Well, you can't have it all.

Many of you know that we moved into a new apartment this week. We have been VERY excited about this new place and all it has to offer - cute old building, great neighborhood, central location in the city. Our excitement continued when we officially moved in yesterday and saw the place up close. Yes, there were some unsightly (sometimes unsavory) knicknacks and books to hide, but with those stowed away, the place has a certain eclectic charm to it.

Then John took a shower. We knew there was no shower curtain, not even a rod to put one up. But hey, other people have lived here and made this work; we would too. By "making it work" I mean we soak the sink and everything around it every time we bathe. We are headed to Ikea for a solution, asap.

Then I tried to cook dinner tonight. I went confidently into the kitchen, ready to cook. I had spent the afternoon cleaning and rearranging so I felt like a cooking queen entering my fiefdom...until I turned on the oven. Or thought I turned on the oven.

My first clue should have been that the oven doesn't have temperature options; it has settings 1-8. I thought "Well, that's different." and chose 6 because it seemed like a good place to start. Five minutes later, however, the oven had not warmed up and 10 minutes later I'm deep into the German-only oven instructions. I spent a lot of time trying to translate the instructions but to no avail. I looked up the make and model of the oven but I'm fairly certain it comes from Romania and there's no website for this piece of classic machinery. Thirty minutes later John is home and we've decided we may need to manually light the oven and stove. There appears to be no pilot light anywhere on the machine. The oven is still a mystery that will require an embarassing phone call to and demonstration from our landlady. We managed to light one of the eyes, but only after multiple matches and a lot of frustration/laughter.

Don't get me wrong. We still love the place. :)

I'll put up some pictures soon.