Honestly, I am not one of those people who makes picture smilies. In fact, I absolutely loathe them. Yet, on writing this last entry, I noticed that a combination of a : and a ) symbol is translated into a graphical smilie ( 
) in WordPress.
Time to hunt down and destroy this little feature right now…
Just a quick note here. If you’re looking for a good hairstylist in Cologne, try Jag’s Hair. Janet had her hair re-styled there about 2 months ago when we were on an apartment-hunting trip and I just had mine done there. The results? Fantastic. Plus, Douglas (the owner) is a Brit (here since ’78), so it makes it a little easier for us non-Natives
So, at 8:00 this morning, the bell rang. It was Blum Sanitärteknik, the plumbers who could finally fix our kitchen leak.
Let me tell you about the kitchen so far.
When Larry and Curly (neither were skilled enough to be Moe) came to do the kitchen “montage” which I translated to mean installation, but here seemed to mean “take 3 times longer than expected to put the kitchen together while complaining the whole time and royally fucking up the plumbing”. Yeah, hours of “scheisse” and “we are just wood workers” but they seemed to have no problem spending three hours on the plumbing before saying “you must call specialist” and leaving (and saying one last “we just do the wood work, not the water or electricity” on the way out).
Yeah, we only do wood work.
Anyway, they left with a small nagging leak, one that I thought with a little bit of mental energy and the right parts, I could fix it. I mean, if Larry and Curly could get it 95%, I can take the last 5% myself.
That was last Friday.
Monday, I made a quick run to the Baumarkt (hardware store) for some more parts. Got everything I needed to put a new connector block together (3/8″ cold water in, with two 3/8″ out for the cold and hot water feeds and a 3/4″ for the dishwasher and lots of teflon tape). I brought the pieces home, realized I missed a part, went back, put the doohickey together, connected it to the pipes.
The drip was now a gush. Guess you can just call me Moe.
I then try to remove the doohickey I made and put back in Larry and Curly’s doohickey, but I guess with all of the teflon tape, it was in good and tight. At this point, I surrendered and started calling for plumbers.
Under Sanitär (plumbing), we found a listing for one company. 24 hour service for “rohrrenigung” which, when translated through dict.leo.org, meant “plumbing”. I called and they said they would be there between 9 and 10am on Tuesday.
9am Tuesday. Door bell rings. I let in the guy. He has a big router machine with him. I say, no not the drain, the pipes. He points to his shirt which says “rohrrenigung”. I say, yes, plumbing. He says no – only drains. I show him the ad in the yellow pages. He says it is a mistake.
10am, Tuesday. No water. Can’t get the original drippy doohickey back on. I surrender and call another company, Blum. Luckily, he spoke English and told me that they would have someone to re-install the pipes on Wednesday at 8:00.
Wednesday. 8:05, the door rings, and I let in the installer. He opens the under-sink cabinet. I swear, he turned as white as a ghost when he saw the condition of the water connections.
“Amateur” he said, “Very bad. maybe has broken the water heater because pressure is off.” 5 minutes later, he was off to get parts.
8:45, he returns with a big box of what I assume are parts. Instead, it is a new faucet.
In pantomime, simple German and broken English, he shows me on this new faucet how there are three output pipes and two input pipes, exactly what is needed for this kitchen. Then he shows me how the standard Ikea setup only had two pipes. He shows me the documentation that says in English “for small water heaters”. He points to the diagram that looks like a snapshot of what our kitchen should look like.
Then he tells us that the faucet is more expensive than what we have, so we can not install it and find something with the same design and call them for another appointment, or just use that one. We decided to just take the plunge and get the faucet he brought installed. He started the install a little after 9am. By 9:30, it was complete, and hooked up properly. No leaks, no gaps, and no drips.
Well, except for me. Moe the Drip.
One of the interesting things about our apartment in Cologne is that for the first time, we don’t have a hot water heater.
From what I can tell, older apartment buildings here in Germany still rely on those large building-wide water heaters for both the heat and the hot water, but newer buildings, or buildings that have just gone through renovation, now use these instant water heaters. They’re supposedly very energy efficient – they kick in as cold water flows through and instantly heats it up to anywhere from 60 – 85 degrees (celsius) – and in the bathroom, the one we have is fantastic, giving us great hot water for as long as we need it.
Fast forward to Friday. The kitchen installers hook everything up, including the connection to the similar water heater in the kitchen. We flip the switch and boom – hot water. Great.
However, about two minutes later, no more hot water. Turn off the water for 2 minutes, turn it back on, and boom. Hot water… again for about two minutes. Look up instant water heaters on the web. Nothing describes this kind of problem… but it is consistant. We get scalding hot water for a few minutes, and then back to cold, until we turn the water off for 2 minutes. Needless to say, since we can get a full hour’s worth or more hot water from the bathroom, we were very confused.
Late last night, Janet and I figured out what was going on (surprisingly, we were working off of the same idea independantly and came to the same conclusion). The bathroom instant water heater is a more expensive model that gives unlimited hot water. The one in the kitchen is actually a 5 liter mini-hot water heater designed for light usage like rinsing a cup or something similar. Since most houses here have dishwashers (they are more energy and water efficient, they heat their own water, and wash a whole load of dishes in less than 18 liters), in the kitchen you only need a very small amount of hot water. Enter the 5 liter water heater: enough or small tasks, but not enough to wash a full load of dishes.
