Some random things

Okay, the most lame thing about this home exchange is the laundry situation. Today, I was in desperate straits, needing to wash some sheets and do another load of stuff that I wear as basics. I had already put this laundry off through the weekend, wanting to give others in the house (we share laundry facilities with 4 other households) that time to do their laundry, thinking that we would have hours and hours to do this during the week. I was wrong. It's not just that lots of people are using the machines, because that would actually be okay, if the system was efficient, but it isn't. No, instead what happens is I go down the stairs, (extremely steep stairs leading to where our "pet" rat lives I have no doubt) and find that someone's stuff is in some stage of washing in the washing machine. Oh well, I think to myself, I'll just come back in an hour or so. So I do, and now the dryer is full, but of someone else's laundry entirely, which backs up the other load in the washer I saw earlier, and now there is yet another load of new laundry in the washer.

So far, my manners have kept me from taking things out and folding them. but after waiting 9 hours today before finally washing my sheets in the machine, I reached in the dryer and started taking things out. The problem was, the clothes weren't even dry at all! So, to recap now, I have my sheets hanging in various stations throughout the house. It's 11:00 p.m. and I'm tired but the corners of the sheets are all wet, so I can't put them on my bed yet. I have no hope of getting a piece of any dryer action now, because in the time I was wandering around finding various things to hang my sheets on, four more mysterious loads of laundry were done and are waiting for the dryer that apparently doesn't work. Tomorrow I may start throwing people's clothing into the canal.

Even when I did get to the washing machine earlier today, however, I think I resembled a chimp trying to understand a new object in its habitat, because all the instructions and buttons you push are in Dutch, and none of the temperature/time settings make any sense to me. So I looked around at the machine, walked all around it, scratched my head, pushed the button marked duur and watched the door open, exclaimed with glee and did it again.

On a non laundry note, Emma and I had fun today. We went to a bakery, got amazing snacks and talked about her upcoming 5th grade year and just hung out, watching people. I also got to feel like a well kept lady for a bit, and we got gelato and walked along the canal. I'm really starting to like it here, now that I have places I go that feel good and comfortable to me.

Tomorrow is Rob's birthday. We are going to Amsterdam to meet with the parents of the woman who we did the exchange with. These people are much older, having gone through both world wars, which is no small feat because they were Jews in Holland. I look forward to asking them questions and visiting. Too bad I don't have any clean clothes, as I'm sure these folks are going to be old skool.