Joern and I headed over to the house with a variety of tasks on the bill. We had a very small mishap last week during a rainstorm, which left one car and many windows spattered with mud. Since the downspouts are not yet attached, our gutters are currently drained through lovely plastic "gutters," which love to blow around in the wind. You can see what I am talking about in the following picture, the "gutter" is that piece of plastic that runs down the side house.
Eventually this plastic will be replaced by a real downspout. But, we didn't realize what would happen when you mix a construction site (mud) with rain and wind. The house was splattered with mud a few days ago. And the blue car in the foreground was also really badly hit. So, our job before we got to dinner was to clean.
Thanks to my friend, Iris, I already had glass cleaner, so I got to work on the back door and the windows. You can get an idea of just how muddy everything was, just by looking at the door handle.
The back door was hit the worst, but the window in the pantry and the window in the powder room were pretty badly splattered too. It was nice though when I was finished, because I had some really clean, sparkly windows. I'm debating on cleaning all the windows, but it really wouldn't be worth it right now- there is a lot more mess to go.
While I was doing this, Joern was cleaning our car. This car is one of our "collection," our two 1980s BMW 7 series. The splattered one is actually our museum piece, so seeing splattered with mud was really painful.
After Joern cleaned the car, the next job was to move it. One of the cars has been living in Joern's parents's driveway and the other has been living in their garage, this has been the case for the past 4 years or so. Obviously, Joern's dad was anxiously awaiting the day that we would either have a garage of our own, or sell the "damn things," so that he could get back his driveway and his garage. Obviously, selling is NOT an option. Since the builders filled in our driveway with lots of gravel on Friday, we could now easily drive our cars into the garages. Yesterday was the day to move the blue car, the 750, into "my garage," for the next few months. Of course, it wasn't so easy, as the car is in need of a little work. The move had to be quick because a hose is broken, so when you turn on the car, all the water pours out in a few seconds. And we had to position the ramps very carefully, because the height regulator that lifts the car when you turn it on is not working, so the car was pretty low, and we had very little clearence between the bottom of the car and the floor of the garage. But after a few tries, we did it. Now, our garages look like this:
And Joern's garage now looks like this:
We were so proud of ourselves after our cleaning and car moving accomplishments, it was time to fire up the grill, that Joern so excitedly moved to the house earlier in the day. The weather was fantastic, a super time to open the grill for the summer, and enjoy some steaks in our new home. While Joern was grilling, our future neighbor, Marco, brought over a bottle of wine to thank us for delivering him some Pepsodent from the States. Our neighbors are really kind, which is a relief!
Our first dinner in our home was fantastic, complete with steak, grilled potatoes, and pasta salad, and some sparkling wine.
Oh yeah, and the spray I Can't Believe it's not Butter, proved to be really handy for transport.
We enjoyed a deliecious dinner while looking out our dining room window. It was such a special, fun, and enjoyable evening. We're looking forward to the many, many future dinners in our home!
