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Stuck at Home

 Guten Morgan am Sonntag!

Another bright day that started out partly cloudy in Regensburg! We are stuck home since we have Covid, which we probably picked up in transit to Germany. There are no mandates, just our considerateness that we don't want to spread this. We already gave it to our landlord. I'm not doing so badly, but Pat has a nasty cough that can't be hidden. If we have the energy, we're going to take a walk later today. There's a trail that leads to the Danube we've been wanting to walk. 

It's supposed to be another hot one, and they don't use air conditioning very commonly in Europe. But they have other strategies to lessen the impact of the sun: Sonnenschutze (sun protectors). I like to think of them as shields, as in Star Trek shields. Only instead of 'raising' them, we 'drop' them. They are on every window, not only in our building, but all buildings except some of the ones in the Altstadt. 


Money is trickier than I anticipated in a strange land. They don't use 1 or 2 Euro bank notes--they are coins. At one of my first purchases at a bakery, I handed the clerk a 5 Euro note for a less than 2 Euro purchase. She handed me back a handful of coins. I almost told her that I handed her a 5, because I was expecting some bank notes, as we would get in the US, but she hadn't cheated me. Some of those coins were Euros. 

I noticed my purse was getting heavier and heavier, and couldn't figure out why until I pulled my wallet out at home, which was bulging with coins. This is another example of a foreigner trying to figure out how money works in another country. They have 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, 1 Euro, and 2 Euro coins. Trying to figure out how to give correct change on the fly is proving to be a challenge. If the purchase is Two Euros and 27 cents, I wind up handing them a 5 Euro note. Lots of change comes back. If the purchase is 5 Euros and 11 cents, say, and I want to give some change, I end up handing them a 5 Euro note and a 20 cent piece. Now I've traded one coin for 3. I can't distinguish the different coins fast enough to do better than that at this stage. Back comes several more coins. They add up fast. 

On the left are a 5 cent European coin, a penny from the US, and a 1 cent European coin for comparison. I haven't learned yet whether the coins here have names as they do in the US. All these coins sit in a jumble in my wallet. I'll feel I've arrived when I can count out exact change with the same competence as I did back home. 

One another topic...remember how I accidentally purchased something called quark? Well, we've decided it's quite yummy, and will be buying some more in the future. We're using it as a spread on pancakes and toast, and will be looking for more uses. It's a cross between yogurt and cream cheese. It also comes in savory flavors, and plain. I am going to research ways to use this stuff. Happy accidental discovery!


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