Intro &The Close Call

Greetings and welcome to The Blog!

Let me introduce the players to those who may or may not know us.

We'll call me "M", sometimes known as Vespinator, due to my habit of scooting around town on my red Vespa ("Mama Scoots"), which I totally love riding.

R is my husband. Hubby. Honey-love. You get the picture. He rides on the back of Mama Scoots.

And, well, that's all. Except I did have a crown Beta fish back in Chicago. When I moved 2 months ago, I had to hand him over to two of the cutest little girls you ever did see. He's dead now though, I hear....and it's probably for the best, since he was renamed Melody by the girls.

So we recently moved into a great 1-bedroom place, perfectly situated by the Isar River & Oktoberfest. But it's amazing how one seemingly minor glitch can keep you from getting a lot of things done during an international move, like a bank account you can't access.

Our sea freight arrived last Thursday, & we have been in a sea of boxes ever since. Because Germans mainly work on a cash only basis, and, because we don't have a working ATM card, it has been a difficult move. You might imagine the obstacles of having no working lights, no closets to put things away in, in a 780 sq. Ft area, no kitchen, no garage, and a car with invalid parking stickers (for this and the bank account issue we have our relocation agent to thank).

Not that we're complaining. Well maybe we were, but things are starting to perk up. We received our Atm cards saturday & spent the day in lines @ Ikea. A team-building exercise ensued shortly thereafter, & it was actually fun to build a couple of closets together! & we (I) did a little dance afte clearing out many boxes. it feels so much more bright & happy in the place now!


As we were returning from our ikea trip, we pulled up to a parking spot right next to my scooter to find two men rocking the scooter, likely just trying to move it to the side so they could fit their big ole mercedes in.

Well, I rolled down my window & shouted, " Hey! Hands off the scooter!! That's my ride!" to which they responded with some choice German words...not exactly the Martin Luther kind of German, if you know what I mean... They even threatened to call the Polizei, to which I responded, "Yah, go call the polizei! Let's see what they have to say about you rocking Mama Scoots around!" At this point I started to get out of the car, and the two big Germans scurried back to their mercedes and flew away. I'm pretty sure they were intimidated by my size. Or perhaps they sensed I knew where all of their major nerves were located.