For some reason since we have arrived in Germany, my older boys have ripped most of their pants and we are now in dire need of pants for them. In USA, this would be easily solved by a trip to a number of various stores such as Macy's, Gymboree, or anything else I would have a coupon for. Here, however, things are a little more complicated. Yesterday, I stopped by a department store Karstadt which had the maybe 10 pairs of pants to choose from (in the boys section) with most of them either costing 40 euros (definitely not in the budget!) or they have skinny leg which Andrei does not like. So today, after I dropped the kids off at school, I went to the local mall. I've been there a couple of times before and it's a rather large open air space that has a lot of stores but not a single map. I kind of knew where was I going - C&A which seems to have a decent selection for decent prices. I spent the next 45 minutes in the store but walked out with about 7 new pairs and a new bathrobe for Andrei. At the check out I decided to verify their return policy and a good thing I did because for the items on sale (which I got a number of) you only have a week to return them. For other, regular items, you have 3 weeks.
Now this is where things got really interesting. This mall has the only Starbucks in the area and I decided to treat myself for the first time since we moved to Germany to good ole Starbucks. As you walk into the shop, things look and smell very similar and I found that to be comforting. My mistake! I came up to order Java Mocha Chocolate Chip Frapucchino and the barista decided to start asking me questions. I thought I answered one of them but clearly she didn't understand my perfect German - common, I had ONE German class so far!!! That was such a rude awakening that ordering at Starbucks is not as simple as one might think.
Overall, we've been in Frankfurt for a little less than 3 months and there are definitely days when life is hard, really hard, but we are trying to keep perspective that we knew it was going to be hard but worth it at some point.
Update: we went back to the same mall tonight (Saturday) and after spending nearly 4 hours walked away with 3 pairs of inside shoes (slippers more or less), 2 new sets of colored pencils for boys and a pair of shoes for Chris. Everything takes forever here but it surely does not help that we don't know the stores to go to.
Now this is where things got really interesting. This mall has the only Starbucks in the area and I decided to treat myself for the first time since we moved to Germany to good ole Starbucks. As you walk into the shop, things look and smell very similar and I found that to be comforting. My mistake! I came up to order Java Mocha Chocolate Chip Frapucchino and the barista decided to start asking me questions. I thought I answered one of them but clearly she didn't understand my perfect German - common, I had ONE German class so far!!! That was such a rude awakening that ordering at Starbucks is not as simple as one might think.
Overall, we've been in Frankfurt for a little less than 3 months and there are definitely days when life is hard, really hard, but we are trying to keep perspective that we knew it was going to be hard but worth it at some point.
Update: we went back to the same mall tonight (Saturday) and after spending nearly 4 hours walked away with 3 pairs of inside shoes (slippers more or less), 2 new sets of colored pencils for boys and a pair of shoes for Chris. Everything takes forever here but it surely does not help that we don't know the stores to go to.
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| Likes comfy |
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| Likes kind of fancy with stylish green pants |
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