Moving up

Life with Frau is awful. I haven't really told you guys about it because I didn't want you to worry. I was dealing with it. But it has been terrible. First, there are the ants. They are everywhere. All over my bed, in all my clothes, in my computer, everywhere. It is disgusting. Then last Friday, we had dinner with her and there were ants in the food she served us. Second, Frau is awful. She wants things her way. She will come into my room, while I am there, and close the windows and blinds on a hot day (because she is convinced that somehow that will cool down the house). She comes into my room when I am gone and moves things around. She leaves us mean notes about how messy the bathroom is when we don't keep anything in there. Third, food. She doesn't let us in the kitchen. So we eat out every meal. I have no where to keep any food because the ants get to it in my room and that is the only place we could keep food. Breakfast in 3 pieces of stale bread. Life there has gotten worse there since after the 10 day trip. It has become awful, and it really wasn't just me. Amelia and Jana felt the exact same way.

So we talked to Tom. He said we should leave. It was really bad. So we talked to the institute. And they agreed completely. She isn't doing what she is supposed to be. And you really can't get rid of a problem
like ants. This was decided yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday evening, the woman who works at the school came and talked to us and said she had called Frau to tell her we were moving out. Frau was pretty upset. So she promised Frau we would come and talk to her when we came home last night. We spent a few hours at the institute and then headed home to face the beast. We knocked on her door. She came out with an ugly look on her face. She said "they told me you are moving. I don't understand why. Tell me." So, rather than rehash the whole conversation, let me just tell you it was awkward. She really should have left it with Oh, I'm sorry you are moving, bye. But she didn't. She went on and on about how we needed to talk to her not the secretary and her voice cracked a couple of times because she was close to crying. We just said "ja" and "danke" and we got through it.

This morning, the taxi came and we left. The new place we are living is great. The people are so so so nice. They are a couple in their 60s named Edit and Helmut. They sat us down and spent about 20 minutes explaining to us how to get to/from the house with public transport. Mostly in German, speaking perfect English when we needed it. Then they set up the internet for us. Yes, we have internet. This makes skyping a ton easier! Then they sat down with us and said "so tell us about you". So we told them a bit about us and they told us about themselves, again, as much in German as we could manage. Edit said she tries not to speak English when we can understand it in German. Anyway, my favorite line of the whole thing was when they said "use du, we are family". My second favorite line was when Edit walked into our room. We had the window open and we asked if she would prefer that we close it. She responded, "No, it is your room. Have it as you like." So we are all thrilled to be living here.

Lesson learned:

Rather than endure, try to fix it. Yes, it is noble to endure and you grow from it. But there is no need to put yourself through unnecessary pain. Grow a backbone and change it.