Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Land of Ideas

The women's club organized another tour in Frankfurt today. It was interesting to be a part of this one because I learned about an unusual aspect of the old part of town, the Roemerberg. For all vegetarians out there, you may not want to continue reading as this concerns the slaughter of animals.

Anyways, by the city hall in front of the church, one of the cobble stones is labeled "OK". This stands for "Ochsenkueche" and marks the spot where the butcher's guild would roast an ox on a spit for three days to celebrate the coronation of a new king. Today's short tour also covered what used to be the butcher's market nearby, the origin of the Frankfurter and the importance of certain architectural structures in that area as they related to the butcher's guild. Another fact I heard today is that the exposed wood in half-timbered houses in the area used to be painted with ox blood because it was believed to be a natural pesitcide that would draw out little critters. Hmmm....trivial but interesting.

In contrast to the historical part of my morning, after the tour I came across three "Land of Ideas" tents set up near the Zeil. Land of Ideas seems to be a government-sponsored campaign highlighting renewable energy source technology, and in this case, educating shoppers in the area about energy saving methods at home. Aside from the brochures they handed out, I got to play a simplified version of Wheel of Fortune and won a little goodies bag which included a couple of minibags of gummibears in German colors of black, red and yellow, a couple of balloons, a pencil and some flower seeds in a clever post card envelope (to grow more ideas).

Friday, March 14, 2008

Friday, March 14, 2008


Rained in


We woke up to the sound of dripping water in our bedroom last night. It was pouring outside and our bedroom window has two leaks. I took pictures and emailed them to our landlord.


As I was sitting in the living room writing the email to our landlord, I turned to look out our living room window, only to notice a big puddle of water on our window sill where the pretty vase from my previous post was before.


Is this the beginning of a rental nightmare?


Monday, March 10, 2008

Monday, March 10, 2008




Couch potato



Ok, I know it seems trivial, but I need some feedback. Here are some pictures of the taupe/greyish couch we acquired and we would like to accessorize with some blues and greens. This is a cry for help to all interior designers out there :-)


I am also attaching a picture of a vase that we have on the window sill. The aqua blue and green appeals to us because it reminds us of our vacations in Mexico and the Caribbean. But I am not sure it goes with the rest of the room. We still need to hang pictures and put in plants.
We know of IKEA and Thomas Wohncenter here in the Frankfurt area but if anyone has good tips on other design and furniture centers, please respond.





Thursday, March 6, 2008

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Painted into a corner

Our apartment no longer looks like the Easter Bunny lives here - the rooms were painted yellow, pink and blue and we had it all painted white on Monday. The landlord is taking over half of the costs of re-grouting a spot along the wall in the kitchen but no other renovation costs. Needless to say, paying for a professional painter is not cheap but it was worth it because I wouldn't dare get on a ladder to paint parts of our cathedral ceiling.

On Tuesday, we received delivery of our couch. It's stone colored. B thought it looked more greyish in the store and is disappointed that it's taupe colored. To him, it looks like a brown couch. I love the modern design and natural color. Plus, it has a chaise lounge with a headrest. I consoled B and told him it would look more like grey if we put light-colored (perhaps white?) pillows on it but I welcome any suggestions.

Our "Hausmeister", which in our case is a company that takes care of cleaning the stairwell and maintenance of common grounds of the property, told me a month ago that our name plate on the mailbox would be changed from the previous renter to ours. I called them again today and he assured me this would be taken care of right away.

Now that the walls are painted, we can finally hang up the rest of the lights and start decorating the place with pictures.