t have a garage and had to park our cars out in the snow, scrape the windows, defrost, then jump into the warm car only to scamper between the car and a heated building. We thought we REALLY moved up in the world when we had a garage and didn’t have to walk in the snow at all except when moving between the car and the nearest building. We thought we were brave for taking a walk to the coffee shop or the post office in the winter when we lived in downtown Ontario. Boy were we wusses compared to the people in our town. Last Monday London and I walked to the grocery store in the snow all bundled up and I carried the groceries home in an airplane carry-on-sized backpack because there was too much snow to push the groceries home in the stroller. My shoulders were aching when we got home and I decided that I need to go to the store more often when it is too snowy for the stroller so we don’t have to pack as much home. Wednesday, since some of the snow had melted (thank goodness!), I took the stroller and pushed London to my Dr. appointment on the other side of town (a good half hour walk... double that if London is walking too). Then we had to walk back again. I imagined the day YEARS ago when my mom and Aunt Cindy took us kids and our cousins to the McCall ice carnival and we walked around outside all day. That was a once-in-a-few-year event. Here you prepare for that kind of experience every time you leave the house. Thank God for warm fuzzy snow boots, thermal underwear, thick coats, hats that cover your ears, insulated gloves, and cushy scarves. I would much rather be too hot than too cold (and I’m not arguing about whether you can add or take off clothing, I’m talking about the FEELING of being hot or cold), so this has been stretching for me.

Also, they say that heating your apartment is really expensive here. We don't know really what that means yet, though. We pay a flat 150 Euros per month with our rent to cover some utilities and the way they do it here is at the end of the year they add up all the water/heat you used and if it ends up that you used more than what you paid in, you get a bill at the end of the year (sometimes LARGE, from what we have heard) for the balance. Because of this, the pastor and his wife choose not to heat their apartment (they get enough heat from the apartments around them to be livable). Unfortunately for us, the apartment below us is an office that is not used every day of the week so we can't count on the heat from below to travel up to our place. We have been trying not to let the temperature get above 68 and don't heat all the rooms, and we are praying that we won't get a huge bill at the end of the year!

Thanksgiving in the US and London's Birthday Party!

We just got back on Sunday from our 2-week trip to the US to see family for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a really wonderful time and it was so great to see everyone and spend some time in person rather than "through the computer." London did really well on the trip over and Rob and Christina picked us up from the airport in Seattle to drive us to Baker to see Jason's dad and step-mom for a few days. Here are a couple of pictures from the drive over. We went over Snoqualmie, which was a blizzard, and actually all of the passes were slow-going.

We finally made it to Baker and had a great visit there! London is in love with Shelby-dog, their springer spaniel, and loved it when Shelby climbed up onto her lap on the chair.

London also got to drink chocolate milk at MeeMoo's house. She says, "Look at my beard!"

Tuesday morning we drove to Fruitland to stay the rest of the time with my family. Thanksgiving day we picked up Jason's mom from the airport and she stayed with us as well. London was really in her element, eating up all of the attention from grandparents and aunts and uncles. We really are blessed to have been able to spend so much quality time with family on this trip!

Sunday we got to share at CLF and see everyone in our church family! It was wonderful! That evening we celebrated London's birthday, which is on December 17th, with pizza and CAKE and presents. I have been asking London for months what she wants for her birthday and she always just answers, "Cake!" Grandma (Jason's mom) made her strawberry cake, which was SO amazingly good.

Grandpa and London got the Suburban unstuck from the snow in the driveway with the tractor. London was frustrated that she couldn't make it "go" while Grandpa was hooking it up.

After an awesome visit we arrived back in Berlin loaded down with toys and goodies, took a bus to the train station, then took 2 trains back to Dessau. We were SO jet lagged, all 3 of us were falling asleep on the train. When we arrived in Dessau we literally drug our suitcases through the snow to our apartment with London crying all the way home from exhaustion. It is amazing how quickly kids can adapt to a time change. After 2 days home she was back to normal while Jason and I are STILL exhausted and trying to get back to a normal sleeping schedule. Totally worth it for the fun trip, though!