Home for the Snyders

Ok, continuing on from yesterday:

May 19, Our new home

We woke up around 9 and showered, which felt great. The hotel included breakfast, which turned out to be plethora of... cheese and meat and buns, and other stuff too. But cheese and meat and buns for breakfast? The whole deal was actually quite good though, and it was a cute little restaurant. We had to pick up our keys and do the walkthrough for the apartment at 11. The walkthrough was quick and painless, thanks to Mom watching the kids, and one of our guides spoke english, so that made things easier. We did get a large lecture on the many different types of recycling/garbage. In total, there are 6 different disposables: glass (broken into green, brown and white, with a separate container for each), plastics (packaging), paper, compost, waste (all the stuff left over/garbage) and plastic recyclable bottles. Anyway, then we took off to Ikea to get some essentials, which included mattresses, pillows, etc. It was kind of funny, the day or so that we arrived, Ikea decided to change all the models/prices of the mattresses, so all of the pre-shopping we did in Canada was a waste. We did end up finding some of the older models in the self serve part, but I don't think they were the same. We pulled up to the checkout, and we saw a funny sign with the word VISA with a big 'X' through it. Hmmm..., that looked foreboding considering our temporary financier (thanks Mom) had arranged to pay for the stuff on VISA (she actually had pre-paid onto the VISA). After a weird, dazed conversation, we decided to use our Mastercard, which was supposed to be our living money for June. But it didn't work. We started to think we would be sleeping on the cement apartment floor. The next few minutes were a blur of Grandma and unpaid merchandise and kids and ice cream and some strange poster of a hot dog with brown and green garnishes on it. On top of it all, we were supposed to get one of the cars back to the rental place by 5, and we were cutting it close. So we cried our story to the cashier (turned our she spoke English) and she called her manager, and he pushed the magic button to make the VISA work. At any rate, we shoved everything into the two cars, and headed back to the apartment. We had to park fairly far away (I'm not sure why, we have a parking spot underneath the apartment), and after about 6 trips back and forth I had unloaded the car, and Jodi and I quickly took the car back while Mom kept the kids. We got to the rental place at 615, and it closed at 6. Oops. 125 dollars down the drain for keeping the car an extra day. We moped back to the apartment, and enjoyed a hearty meal of meat and cheese and buns, with the addition of Nutella and jam. It was kind of fun sleeping on the mattresses with nothing in the place, almost like camping or something. The cement walls made talking almost unbearable because of the very prominent echo, and the giggling, screaming and crying of the kids made it difficult to enjoy unfortunately. So this is our place...

Jodi and Jeff