Now, it has WiFi (i.e. an Internet connection), which is our one non-negotiable go-to-requirement.  So that’s good. And, it has a full-sized, full-equipped kitchen, which means that we can easily prepare meals here, plus the queen-sized bed is pretty comfortable.

By far biggest quirk is that the bathtub/shower is … outside. Yup, outside.  There’s a sink and toilet (i.e. a half-bath) inside, but the shower is outside. Here’s a link to information about the place with some photos, so you can see the shower.  (BTW, ignore any prices you see; one of the reasons we decided to stay here is that the landlady cut us a super deal on the price since we are staying here for almost 8 weeks).

Now, taking a shower isn’t as cold as I’d feared, even thought the outdoor temps here don’t seem to regularly get above 70 at most. But the water stream is good and warm, and in addition to other furnishings the owners provided fluffy towels and bathrobes. So, all-in-all, not bad.

Of course, we’ve been here less than a week. Check back with me in 8 weeks, to see if my opinion has changed.

Anyway, that’s all really a digression from what prompted me to write this post. Another standard criteria for accommodations on the Plan G tour has been to rent a place that has a washer (and dryer, if a dryer is typical for the country. I.e., in Italy the places we rented had washers, but no dryers because typically people just don’t have dryers in Italy. Here in the U.S., though, if there’s a washer, there’s alway been a dryer).  An in-unit washer/dryer is a wonderful thing.  Truly.  Usually I reject places for our longer stays that don’t have a washer/dryer in the apartment, or at least have one available in a room on an adjacent floor in the same building.

However, this place in Arcata has no washer or dryer on-site. What it offers is just proximity to a local laundromat that’s a couple of miles away.

But … go back and read the note above about how  the landlady gave us a great deal on the price for this place for 8 weeks.  Let’s just say that the difference pays for a lot of loads of laundry.

So today I went off to the local laundromat and discovered that it’s not coin-operated, like most American ones. Nope, at this one you are supposed to buy a card from a machine on the wall using exactly four $1 bills (a fee that is refundable eventually). Then, you have to load money onto the card using the same machine, and then figure out how to operate the machines using the card. Using a machine on a wall  was highly reminiscent of aspects of my foray into the world of Italian laundromats years ago. This time, though, there was no family that needed my help. In fact,  there was even an attendant who sold me the card and loaded the money on it for me, bypassing the whole machine thing. Nice.

But now I feel like I’m an International Laundromat Pro.  If you know of anyone who wants to hire one, just let me know. My fees are very reasonable … although I will charge more than a mere four $1 bills.

——

P.S. BTW, for those who are new to the blog, here’s a shameless plug for my book: that story of my adventures as the “Local Laundromat Pro” is just one of the tales you’ll find in my book, Life on a Gelato Diet, available in paperback (and for Kindle) from Amazon, and in all other electronic formats from LeanPub.

Moorestown is the town where I grew up, actually,  so it will be interesting to see it again. The cute vacation apartment we’re renting is attached to a house on a street I remember from my childhood, when a friend lived there.  At that time, that neighborhood of town was fairly new, and unlike in my neighborhood in another part of town, the trees weren’t very big.  Now, by my calculates the last time I visited my friend on that street was probably to be at least 40 years ago.

Which probably explains why the trees on that street are just a little bit bigger now than I remember.

Anyway, I couldn’t find a decent webcam from either Marlton or Moorestown, but here’s a link to some historic photos from Moorestown instead.

Enjoy.

While it was possible to buy watermelons in Tübingen, on the few occasions when I tried one it wasn’t that tasty. So, it had been a while since Chris and I had enjoyed a good piece of watermelon. One of the pleasant things about supermarkets in both Connecticut and Florida is that in both places it’s been possible to buy decent-to-really-good tasting watermelon.  IMHO, there’s nothing more refreshing than a nice bit of watermelon on a hot day. Chris and I have really been enjoying having it on these hot days here in Florida, that’s for sure.

Now, I also remember enjoying having watermelon in summertime as a kid. I recall that my cousins and I would be given triangle slices of watermelon on hot summer days. We’d take them to the stoop outside my grandparent’s farmhouse and sit there, happily letting juice drip down our chins while we spit the black seeds onto the ground.

