Spring has definitely sprung here in Überlingen. I walked along the lakeside promenade and up through the city garden trails and noticed all the beautiful flowers popping up everywhere. The weather got to 20 degrees C today and everyone was out walking and enjoying coffee and lunch at the many cafes along the lake. The weirdest thing is to get emails from back home about the continuous snowfall.

Today I met a couple girls from work for lunch and coffee and we enjoyed sitting at our favorite coffeeshop, La Vita, a very nice and very “european-feeling” place to me because of it’s great decor and everyone is always dressed very trendy. The food and coffee there is defintely some of the best. I had a fresh fish soup today that was fabulous. We were lounging on these little outdoor couches with our coffees, just 20 feet or so from the lakes edge and with the sun shimmering on the water and it was a very beautiful afternoon. Tons of people were out and I could definitely start to imagine what summer is going to be like here in this little town.

image via Lisa Town

Two things that we see a lot here are furs and leather clothing. Sure, we use leather for a lot of things back in the US like shoes, hand bags and coats but rarely do you see people wearing leather pants. Here, I never go a day without seeing at least one person wearing leather pants. In fact, there is one person at my work that barely goes a couple days without wearing them. But the difference here especially is that they are not seen as maybe that special pair of pants there are only worn on occasion like a News Year Eve party or a mid-life crisis. People here wear them like jeans…and even more weird…with tennis shoes.

The other thing is fur. Fur is absolutely everywhere! Notice the stand selling furs in the market here in Überlingen that I passed on the way through town. Ladies will wear fur coats that go all the way to the ground, boots made of leather and covered in fur details, shirts with huge fur collars and sleeves. I would imagine that there are lots of fur in peoples homes as well.

Mmmm…..pommes….
No wonder I have a strange craving for German fries every time I leave the apartment.

Well we’re finally moved in to the new place and are getting things all set up. First, we had to spray lots of febreze (thank goodness they have that here) because of the horribly strong smoker smell from the guy below. Since this building is an old historic structure, modifcations to things like the floor boards can’t be made meaning the gaps allowing the nastiness to waft up to our unit can’t be fixed. I guess that’s the bad part about living in a historic, medieval building.

After getting our suitcases mostly unpacked, we are beginning to feel almost at home. Sure we have a big living room…but hey, you have to have somewhere to hang up all your bed sheets to dry before putting them on your bed! Ah dryers…how I miss them…

It is an interesting phenomenon that occurs when we’ve just washed our red and yellow sheets and hung them up to dry on the curtain line in front of our windows and the sun shines through. Since the whole apartment was smelling very strong from the fabric softener, we shut the textured glass door in between the living room and the rest of the place and this is what it looked like. Pretty sweet, huh?

images via Lisa Town

We survived our first night in our new apartmet. Well, sort of.

At about 2:30 it was strangely noisy outside in the streets. I had determined that it must have been closing time for the downtown bars as people were strolling around drunkily and being ridiculously noisy. One person was even singing will falling all over themselves down the street. Luckily I was awake anyway so it was slightly amusing to watch them. It was also strangely more comical since I couldn’t understand what they are saying.

As far as the apartment, I don’t have many pictures yet but the big traditional beams in the construction are all on the inside of the unit too which is kind of fun, and very German. Below is a picture from our 3rd story window down the street. On Wednesdays and Saturdays there would be a market in the street. I’ll have to get more pictures of the market later. I’m excited about the market because there is a cart that is run by an Italian family and they have imported cheeses, sauces, sun dried tomatoes, etc. that are all imported from Italy and of the highest quality. The parmesan is the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted. I’ve obviously never had real parmesan and I’m ruined from grocery store cheeses for life now. The next market I’m going to get us some!

Finally…we get a little snow (schnee in German) in Überlingen! Big huge flaky flakes. It’s funny to think back to the packing preparations in getting ready for the big move across the pond. I had this vision of snowy Germany, surrounded by the Alps…this romanticized thought of walking to work all bundled up. And yet there’d been no snow, just cold and wet, kind of like home! So it’s fair to say that I’ve been waiting all winter for this! It’s time to break out the snow boots! Well, ok, not quite but I can pretend. Too bad it’s March and the afternoon temperatures won’t allow it to stick around.