One of the things that drives me crazy about living here is that on Sundays, the world comes to a halt. Anything shopping-related is closed (besides a few kiosks). You can’t even buy groceries. When we first moved here I thought it was quaint. “Oh, that’s nice- it forces you to relax and unwind and spend time with your family.” Or maybe it’s for religious reasons?

In reality, IT SUCKS. If you have little kids and more than 3 errands to run, you better wake up early or you’re screwed (everything takes longer with kids). It just makes Saturdays stressful. If you have another event to go to on Saturday (like a birthday party), it’ll throw off your whole day and possibly your whole week if you don’t have time to get certain errands run.

We had a long list of errands we had to get done today (the last Saturday before move-in day). Things that I have to wait for Simon to do on Saturday because my German isn’t good enough (returns, ordering things/ scheduling deliveries, etc.). Simon works crazy long hours during the week so Saturdays are our only opportunity to get this stuff done. It is now 4pm and we have only crossed off 2 of the 6 errands on our list.

Oh- and do stores stay open longer on Saturdays to make up for no shopping on Sundays? Not really. Most close between 5 and 8pm. Simon said that when he was growing up most stores were closed by 2pm on Saturdays!

We were hoping to spend most of Saturday getting the shopping errands done so that tomorrow (Sunday) Simon could go to our new place and drill the holes needed to put up the ceiling light fixtures. But then Friedel reminded us that it’s illegal to do any noisy (even semi-noisy) home improvement on Sundays. So no drilling. UGH!!! So now Simon is over there drilling instead of running the important errands we need done.

Also, last week we didn’t have time to get the girl’s hair cut (very overdue) on Saturday. So we went back on Monday. They were closed. Then Simon said,”Oh yeah- I forgot all barbers/ hairstylists are closed on Mondays.” He didn’t know why. Man- sometimes I REALLY miss customer and consumer friendly America.

-update-

Now it’s Sunday. We spent about an hour loading up the car with the girls’ bunk bed pieces so that Simon could drive it over to the new apartment and put it together before we move in (so they’d have a place to sleep the first night). He just called to let me know that our whole neighborhood is roped off due to a marathon. There is no way to get the car to our place and drop off the bed. In fact, it took him 40 minutes to even get back to The Weckschnapp. We are not having the best luck this weekend. Sometimes city life is VERY frustrating!