The Wrong Cord

I realize that I have been lax in my blogging duties lately. I usually do my blogging on our laptop. (It's the better, faster, newer computer - and it has all of my pictures on it.) Unfortunately our laptop computer cord had compatibility issues with the electricity flow in Italy. (Apparently the whole 220 Volts thing is just a "suggestion" for the Italians - just like lanes on the freeway are "optional.") Anyway, the laptop is supposed to be fine on anything from 100-240 volts. It has been fine in Germany, in England, in Belgium, and in the Netherlands. In Florence it was fine. In Varese it was not. To make a long story short, now the electricity isn't making it from the wall to our computer.

Big deal, you may say. So what! Order a new cord. Get it fixed.

Ha.

If only it were that easy. Ben spent a good couple of hours on the phone with the lovely people at HP only to be told that they could not ship a power cord directly to our APO address.

Hmmmm....

This is not the first time we've had trouble with our laptop cord. We had one shipped directly to us only a few months ago. It made it here in record time - something like 5 days for an overnight shipment. Not bad.

This time, however, the cord was not replaceable under the warranty. I guess that makes a difference in the shipping policy. Go figure. Anyway, we got HP to ship the cord to Ben's parents, who in turn shipped it to us. It took about 2 weeks to get here. We opened the box and what did we find? THE WRONG CORD!!!!!!!

This is after Ben CLEARLY explained to the guy on the phone which cord we needed. (That guy was a customer service rep who then CLEARLY (hahaha) explained to the sales people which cord we needed.)

So, now Ben is on the phone AGAIN with the HP customer service people who are AGAIN insisting that they cannot ship the cord to an APO address. Despite the fact that they've done it before. Despite the fact that this mess is due to their own egregious error.

Boo on HP.

I think this calls for some chocolate.

Fabulous Fasching

I know that many of you are anxiously awaiting Italy pictures....well....it's going to be a couple of days. I really want to keep this in chronological order and I have a few things to post first. So, today I'm going to try and blog about Fasching and Bruges (in separate posts). Hopefully tomorrow I can start on Italy (which will most likely have to be split up into multiple posts as well). I really need to start blogging about these things as they happen so that everything feels more fresh. Unfortunately, life gets in the way. (Dratted laundry!)

Fasching is the German version (I believe) of Fat Tuesday, or Carnival. It takes place right before the start of Lent. The Germans celebrate Fasching with parades, by dressing in costume, consuming large amounts of alcohol (don't worry - I didn't share with the kids), and parties. Basically, as Ian so aptly put it, Fasching is like Halloween, but EVEN BETTER.

There are two Fasching parades nearby, one in Schwetzingen and one in downtown Heidelberg. I decided to take the kids to the Schwetzingen parade for a several reasons. 1 - I had to take them by myself. 2 - I had to take them by myself. And 3 - I had to take them by myself. (Don't you think that the Army should give Ben German holidays?)

So, our Fasching experience....

We took Flat Stanley along for the ride. Actually we took Flat Stanley and Flat Sarah. Stanley and Sarah really liked the parade - especially the part where they had kilos of candy chucked at their heads. I hadn't realized how much candy would be thrown. Fortunately a kind German woman behind me handed me a bag to hold our loot. Unfortunately that meant we brought home a lot of candy. We still have a huge bag full of Fasching candy that Stanley and Sarah have yet to eat. Maybe if it had been chocolate...






Ian had sawdust dumped on his head by one of these Buzzel-Hexe. (I think Buzzel-Hexe means ugly witches. It's what they had on their sign. Any thoughts on this?) Fortunately, Ian thought it was funny.


And finally...amazing costumes. The people in blue (not sure what they are) painted the kids' noses blue (not sure why).








Because it was colder than I had expected, and the kids didn't have their coats with them, we didn't stay for the entire parade. From what I hear, that may have been a good thing. I think by the end of the parade the hard liquor was starting to catch up with people. (One of my favorite moments was when one of the beauty queens (while on her float, mind you) chugged back a shot of something potent. I had to laugh.)


Next year I think we'll have Ben take the day off and attempt the larger (and probably rowdier) parade in Heidelberg. Maybe. We'll see. Then again, the Schwetzingen parade was pretty good....