Day 47: Back to Routine

Today is reintegration day (and produce placement). After sight seeing every day and doing all sorts of walking, the kids and I get to relax a bit. Chris, of course, if off to work, champion that he is!

I get it, but I still think it's funny to have it be
American style pizza Hawaii, but then have the
Statue of Liberty (from NY) on the cover.

For me, it's about household duties. Dying my roots (pesky grey is peaking through), more laundry (still can't get it all the way dry, so have to hang each load, which takes a while), and going to the market with Xander (to refill our cupboards and to give Venice time to recoup from her cold).

Well, after eating so well in Munich and Salzburg (I think I brought home a few extra pounds for souvenirs), it was tough to get back to routine of cooking for ourselves. Looking back, it wasn't too hard to figure out where to eat (we followed the guide books or someone else's suggestion). But now, back in Berlin... it's hard for me to figure out what to cook. Sigh. So, sadly, for lunch, it's frozen chicken balls and American style pizza!

Trying another tea to
see if it's any stronger!

After lunch, I caught up on some computer time (now that I have much better internet connection!) Back to doing some editing for Nagai Photography, catching up on this blog, catching up on some personal emails. And, maybe playing a game or two. BUT, dang it, my computer is out of space. So, some of my programs are quitting on me, others are giving me errors galore. Good thing I ordered an external drive that should come in a few days. I need space!

And by this time, it's time for another meal, dang it. This is Tuesday, so no Chris for dinner. It's just us. I still don't want to cook. But I don't want to go out to a restaurant either, as that's a big time commitment (remember it always takes another 15-30 minutes to get the bill).

Venice convinces me to go to a restaurant. I compromise that maybe we can go to the Thai restaurant down the street and do take-away. We snooped a little, on the movie set, as we walked by on the way to the restaurant. We never did get to see any actual acting being filmed, but we did see a lot of setup and getting ready to film. Venice dreamed of being in the background, but since it's "Berlin Syndrome" decided we wouldn't fit in, as we may not appear so "Berlin-ish".

I muddled our way through ordering our take-away, we got to eat in the comfort of our own home. Winning.

This is the first shampoo I bought. I
tossed the conditioner bottle already.

Let me leave today with this conversation: There is a "conditioner" problem over here in Europe that no one told me about. If you don't have long hair, or never have, you may not be aware. You may not care. But, those of us with longer hair, we need conditioner.

I've tried finding it at the markets. I tried using local stuff. But it is hard to find here! I find tons and tons and tons of shampoo choices, but only 1, maybe 2 conditioner choices. I bought one of these and it was like putting lotion on my hair. I had to use a lot and it just didn't seem to do very much for my hair.

When traveling to Prague, NO CONDITIONER at the hotel. None at the hotel in Munich. And none at the €expensive/night Salzburg hotel either. What? What do all the long-haired people do over here? I did see some really nice conditioner at the hair salon where Venice got her hair coloured. But, that's high-end and pretty pricey. Where are the "regular" choices? I even went to far as to look at the "American" brands, but even there, tons of familiar brands, but only shampoo. Finally, I found one brand that comes with conditioner. I'm sorry, it's American. But I'm desperate for conditioner! And yay, I can finally have silky, brush-able hair again!