More baby steps

So we have made a few more steps towards getting our apartment looking more like a home and less like a storage facility. Curtains are now up in the living room, and they make a HUGE difference! I really like the blue on blue look and it makes the giant sliding glass doors less severe looking. They also do a fantastic job of blocking out light that can be blinding at times. Hooray!

The arrival of my 1st care package from the States leaves me happily munching on real Cheerios or Rice Krispies for breakfast (at least for a couple of weeks) while reading back issues of The Economist or stacks of the Indy Star's Sunday comics. Also included were some much-awaited rolls of USA contact paper/shelf liner. Strange as it may seem it is impossible to find such stuff in Germany. They have something that looks like it, but it's permanent, and that's just not at all what I needed for my project. So my easily removed/repositionable contact paper arrived and I put it to use the same day. I had long been annoyed by how hideous the kitchen tiles were, so I was finally able to cover them up - they were all over the kitchen. And while it's not perfect, it is perfect enough and Stefan was amazed by how much of a difference it made! Hooray!

During one of last week's exploratory excursions I stumbled across the only fabric store in Marburg, only to find it would be going out of business in December --- however, this means prices will be getting slashed more and more as the year progresses meaning that my next kitchen project (or creating some kind of fabric curtains to cover two of the open shelf areas with a cheery color/pattern) may be within reach.

I am practicing my German: yesterday a friend came over for quite awhile and we even went grocery shopping together which was great since she had a lot of great information and ideas about how to use German grocery stuff. Today I met 2 others at their apartment for lunch and learned a few key words/phrases that I just always wondered about. We also had fun. I think that's the end of my social agenda for this week, but it's nice to finally be getting to know some people here a little more!

Sunday night we also met another American couple who just arrived from South Carolina. They are only here for 10 months while the husband works on a research project, but they are nice and we think we'll be seeing more of them. Stefan also had sign-ups for his OT Survey course and it looks like there are 12 people currently signed up. This is an encouraging number; not too few and not too many. This week we have to work on copying and assembling the material so as to have it ready for our first session next Monday night. Lots to do with that!