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Monday, February 25, 2008

Our apartment is very nice. They are new, very nice, and about the same size as our house at home. They are all basically the same: 2 bedrooms, a toilet room, a shower room, a laundry room, a kitchen/living/dining area.

We are having to adjust to a few things that seem weird to us: The light switches are upside down (you flip it down to turn it on); the toilet and shower are separate rooms, so go pee before you go to the shower. We don't have an oven - which we knew coming here, but it's still hard to get used to. The kitchen sink is very small, as are the refrigerator and washer/dryer.

Most of the clocks use military time here, so the digital clocks say things like 22:15, or 0:16 (sixteen minutes after midnight).

TV is strange. We get most of the major news channels MSNBC, CNN, etc. and have a couple of channels that have American TV like Law & Order, CSI, Numbers, etc. which are all shows that we enjoy watching at home. These shows are subtitled in Dutch. Most of the commercials are in Dutch; however there are some in German, French, and I think I've seen a couple of Japanese.

There are some things that I love here...like my gas stove. I'm trying to figure out how I can convince them it was swiped so I can bring it home.

Its been great since they got the internet hooked up. I'm really loving staying at home and doing things around the house, shopping at the market, etc. I thought I'd be so bored, but the day goes by much quicker than when I was working. I'm also becoming a shopper...probably to Rick's chagrin...lol. I love walking around the square looking in all the little shops. There are a slew of bakeries and I try to pick up some type of pastery or dessert for us to try every day. Its funny, I hated shopping, hated going to the grocery, and didn't eat sweets...now those are the highlights of my day! Who would have thought....

Make sure you look at the apartment pictures...
http://picasaweb.google.com/roamingakers/HengeloApartment