Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Week Five: The Importance of Good Shoes and Fun Windows

Okay, so I admit, not much happened this week. I didn't even look around town! To be fair, it was my first week of work and my shoes sucked.

What's that have to do with the price of rice in China you ask? Well, it's simple. My feet hurt too much to walk around town. Read closely, and don’t' skip a word.

I had old black non-slips from an old job. I should have known better as there were no insole inserts in them, but I went with the flow, and figured that I'd get new shoes with my paycheck. I came in on an odd week, which seems usual for me, so it would be a three week period before I got paid, but eh, three weeks isn't long.

Oh. Oh was I ever wrong. Three weeks is a really, really long time when your shoes deserve to be burned.

At the end of the first day, I was okay, I suppose. My feet hurt, but I had just been on them for eight hours, so thought nothing of it. The second day my feet hurt more, and I figured I just wasn't in the swing of things yet as I tried to stand from the chair I had collapsed in...and couldn't.

The third day was, well. Two hours in and I was in a lot more pain than I should have been. By the end of shift it physically hurt to walk or stand, and the next morning, when I woke up I couldn't walk for several hours. This is a bad, bad thing.

I had two more days of work, yeah? I can't just not show up. So my dad agrees to buy me new shoes, and I hope that solves the problem.

I go to work that evening, as I have the night shift, in my new shoes. I come home around about midnight, and I'm just fine.

Lesson learned people: New job, new shoes. Your old shoes are worn out and will hate on your feet so much. So. Much. Other than that, not much has happened, though I continue to be fascinated by the windows here.

I want these windows in the house I will one day own. Why, you ask?

Well, all the American windows I know of either go up and down, or they slide to the left or the right. I'm sorry, but my windows deserve to have options. German windows have these options. I kid you not.

My bedroom windows can tilt to open at the top, and is that not the coolest thing ever? There's a reason it's the top too. When it rains here, you can have your window open and not worry about your things getting soaked. And trust me, you want your windows open as much as possible here. Air circulation in German houses in non existent, so that musty old closed up house smell comes quick.

They can also hinge open and swing in to the right. So they open all the way, none of this half the window nonsense you get otherwise. The entire pane of glass opens up.

Now admittedly, I have do-dads (and Robert E Lee) on my window ledges, so there's no opening it that way. But I have get fun doing this with my long bathroom window and trying to touch the roses on the other side. My arm isn't long enough, and I'm pretty sure the neighbors must think I'm nuts now.

But the roses are just out of reach, so I have to keep trying!

One Final Byte: The weather can not decide if its summer.

1 comment: