Today is a very special day, a day I've waited for for a long time.
9 years I've lived here and 9 years I've succumbed to the German practicality of not owning a clothes dryer. I hated every laundry day. You know when we were young we'd go camping and have to sometimes wash dishes in the creek, or socks, and hang them to dry, and that is just so awesome...whilst camping.
J bought me a dryer today.
Can you imagine hanging up to dry, for 9 years, all of your socks, your underwear, your sheets, your clothing, and the towels you use to dry yourself, but were never properly dried so they scratch your skin like thorns? I literally stood our bath towels up and they did not fall down, they are self-supporting, they are so stiff. My husband said it's German to appreciate a good scrub.
I can't even believe it, I mean, I'll believe it when I see it standing stacked on top of the new washing machine he also bought (they stack them here, cuz 1. no space and 2. no earthquakes. I also look forward to having, for the first time in my life, a glass door that I can watch my clothes get clean through. You may have read that I am fond of opening dishwashers mid-cycle to see how it works. Why can't they make dishwashers with clear fronts? I wanna see the clean happening.
Get this, the dryer has no hose, it somehow works with condensation and you have to empty a drawer of water each time, and it only holds 6 kg of clothing at a time, but I don't care, I will have a DRYER next week!
I had this wonderful suspenseful feeling when I walked in to our flooded bathroom last week, seeing that our machine had finally kicked the bucket. Could I dare to hope? (In Germany most people have their washers in their bathrooms cuz there is nowhere else to put them. Or in the kitchen, which I've seen often, like this photo.)
J was telling me that the sales lady kept moving her eyes back to me as she described her products. Me? I have no idea! I said I wanted a pipe that goes out of my house to vent the air. I was talked out of it. Anyway usually people here don't look at me when they answer my question, they look at J. And in America, if J asks a question, they look at me to answer him, it's a nasty thing, to be treated like this because of an accent. Even though this lady wasn't answering HIS questions while looking at ME, she kept coming back to me cuz I was the little woman. She assumed because I do the laundry, I must know about the machines themselves, and their technology.
No. In America, I tried to explain, the washers *fill* with water, and you can open and close as you like to add more clothes, or whatever, during the *wash cycle*! I'm not sure she believed us. We said they can complete a wash cycle in only 20 minutes. The one we bought today? 2H40M. No kidding. Around 2 hours is a typical wash cycle with our old machine too. When I hit the "Hurry" button, it only takes 1H20M. They use so very little water, and so very little energy, they need time, I guess, as a third factor in cleansing. What a strange world I live in. I'm thinking you're not actually believing me as I type this.
I was like, "Where do I put the bleach?"
I was again given the look - "What is with Americans and bleach!"
J asked her how many pairs of Levis he could put in the dryer at once, and she said, "Well certainly you don't own so many!" We both laughed, my husband owns more Levis than I've owned in my lifetime. He likes to have lots of color choices. (He has them ALL!)
My husband does everything in his power to make me happy here in Germany, and after this little farm (when I asked for one), and a car (when he was a strict cyclist), this was the best thing so far: )
Oh, and my A/C unit.....: ): ) :) (Something that virtually NO ONE has here)
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18 comments:
I'd never have lasted 9'years, I could do one summer. But, once winter hit I'd NEED a dryer.
I'm not sure if you live in a different country--or a different planet! Welcome back to the 20th century. The rest of us are in the 21st.
Camryn, I can't imagine life in Germany, this new life...
JD, I told my man what you said and he told me to ask you what you use in the 21st, cuz I'm gonna be 100 years behind you with my new dryer. : ): ) :) Do you have replicators?
Well I'm in the UK and I do own a dryer. A condensing one like you describe that doesn't need a hose. I RARELY, yes rarely use it. I much prefer to hang my laundry outside on the line.
I don't understand why your towels would go hard from line drying, mine are fluffed up and soft from the wind or breeze blowing through them.
I love hearing about the differences from UK to USA to Germany.
How exciting!!! Congrats on your new dryer...and the A/C unit, too!
J is such a nice man. Imagine the remote possibility of you two making that connection over so much time and distance. Just sorry that 'I' miss you much here.
Hey! I'm American and I hang almost all of our laundry out to dry. With two kids even. Not in winter though, winter would be hard.
Congratulations on the dryer! YAY!!! The way your dryer is going to vent is awesome! I had that in my last house. It's easier to maintain that hose and keep it clean from lint. I felt it was less likely to have a fire because of that. Just keep up with the water in the box and getting the lint out.
