Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Turning European

This post might be full of way too many stereotypes, but like I always say, there is always SOME truth to most of them.  So this is the low down on how we have started assimilating to the oh, so slow and posh European lifestyle.  Let's start with the food.  This is a picture of our new staples:



Orangina--healthier than Fanta and Coke, tastier than water, less heavy than OJ
Freshly baked bread--that I go out to buy on a daily basis, super soft that day, hard as a rock the next day
Veggies and fruit in a fruit bowl--no need to keep in the fridge, buy just one each time!
Real butter-- not kept in the fridge either
Eggs--only 10 in a package, feathers sometimes included
Milka--melts in your mouth, your hands, and everywhere else; so creamy and delicious that we have a bar every day. Ok, I have two pieces, Phil eats the rest.
Meat--covered by the MAXI wrapping, never frozen, probably still mooing
Canned meat--discovered at the supermarket with a lady giving out samples; looks gross, tastes great.

Then there's our household appliances:



Could not get any more modern, but really?...the oven is as small as the microwave and the washer only fits two complete outfits, not to mention that once you close it, forget about that lonely sock left behind in the hamper-- it's too late.

The fridge is really new and big and it has its own walk up window to easily access a cold drink. There is an ice dispenser, but they never connected it to a water source, so we don't have ice.  Good thing that we drink Orangina now, which doesn't need ice.

Now the whole problems is trying to figure out how things work and no, the instructions are not in Serbian- they are just pictures.




Everything is so new that the stove top is a touch screen!  That one is pretty easy to figure out, but the washer is a bit more complicated.  We have no clue what the check mark is for, so hopefully we won't need it.  We figure butterfly is for delicate, sheep is for wool, iron is for a cool spin at the end... and XL for Americans?

But my absolute favorite one, which is not an appliance itself, but a true European staple is the little guy next to the toilet that looks like a toilet, but doesn't flush.  The Bidet.

I had never used one before and was definitely a bit nervous and skeptical at first, but again, 10 hours home alone every day lend themselves to random experiments, and after 2 days I can say we will be installing one of these when we come back home.  Why don't we have them, is beyond me, cleaning yourself well afterwards makes so much sense!

In the words of Will.i.am:  you wouldn't want to shake my hand if I just wiped it off with paper, right?


3 comments:

Katrin said...

Way to end on a high note, Vero! :)

Anonymous said...

Hey I just stumbled across your blog, first of all welcome to Serbia!
I moved here from Canada 5 years ago, I live in the tiny city of Subotica where things aren't written in Cyrillic so u can actually read stuff :)

Check out my blog http://canadianinserbia.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Bidet's are the best! Glad you're
settling in. Miss you guys! Maybe we'll get out to visit one of these days... :)

Suriya