26 E U R O per month

Just when I think I'm starting to get the hang of things here, I have these little reminders that I'm not in Kansas anymore. Garbage. I never imagined garbage could take up so much of my time thinking. It's ridiculous- just ridiculous. Mondays are our garbage day- easy enough? As I've mentioned before, one week is recycled bags {gelb and blau} then the rotating weeks is our mini-black can.

No matter what, Monday's the day. If we forget which trash to put out- we simply look at the Germans to help us out.

This Monday, I stuck out the trash {our nasty wet black can with all trash that can't fit in any of our other three recycle bags} and they  n e v e r  came to pick it up. Normally, this wouldn't be too stressful except where am I supposed to throw out the trash for the next T W O weeks? It's difficult enough that they only come twice a month. Now, I have to figure out what to do with a whole month's worth of the worst kind of trash.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if it was paper or even our plastics. We pay 26 Euro per month for garbage- that's between $38 and $40 per month which makes me most frustrated. That's a lot of money to miss our collection and cause so much stress. More than anything, I really don't think garbage is supposed to stress a person out. Aren't there more important things in life to have to worry about? Ugh.

They have trash bins on base and a big recycling center as well. After waiting six weeks or so, when we realized no one was {ever} going to pick up our glass, Jim took it on base to recycle it there. They turned him away. Honest, I couldn't believe it. The "trash police" or whoever was working there that day said in order to recycle on base, you have to show a house key as proof of residence on base. The fact that we want to live on base and can't doesn't matter. One bag of glass and they seriously would not take it. That's when we found the glass bin in the next village over.

As Tuesday afternoon rolled around this week and I came to the realization that no one was going to pick up our garbage, I asked our German neighbor why they didn't come. She let me know that because of the Easter holiday this week, they did their collection last Saturday. Of course, why didn't I know they'd pick it up early? Who does that? Easter is on a Sunday. It's not like Christmas or any other major holiday falling on a weekday to mess up their schedule.  Oh, these Germans do love their holidays.

She asked if we missed it, and I let her know yes... but, one of these days, we'll learn. She then let me know that they will be on holiday for the next week, so if we needed to put our garbage in their can- that is ok. Wow- how nice is that? She's coming around, or maybe it's me that's coming around. Why is taking that first step sometimes just so difficult? Another life lesson.