Ah, memories.  Spitting out the watermelon seeds was always part of the fun as a kid, right?

Except …  Chris and I were eating some watermelon recently with our teenage relatives.  One of them commented that they’d once gotten piece of watermelon that still had a bunch of seeds in it. Can you image? “Eww – gross!” they all agreed. To them, you see, a watermelon was always seedless. There was NO fun to be had eating watermelon,  they explained, if you had to spit out a bunch of seeds while you were eating it.

Hmm. I’d never considered it, but clearly there is a watermelon age gap. Perhaps if you’re old enough to remember using a typewriter, and old enough to have used a TV or telephone dial, you’re probably old enough to remember when watermelons by default had black seeds.

Which means you’re probably with me on the far side of the watermelon gap. I’m just saying.

*****

P.S.  FWIW, I found this site that says seedless watermelons are almost as old as I am … but I don’t remember ever having any, or at least not seeing it frequently available, until I was an adult.  Apparently I’m not alone — click here for  another person’s take on seeded vs seedless.

1. Bolzano supermarket shopping in general

2. Where to find things in a supermarket in Bolzano

When we got to Germany, I also did all the grocery shopping.  The German stores are a bit bigger than their counterparts in Italy, but not by a lot. My shopping trips there, though, were a lot less eventful than in Bolzano; perhaps the “natural classes” of things were similar (see post #2 above for the ones in Italy).  But there was still stuff to learn about supermarket shopping in Germany, of course, including how to buy sparkling water bottles.

But you might think that now we’re back in the U.S. that supermarket shopping wouldn’t be any problem at all.  But in fact, I think that supermarkets here have so far been the biggest culture shock for both of us.  Why? Well, back in 2011 I wrote about the culture-shock of going to a grocery store in Florida, when the number of choices in a Florida store that was 10x the size of the one in Bolzano left me quite taken aback at the time.

That experience was after only 2.5 years living in Europe.  But maybe the fact that we had that reaction after only 2.5 years in Europe should have prepared us for the shock of arriving in the U.S. after 7 years and walking into a huge American grocery store again.  On our first supermarket buying trip back in June we ventured — on our own! — into a store the size of at least one football field, and probably more. Well, at least that’s how it seemed.  Things just went on forever, from the length of the aisles to the sheer number of them. I mean,  where do you begin trying to find anything?  How do you figure out all different brands? The pricing differences? Special Offers? Different size packages of the same thing? Different varieties of the same thing?

Sheesh, we had it easy in Florida back in 2011:  there were only 4 types of potato salad.  But nowadays, it seems like there are at least 10 different types of any one thing – and usually much, much more. The aisle with the choice of boxed cereal alone is mind-boggling. Seriously.

Then there was the additional issue of figuring out how to get the loyalty card key chain tag that unlocks lower prices in many stores. It’s not hard, but first you have to figure out the price gap that exists, then you have to organize where in this endless store the desk is to get the card.  I guarantee you it is always at the opposite end of the store from where you are.

Actually, that’s a truism about anything in the store: no matter where you are, whatever you’re looking for next is bound to be at the other end of the store.  Which takes you about 5 minutes to walk across.

Well, that’s what it felt like in that first store, at least.  Between getting the loyalty card,  hunting for stuff and sorting out which of whatever it was we wanted to buy, we were in that first store for 2 hours.  2 hours?! Since we didn’t know where anything was and the store directories on the shopping carts were there to lead you on a wild goose chase we wound up having to walk up and down every single aisle in that store to find stuff.  When we finally got out of the store we felt like we had been through the wringer; we were completely exhausted!

Supermarket shopping is not for the faint-of-heart here in the U.S., IMHO.

Well, at least not in the Northeast.  But here in Florida, the supermarket that caused all that trouble for us in 2011, Publix, actually has several branches that are not nearly as big as the supermarket in CT (we haven’t actually been back to the larger branch that I blogged about in 2011).  So, somehow the supermarket here, after the early experiences in CT, seem a little more manageable.

