International House sitting is a great way to take a break from our constant travel. It is a great chance to see areas not along the tourist track, and to live like a local in real neighborhoods. It took a while to get our first assignment, this is it.
We have arrived in Mascherode, Germany. Close to Braunschweig (Brunswick), and largest city near is Hanover. Mascherode is a modern village; small, but new. Has modern grocery stores and the homes are fairly new. A tame forest is only a couple steps away. Hiking is how we will be spending our days here. Schools in Germany are out for a 2 week Fall break, so the family that lives here has gone to Turkey for 2 weeks of beach and sun.
We are chilling here. Chilling because we do pretty much nothing all day. And chilling, because it has gotten chilly. One day shorts, the next I am wearing every warm item I own, all at the same time. We have Daisy and Molly to take care of, two big cats; and a small dog, Cooper who is scheduled to stay with a neighbor. He is nervous and they were not sure he would do okay with us. The neighbor is an elderly lady, Gisela. She and I have been walking the dogs (she has one too) together twice a day. She speaks zero English (the same amount I speak German). I have no idea what I have been agreeing to do, or what time we are walking. But she keeps showing up, so I must be agreeing to the walks. Everyone knows everybody in this neighborhood and people ring the doorbell all the time. This morning it is raining here. I have no idea if Gisela will appear. So I am prepared to go for a walk in the rain just in case.
House sit Anxieties
The house sit started out exciting. On the second night alone in the house, a loud half mechanical grind, half alarm sound woke us up at about 4 am. We are sleeping in a spare room in the basement. Just us and the laundry, and heating unit, and an occasional cat. The heating unit is about the size of a big armoire, sleek, no visible valves or buttons perfectly clean, lots of pipes that look like they are high pressure are going in/out from various position. The heat is in the floor (probably heated water circulates under the floor), and the towel warming racks that look like ladders. This unit probably is the water heater too. The noise is coming from the heating unit and sounds like something really bad is going on. But, there is no obvious way to turn it off: no button, dials or even an electrical source to unplug. All we could do is turn down the individual room thermostats. The noise did subside by itself after a few long minutes, but we were pretty nervous that something was still obviously wrong. We watched for a neighbor’s light to come on in the morning and asked him for help. He noticed that the unit was not getting water and he mentioned that he knew the homeowners had had the heater fixed only the week before. Obviously the repairman missed something. Monitoring the water level and refilling it as needed is a new chore. We have learned how to bleed the system.
Then the next day…the kitchen faucet was wobbly when we got here, now it is completely disconnected from the sink. It was holding by one rusty bolt, that is now completely sheared off like all the others. Still works when needed. While cleaning the kitchen, I accidentally turned on the child-lock on the stove surface. We had to watch You-Tube videos to find out how to unlock it because there wasn’t an obvious icon with, say a key. Mark figured it out. The vacuum is a Dyson, so at least that is familiar. But I don’t know what cleaning product, cleans what.
Since those first few days, everything has quieted down. It is still chilly, but sunny. Fall has come just in the last few days and the trees are brilliant. We have seen deer from the house. I am still walking the dogs with Gisela. I am trying to use Google Translate to communicate and that has led to several bouts of laughter. The other day she gave us some brussel sprouts and baby romaine. At least I think she gave it to me. Otherwise, I stole it.