Good morning from Germany

My friend Gina was waiting for me at the train station. I had never met her before, we have been email penpals for over a year. She also writes to a man who lives near me and is leaving in 10 days to visit him. I have had penpals off and on since I was in junior high. I've always liked learning about life in other places. I am staying with another email penpal in Belgium too. I have another email pal who lives in France and I might see him when I am there.

We drove to Gina's apartment---third floor, no stairs. Her daughter, Sarah, is visiting at the moment too. Sarah is a contrator with IBM in Scotland. She has been there for six years and speaks perfect English with a slight Scottish accent. Sarah also lived in Michigan for a year as an exchange student.

Gina is a small woman with a cheerful disposition and a ready laugh. You always wonder if you will really get along when you first meet someone, but I feel like I am part of the family already. Gina's English is not as perfect as Sarah's but I am impressed because she has taught herself to speak, read and write English. This is a small town and there really isn't anyone for her to practice with.

We had a great dinner.........I can see that I will need to run though a lot of train stations and do a lot of walking to make up for all the food I am going to eat!

The jet lag finally hit me...........a couple of times I went right to sleep even as Gina was talking to me! Except for the short naps on the plane I had been up for about 34 hours.

I woke up around 7:30 feeling human again. Gina has to work until 3 and I tried to stay out of her way as she was getting ready.

One thing I have noticed in my travels is how many ways there are to flush a toilet! I think it was different in every bathroom I was in yesteday. One place there was a pedal low on the wall to the right. Another place there was a button on the wall behind the toilet. Here there is an integrated lever on the top of the tank. Several times I have stood in a stall searching for what to push, pull, flip, etc. Here there was also a knob behind the toilet that I turned at first (before I noticed the top of the tank) and managed to turn off the hot water heater for the shower. OK, enough of that .........before this turns into a Toilet Tour blog.

It is just that you realize how common, everyday things are done slightly differently in other places. The coffee maker for instance, the filter basket is not attached to the coffee maker, but rather sits on top of the coffee pot. I kept trying to make it attach, until I noticed that the cutouts matched up with the pot. There is a handy little attachment on the toaster, two little wire pieces that will flip up so you can heat a croissant or roll there.

One thing I have always read that is that electricity is very expensive in Europe and people try to use natural light as much as possible. I turned the light on when I went into the kitchen this morning. When Gina came in she turned the light out and raised the blinds. She also turns off the power strip to the kitchen appliances when she is not using them. On her way to work this morning she took a bag of bottles to be recycled.

Another thing I don't understand is German bedding......I have come across this before in hotels. They have nice comforter, but no top sheet. So it seems an either/or situation. I wonder what they do in summer? I will ask Sarah about this.