It’s also the case that Publix has no loyalty card program: “All our customers get the same low prices” is what the store clerk said to me when I asked about it. So, that makes things a little easier.  Plus, Publix describes itself as the only supermarket around that still offers a service that I refer to as “southern hospitality, supermarket style.”   The other day I went to the store by myself. It was early on a Sunday morning, when the store was mostly empty.  When I got to the check-out line, the baggers were all standing around with nothing to do. So, one of them zoomed over and insisted on helping me unload the cart onto the belt.  Then, my groceries got bagged in record time by a couple more people, and a man older than me insisted on schlepping the cart with the bags out to my car with me.  (BTW, all these “helpers”  wear name badges that also say they are not allowed to accept tips.) Anyway, on the way to the car I commented on how you don’t find this kind of service many places these days, and he said that Publix really prides themselves on still offering it.  You definitely don’t find that kind of service in Europe, at least not in the places we shopped:  you bought it, you bag it — you take care of it yourself. So this is definitely a nice perk to find here in Florida.

Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like going to the supermarket. But every little thing helps. 

Or, well, actually, you get to put the blame on something else.  You see, Gigi is our name for our Garmen GPS (i.e. “GG”) device that we have in our car.  “GG” turned into Gigi for me, though, as the name;   I mean, Gigi is the name of a musical, after all, and even the name of a song from that musical.

Gigi, am I a fool without a mind
Or have I merely been too blind to realize …

Chris and I hadn’t ever actually used a GPS device ourselves before we arrived in the U.S. in June.  Stan and Judie gave us Gigi, which was their spare, for our travels – thanks, S&J!.   One of the things I like about these systems is that they are programmed to tell you not only how to get to where you are going, but also helpful additional information,  like which side of the road things are on, and which lane you need to get it if there’s a quick maneuver coming up  (e.g. get off at exit 183 and stay to the right, and follow the sign to the next off ramp in 0.1 miles).  That’s handy.

However, we don’t always use Gigi, and even when we’ve turned her on for a trip, we don’t always follow her suggestions/directions, if we have a different idea of how we want to go.  When we ignore her suggestions she tends to fall silent for a while. I’m sure it’s really just the program re-calculating a new route once we’ve deviated from the original suggestion.  But it often can seem like she’s  pouting because we chose to follow our own path, not hers, and therefore she’s now ignoring us.

Gigi, While you were trembling on the brink
Was I out yonder somewhere blinking at a star

But I don’t think what happened last Wednesday was because she was annoyed with us for choosing to go to our destination that day without her help. You see, we’d used directions we had gotten off  the Internet to get to a place in Orlando. However, since the route involved a series of highways with exits, and because I hadn’t thought to get the reverse directions  on the Internet to get the exits names and numbers, we decided to plug Gigi in and give her a try. After all, all we needed to know was the exits on the different highways we come on, so what could go wrong? Right?

Well, let’s just say Gigi was of a different mind.  She had us start down a highway we’d taken, which I’ll call 517*, but in the opposite direction than we thought we needed to go to get back to Melbourne.  However, it was possible (we reasoned) that there was some rationale for that, so we kept going Gigi’s way.

Gigi the told us to get off 517 at the next exit ramp and take a highway (I’ll call it 501*) we hadn’t been on before.  However, as we approached the exit ramp to get onto 501, it was immediately apparent that there was massive construction on 501, and nothing was moving, either on the ramp we’d need to take or on the part of 501 that we could see in the distance.

OK, Gigi probably couldn’t have know that in advance. But getting onto 501 as she instructed just wasn’t on option.  So we continued down  517, ignoring Gigi’s entreaties to get off on 501. At the next exit on 517 we effectively did a U-turn, getting on and off the highway to head back the way we’d just come on 517.

Gigi, who had fallen silent as we did that  Uey type maneuver, sprung back to life as we approached the 501 exit from the other side. We ignored her again, and continued past the exit to get back to the secondary road we’d been on before we got on 517. Once back on the secondary road, we decided to try to retrace our original path ourselves.  But we left Gigi on. Gigi  didn’t speak to us again for a few miles, but then suddenly said something like  “in 0.1 miles, turn right for 508* and then merge left.”

