Adventures in Retail

Today I didn't have anything to do, so I thought I'd go out and buy some stuff. The room came with sheets, but there weren't any with the elastic that you put over your mattress and the pillow that they gave me was 2'6" square, and down. I can't deal with down pillows, they're too soft and the feathers always end up poking me. So I set off on my bike and tried to find a store. I was unsucesfull, but then I IM'd Dennis, who was a TA two years ago and asked him. He sent me to Karstat, where I went. When I was in there I saw that the section for boys was labled boys I thougth it was interesting so I took this picture. Immideatly after I took it a saleslay came up to me and said "Photos sind im Haus verboten." Pictures are prohibited in here. I said excuse me and fortionatly she didn't take my camera. I found a bedspread, a hand towel and a pillow. It was a success.
I did my first real round of food shopping later. I got some basic stuff, eggs, flour, oil, cheese, pasta, yogurt all for around 30E. I boutght enough food to last me for a while, so I'm happy. The cheapest version of everything was this brand titeld "ja!" which means yes in german. It's been fine so far, and it's really cheap. At least my to my non-grocerie-shopping eyes. The one thing that is expensive is peanut butter. It was 1.50E for a jar about 1/3 the size of one you would get in America, but it's clearly imported and I don't think the germans use it a lot, so maybe I'll just have to limit my consumtion. I cooked some pasta and a pre-made garlic bread loaf for dinner. Alex and I threw some tomato sauce and feta on there and it was pretty good. While we were in there two women, one of whom still lives here, the other who used to came in. They explained the way things work here, which no one had really done.
Kitchen: You have one month each semster where it is your responsiblity to clean the kitchen. You clean it every day for that week. There is a set of dishpans that are common property, but they were described as "ecklehaft" or nasty. As usual, no one can wash dishes well. You can claim one shelf of the cabnets for yourself and label it "privat" which means the same in German as English. The one of the women who was living somewhere else gave me 5 dishes, and a tall (like 8") beer glass because she didn't need them. So that's nice.
Laundry: There are 2 washing machines in the basement. They cost 1E. The only issue: there are no drying machines. So yeah. Looks like I may be hanging some lines in my room.
Other stuff: there is also a communal iron and vacume cleaner.
That's about it for today, I can't prommise all this pace of updates will continue but now with no classes, and not really knowing anyone it's a comforting activity.

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