24.3.08

Desperate Hausfrau

This weekend, as always the case for Easter, was a four day weekend in Germany. Friday and Monday are official public holidays. Sounds great, doesn't it? M. and I had planned to go to San Gimignano to take advantage of the longer weekend, the earlier spring in Tuscany and to restock on our Italian cooking supplies and wine. A check of the weather forecast on Thursday night though showed that we were in for cold, rainy weather in Tuscany so we decided to stay in Munich after all.

As we had planned to be out of town we weren't stocked up and we had no special plans. Stocking up is key before German holidays because it is a holiday for everyone, including the stores. This weekend, for example, the stores closed on Thursday night and were closed all day Friday, Sunday and Monday as well. This leaves one day, Saturday, to go out and shop with all the rest of Munich. You feel like a true pioneer as you make your once a week trip to the next biggest town and anticipate everything you might need while you are holed up in your apartment until the next possible trip. Little House in Munich.

This weekend made me realize how much consumerism is a past time for me. Half a day into vacation and I had cabin fever but anything I could think of to do involved shopping. We need a new set of sheets, I want to frame some photos, I could use a new pair of black boots, let's plant some seeds for the garden...I would have loved to be able to just push a cart around Target for inspiration for a few hours.

To add to the fun, the weather has been cold, rainy, snowy or occasionally windy and cold with spotty sunshine all weekend but not really nice for doing anything outdoors. M. got a bit of a stomach flu and was inert for a few days on the couch. I felt for the first time in 20 years like calling my mother and saying, Moooom, I'm bored! What can we do? as we did during the long summer vacations of our childhood.

Yesterday M. came up with the idea to go to the zoo and it sounded like a good idea to me. I played around with the camera and we laughed at the silly sea lions and orangutans showing off. I always have mixed feelings about the zoo as I am sure the animals would rather be elsewhere than their little confined spaces. That being said the Munich zoo is nice and within what is possible the animals have as much space as possible without being in the wild.

Now I am down to the last 100 pages of the last Harry Potter - I finised book 6 and will finish book 7 this weekend.

Hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Posted from Munich

2 comments:

J said...

Having stayed in my town the entire weekend to save money, I'm bored outta my mind. I can't wait to go back to work tomorrow.

Unknown said...

Oh I was close to you both. I did not have cabin fever at all. I wanted to get out and take photos no matter what the weather was...

A new job would be nice too.