Yayyyyy!! No more crunchy towels and underwear! :)
I use a fabric softener on my line dried clothes, huge difference so not crunchy, but again only in the summertime I need a dryer in the winter so I can snuggle in warm clothes :)
When I left my ex, I left behind a wonderful washer and dryer because my soon to be husband told me he had a set. A set of crappy old ones, and by the time we moved to Texas, the dryer died. So for years, I hung the clothes on the line and had the card board bristly towels. I've often told younger mothers that 16 is a good age for kids because that's when my boys finally understood how to hang clothes properly on the line.
Then my husband surprised me with a dryer years ago, and I've loved every minute. I admit I enjoyed hanging clothes out on the line. Things dry quickly here, and my horses learned not to fear the flapping demons on the line as they walked by. But I prefer a dryer and soft towels and clothes and doing wash any time I please. So glad you've got a washer/dryer. The Germans just don't know what they are missing.
I look forward to summer every year, so I can hang the clothes out on the line. It never occurred to me to do that when I lived in the city, but the first summer we lived on the farm was SO DANG HOT that it was impossible to heat the house up even more with a clothes dryer. I discovered that I love the smell of my t-shirts when they've come in from the line.
BUT I have to re-soften the sheets and towels by throwing them into the dryer on "no heat" with a pair of clean sneakers (we keep an old pair just for this purpose) to make them not be crunchy. Where is the person whose clothes get softened by the wind?!? Our wind has salt (and pollen) in it. Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Zoe, apparently you have tornado-class winds in the UK, that keep your towels fluffy: )
Lisa, you read my blog? : ) Happy to hear from you.
Barb, I MISS YOU SO MUCH. I'm numb from homesickness most of the time. But a few more years, and we'll try to come home. J will have a sabbatical. We will see if we can make it work. In the mean time, come visit us again? I think of you all the time, we go geocaching every week and I just don't care about logging anymore, but we still love it. I solved some puzzles myself recently: ) I also remember the moments we had together riding, when you forgot my name and said later, "I could only think 'Lytha'!" and the time you said, "What do you think about eating on the trails?" and I said, "I really don't mind if you eat while riding your horse." *lol* We had the best times.
Neversummer, where do you live?
Tina, I appreciate what you said about the fire risk cuz I worked for an insurance claim office and most home fires are caused from dryers. yikes. Tina, today J's mom taught me how to use a German front-load washer and dryer, and I did a load a few hours later and remembered the lint trap, but promptly forgot the freaking water drawer. Then panicked and stopped it and dumped the water. It's just not natural for me yet.
Becky, yay, I know! I mean, I remember, from hotels and home.
Crystal, so far no sign of dryer sheets, and I went to a fancy store today. *sigh* I need my dryer sheets!
KB, I don't hang things outside cuz of bugs. And sun-bleaching, and bird poop. Mostly bugs.
Aarene, please explain the sneakers? I must know.
I cannot imagine life with no dryer, or for that matter a washing machine with an almost 3 hour cycle. I don't have that much time in my life since I often work 15 hour days. I will admit I am one that dislikes line dried clothes and towels, I call them crunchy clothes.
sneakers bash up the crunchiness. better than fabric softener, and much less stinky (I hate the chemically scented fabric softeners!).
Clean tennis balls do the same thing, but Roo keeps grabbing them out of the basket and then they aren't clean!
This is Tina on my cats account lol!!
Lytha, Once you get figure out how fast your water evaporates, it will get easier. I only emptied mine after I had dried all my laundry and then just filled it again the next time I did laundry. You don't have to scoop the lint out after every load when doing all your laundry in one day.The water box for mine was 4 x 12 inch and the fill line was 4 inches deep.
AareneX, that is funny about the tennis balls. My cats were the ones stealing them out of my basket lol!
That is teh one and only thing I dislike about traveling in Europe - teh lack of REAL washers and dryers. :0)
Our newest washer is a front load with a glass window. It also takes FOREVER to wash a load. It takes an hour and a half to do a load of sheets. My old washer, which was a top load that filled with water, did it in 45 minutes. So, it's not just a German thing. :0)
My 20 year old electric dryer still kicks butt though. It will have those sheets dry in under 40 minutes. It takes all day with a European dryer (if one can even be found)!
My son and daughter in law have a basement and the washer is there. The washer is very small and uses only a small amount of water and takes forever to run the cycle. She has a small drawer like on the side of the washer and you use about a tablespoon of laundry liquid and a little bleach. I never feel like the clothes get clean when I am there. She has a full size dryer. There house is three stories and was probably a three family house at one time since there was a kitchen on the top floor when they bought the frig in the kitchen is about the size of an 8 by 2 box with no freezer. Since so many people in Germany do no use ice it is ok. They do have a freezer in the basement. She will be moving to Dubai in the fall so the house will be for rent.
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