Well, we remembered we’d come originally on 508, so that seemed like a good suggestion.  And there, up ahead, was a sign that  that indicated the next right-hand turn went to 508. So, we turned right.

What Gigi hadn’t mentioned, though, and what the road signs also failed to mention, was that to get on to 508 here you had to pay a toll, and so there was a two-lanes toll booth in the middle of the road. One lane was for people who have a pre-paid Epass in their car  – not us.

The other lane was marked  “Exact change (coins only)”, for people who carry a lot of change in their car – also not us  Neither of the lanes were manned, BTW, as neither of these options requires human interaction.

What was missing was the usual 3rd lane option, marked “Cash”, which is always manned by a person.  On the way to Orlando, each of the 4 toll booths we passed through had that Cash option.  But this road/on-ramp that we’d turned onto had only 2, unmanned booths. There was no chance of going back, though, and initially no clear way for us to go through without getting a ticket. I mean, we were certain with didn’t have an Epass, and we were pretty certain we didn’t have exact change, as neither Chris nor I carry a lot of change.

Ack! Gigi, what have you gotten us into?!

OK, well, as I said at the beginning, it really wasn’t Gigi’s fault, but in the heat of the moment we did blame her, as we needed someone to blame, and she was the one who suggested we take that ramp. It certainly would have been handy had she had a bit more information about the toll “plaza” on that ramp to tell us in addition to turning right and then merging left onto 508. Argh.  We were none too happy with Gigi nor the Florida highway system at that moment, I want to tell you. It seemed ridiculous there hadn’t been clear signs about this before you got onto this road. I mean, we didn’t intend to go through without paying, but for a minute or two that seemed like our only option.

However,  there were no cars behind us, so we remained parked for several minutes in the Exact Change lane and scrounged the car for every last quarter, nickel and dime we could find.  And pennies.  The sign said exact change,  it didn’t say no pennies. As it turned out, we had exactly 75 cents in change (including 5 pennies) with us in the car that day. No more, no less.

Ah, traveling with Gigi – never a dull moment.   Think of all the adventures we’ll have together down the road.

Oh Gigi, have I been standing up too close or back too far
When did your sparkle turn to fire
…
Oh, what miracle has made you the way you are

Well, glad you asked. As I’ve said a previous post, Plan G is many things, including the chance to travel, downsize and reorganize our belongings, and above all visit family and friends. So far the last 5 months on Plan G have been chances to do all of that, definitely.

After 5 months, though, the one thing that Plan G is  still is definitely not is an actual  well-formed plan. I’d call it “Slow Travel“,  but I’m not sure it qualifies as that concept. It’s more like meandering travel, I think.

Or maybe we should have called this “Ideas G”, as we have lots of vague ideas of what to do next, but nothing is set in stone yet. I mean, we’re pretty loose on our travel timing, of necessity since a lot of things — like the arrival of our belongings from Germany, and availability of doctors appointments – has been outside our control. But, that need for flexibility in the schedule has worked to our advantage,  allowing us to follow up on opportunities as they appear. That includes a wonderful cat-sitting/house-sitting opportunity next month here in Melbourne (thanks, J— and C—!). As a result, we’re going to be staying here in Florida until at least October 2nd, which will give us more time to plan for the phase after that.

Current ideas on the table for what we do after that:

– A visit to Washington DC to allow me to visit some photography archives to do some research on early American women photographers. I have an idea that seems to be shaping up toward a possible project, and I have identified some works to try to see and archives in general to visit. But note I didn’t say I have a project plan yet — but at least it’s a start towards one, I guess.

– Following that and a stop in NJ, we want to make our way west for the rest of the autumn, hoping to dodge any early snowfalls. There are archives to visit along the way — but I haven’t plotted them on a map yet. We want to visit as many friends along the way as we can — but again, I haven’t plotted places on a route yet.

– Once we get to the  California,  the idea is to head up the coast to Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. Again, visiting friends, family and archives.

– Other destinations are on the list, too:  we have friends in Hawaii … and there’s always Easter Island to fit in somewhere….