Just another fleeting moment of feeling like a true cultural auslander.
When we last left off, your intrepid travelers were stuck with a dozen boxes from Ikea marked with pseudo-scandinavian names like Kräpp, Migrän and Härnia, waiting for a week until they could correct their scheduling mistake…
Not willing to be stuck eating out for another full week, I started calling around to every furniture company in the greater Köln area asking for “Montageservice” or assembly service for the kitchen. One firm said they could come on Friday to assemble everything so we could actually cook this weekend… which considering that most restaurants are closed on Christmas Day, this was really critical.
The target was 3 hours based on my description (build two under-cabinets, install the dishwasher, sink, faucet, vent and oven), and I was told it would be 50 Euros an hour. Great. 150 – significantly cheaper than the 600 target from Ikea.
Upon their arrival, the foreman said that since there were two workers, it would be 45 per person per hour, but that it should be fast. Work started at 9:30.
At 11, we realized that Ikea failed to supply some key parts for the plumbing and that I would need to run out to the Obi (like Home Depot) for parts. An hour and a hundred Euros later, I was back… which was right when they wanted to start with the water works.
Work continued for almost 8 hours before they finally proclaimed it finished. Sure, some of the joints need washers still (I will get them next week) and there is a small drip from the connection to the washer, but it’s working. We have a working kitchen. Sure, it might have cost us over a hundred more euros than if we waited until next Wednesday, but that is still cheaper than five more dinners out.
The first meal, if you are interested, was a Penne Pesto with Chicken (sauteed chicken breast dusted with hot pepper flakes, oregano and Basil cut into pieces, combined with a small container of 10% fat cream, a small container of creme fraiche, and pesto served over penne).
Just for those following the restaurants… last night was beer and goose at Päffgen (roasted goose breast served with roasted chestnuts, red cabbage with apples, a baked marzipan apple and two dumplings) which was the perfect winter meal.
And lunch was from the Funky Chicken – one of the best Döner joints I have ever been to. Why was it so special? They made the dürüm (a Turkish flatbread) fresh – and when I mean fresh, they rolled out the dough and threw it in the oven when I was there. Plus, the meat was marinated and flavorful. Oh, and the multi-colored disco ball and the music in there – pure funk.
Ikea. The Scandinavian Mecca or inexpensive furniture you build yourself. And as Mecca, I mean thousands of people milling about like a sea of humanity all struggling to find enlightenment, or at least a nice lamp. But, if you have to build a brand new kitchen (like we have to) and don’t have unlimited funds (again, like us), Ikea is the place to go.
In mid-November, we went to Ikea in Munich to pick out a kitchen set. We examined all of the different options, sat there with a piece of graph paper, a pencil and a ruler and figured out what we could fit into the apartment, and in the end we made our selection and placed the order, requesting delivery and installation services for this week in Cologne. We were assured it was no problem, paid the freight, and was told that we could just pay for the pieces and the assembly upon delivery.
Fast forward three weeks. For some reason, I decided to check the status of the order… which was now saying we had a delivery date of May 2018. Now, if they said May, 2005, I might be concerned, but with such an outrageous number, I figured that there was just a glitch on the website and would check again the next day.
The next day…
I checked the website, and it still said May 2018. At this point, I decided to call. So, I grabbed the invoice, the order number, the phone number for the local Ikea and prepared myself to ask, in German, how I could get the order delivered faster than 2018.
20 minutes later, they actually take me out of the queue and inform me that the order cannot be delivered because the sink faucet was recalled. I ask if they were ever planning on calling the number on the order to tell me that, and by the laughter on the other end, either I was mis-translating my request or the idea of proactive customer service was just humorous to them. 5 minutes of them checking on what my options are (I think the Muzak was the German equivalent of “Muskrat Love”) and I was told I could cancel the order, wait, or change the faucet. I elected to change the faucet, which to their credit they changed on the phone for me, and was told to check the web in the morning to see the new delivery date.
Next morning. Checked the website. May 2018. Checked the calendar. December 2004. Hm, still looks like a bit of a wait. Call Ikea. Wait in queue. Regret not having a cordless phone. Get a person. Get confirmation that the delivery date would be the week of the 20th of December. Confirm that the delivery year is 2004. Confirm that the calendar is the standard Gregorian calendar. Cross fingers.
Last week. I get a call from the delivery company to set the 21st as the delivery date. Excited by the fact that this means only one week without a kitchen sink or stove, I thank them thoroughly.
Yesterday, I get a call at 8:07 confirming delivery between 11am and 1pm. I run out to get bagels and light fixtures, rushing to get back by 11. 11 passes. 12 passes. 1 passes. At 2, I call and get a “kommt gleich” – the German brush off meaning “it’s coming”. A few minutes before 3pm, Moe, Larry and Curly pull up with the kitchen.
5 minutes later, they’re asking for the payment and getting ready to leave. I ask when the assembly and installation will start. They tell me that they don’t do that, and Ikea never ordered the installation. They leave and give me a number to dial to set an appointment.
Call 1: busy.
Call 2: busy.
.
.
.
Call 22: it rings! Crap. Muskrat Love again. Finally a person. Ok – ask in German when the installation can be. They say they can squeeze us in for next Thursday. So, it looks like another week of restaurant reviews for the website.
Ikea, Take our products and go screw (it together) yourself.