Anyway, as you can see, there’s not much after October 2nd that is planned yet. Neither Chris nor I are working at the moment, so we are currently planning (well, to use the term loosely!) to wander at least into the beginning of 2016 before we figure out where we’re actually going to settle down. Clearly we need to work this month on some more concrete travel plans and places to stay for this fall, but I’ll have to keep you posted as we figure things out.

Which reminds me: if anyone has suggestions and/or knows of people who need anyone to so house-/pet-sitting anywhere, let me know. We’re good at looking after houses and pets and computer systems that are misbehaving. In general I’m looking into vacation apartments and also house=sitting online listings to see what we can find for the fall.

So there you have it – Plan G explained as much as we have figured it out.

BTW, people often ask if the “G” stands for anything. Not really – although, since it really is a plan where anything’s up for grabs, then I guess you could also say it’s anybody’s guess.

Stay tuned…

The best part of this period has been the opportunity to visit relatives in various places here in the U.S.. However, the last 2 months have also been a bit of a blur of activity, as we have tried to figure out what we need to do to get settled into the nomadic lifestyle of our Plan G.  We spent a lot of time initially sorting and downsizing our stuff, but we didn’t make much headway on other items on our “To Do” list in the first 6 weeks. However, in the last 2 weeks we’ve focused on major errands and necessary purchases,  like getting the car, and also — as of today — getting an American cell phone.

And it’s the cellphone  where the real complications of the Donnerstag Due come into play for this post.

Now, we never tried to buy a car in Italy or Germany, so I don’t know how that process compares to the U.S. However, the cell phone stuff here in the U.S. is complicated and expensive, compared to what we had in Germany. I never remember all the acronyms involved — Chris does and that’s enough —  but suffice to say that our European phones are not compatible with most cell phone companies here in the U.S.    To be compatible requires going with one of two possible carriers. Those places would have allowed us to keep our current phones, but would have required us to pay a lot for the monthly service plans. So rather than commit to anything like that right now, we went with a different provider that had a cheaper plan, the catch being that our old cell phones weren’t compatible with that provider. That meant that we then had to buy a cheap phone to go along with it.

It took 3 visits to the store to get stuff sorted out, but we are now the proud owners of a LG Cosmos 3 phone:

LG Cosmos 3 phone with keyboard showing

On the up side, the new phone has a real keyboard on it that slides out on the side- yay! I love real keyboards on handheld devices, even if the keys are tiny. I’m not a fan of the on-screen virtual keyboard. I have loved the little “thumb-type” keyboards ever since my first handheld organizer, the Sharp Y0-600.  See, I even remember the model number after all these years, I liked it so much.  So having the keyboard on the phone is fun – it was completely by accident, though, that we wound up with it, as this was the cheapest phone they had available for this phone plan.  Although both Chris and I will share the phone number and the phone, Chris has already predicted that I will use it more because of that keyboard.

The LG Cosmos 3 phone does not have a very good camera, however. My old, incompatible-with-this-new-provider  “smartphone” style phone does have a great camera, of course.  This means the for the next little while I’ll be carrying 2 phones:  the new basic phone that will allow me to make U.S. calls and send U.S. text messages (using that keyboard-yay!) and the old fancier one with the great camera that I can use for taking photos, but not for making phone calls.  So, that means 2 phones in my purse for much of the day, something I haven’t needed to do in Europe for over a year.  And yes, I could have gotten away with one phone here in the U.S. but for a lot more money, as the plans here for what we need from a cell phone are just a lot more money than they were in Europe.

BTW, in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that Chris has already been carrying mulitple phones in his pockets ever since we’ve been in the U.S. We arrived with a phone that has both U.S. and UK numbers (a dual-number on a single SIMM card that we call the “Anglo” phone.) Chris usually carries this one.

This is not to be confused with the dual SIMM card phone he had been carrying in Europe, with one card for his German number and one for his Italian number. While he carried it around at first when we arrived in the U.S., he now leaves it at home.

But he also has a European “smart phone” that he can use in the U.S. for everything except phone calls. He carries that with him all the time in addition to the Anglo phone.

Plus, while I’m driving, he will now need to add our new U.S. phone to his pocket, just in case the new one rings while we’re in the car.

Complicated enough for you?

At least enough for a Donnerstag Due, I dare say.