Tuesday, June 9, 2009

My Big Idea

Well, big for me at least! I have been playing around with the idea of making a scrapbook. If you knew me personally, you would know that this is not really my thing! I have lots of friends who are great at scrap booking and I always love the way that their finished products look. It is just a little on the cutesy side for me. Plus, I have never thought I’d be all that good at it! However, I think I have decided to start one. My idea is this….I’d like to dedicate one or two pages for each trip that Deaner and I go on over the next three years. For each trip I would pick a few of my favorite pictures and use them along with our ticket stubs from buses/trains/museums ect. I’d like to have the name of the city on the page and the dates that we were there. The end product being a chronologically documented timeline of all our adventures. What does everything think? Any advice from those seasoned scrap bookers out there? I don’t think that there are going to be any really great scrap booking stores here in Wiesbaden so I was thinking I would probably have to wait until I go home to hit up Michael’s. I won’t have to buy everything at once because I will be creating the pages as I go. I’ll just buy enough stuff to get me through the end of the year. I’d love any tips that anyone can offer me!

Today is another dreary day in Wiesbaden. I am assuming that my friends got here safely but I haven’t heard from them yet. I am sure that they are exhausted! I’m just guessing but I know the flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt is approximately 9 hours. The flight from San Francisco to Atlanta is about 5 hours. That makes for a VERY long flight with two adults, one 1 year old, and only 2 airline seats! Ugh! I am sure they are sleeping some of the trip off right now!

I have a question for those of you in Germany. This happened to us twice this weekend and really annoyed me. Deaner and I always carry cash when we go anywhere in Germany. For those not familiar, Germany is really behind the times and it is never a sure thing that a store or restaurant will accept credit cards. This has been a HUGE adjustment for us! Anyways, we always have cash to pay restaurant bills and we typically leave a tip for our waiter or waitress. Saturday night we went to a restaurant we eat in often and when it came time to pay the bill Deaner gave the waitress 2, 20 euro bills. I honestly don’t remember what the cost of the dinner was but the bottom line was that the waitress couldn’t make change. She asked me if I had exact change which of course I did not. So, she gave me back a 5 or a 10, thus shorting herself over a euro on the bill and making no tip. Deaner said “oh! Well we were going to leave you a tip” and she responded with “you can do it next time”. Of course we both felt badly about it but I wasn’t about to give her a 5 or 10 euro tip (which is what she would have gotten if I hadn’t accepted it back)!! What is up with that? Then at lunch the next day it happened to us again somewhere else! Geez! Deaner paid for our 11.50 euro meal with a 20 and the guy was only able to give us back a 10, shorting himself 1.50 euro. At this point I was really irritated and didn’t feel bad about it. If a restaurant can’t make change for CASH I sort of feel like it is their problem! It isn’t like we are paying for things with 100 euro bills or something! These are 20’s people! If you want to be paid for your WHOLE bill, have some change handy!! This never happened in the States. Probably because everyone used plastic!

Anyways, those are my stories for this morning. I don’t really have anything to do today after lunch with Deaner. I did all my ironing like a good Haus Frau yesterday. Not sure how I will fill up my afternoon ! I hope my Sookie Stackhouse books don’t take too long to get here! I hope everyone has a good Tuesday!

8 comments:

Megan said...

Good luck with the scrapbook. I have tried really hard to scrapbook, but it's just not my cup of tea. It seems like I've just ended up with all of the supplies and no scrapbook!

As for the tipping, the last I was told, tipping is not such a big deal over there. I can't remember if my parents tipped when they lived in England,I think they did. They did carry around a coin can, since one pound comes in coin form, they could quickly acquire tons of change. Maybe a coin can would be good for you? That way you would always have smaller amounts of euros on hand. It really wasn't that heavy, and it made life easier for them!

Jenny Georgio-who said...

I used to love scrap booking and did a great job of it during my HS years. I mainly documented the wrestling trips since I was the wrestling team manager and in turn I dated a few of the boys. LOL

If you want some really interesting ideas and great tips, check out my blog roll. My friend Brenda at www.scrapbookdiaries.blogspot.com has some amazing ideas and tips. Her blog is AMAZING for that sort of thing!

Good luck with the scrapbooking!

As for the restos not having any change. I don't get it. For a country that thrives on "German engineering" it seems like they can't do simple things proper. (I work for a German company, head office is in Deizau). If you feel so badly about not being able to tip the servers because of their lack of change, maybe you should break a 20 and keep it in your purse (5 euro notes and then at least 5 euro worth of the coins).

Melinda said...

Gleat! Love the blog, just kept me busy for a solid 20 minutes which is good because I'm bored to death.
Anyway - quick comment on the scrapbook...you can use anything really instead of waiting until you come home to get stuff from Michael's. Like use maps as your background paper from wherever you were. or postcards. Cut out cool letters from magazines, etc. to spell the city you visited.
I've got lots of ideas. I've been trying to put one together of Matt and I. Hit me up and we'll discuss.
Miss you!!!!!!!!

The Pink Chick said...

I tried scrapbooking, but I was terrible at it. I am sure you will be great at it! I have been sticking to making photobooks. I can't wait to see your creations!!!

New Girl on Post said...

I think the scrapbook idea is great. I'm still trying to work on my college scrapbook. Obviously I'm way behind on that!

jlc said...

Tipping doesn't happen in France either!!


Just recently found your blog via MG and got sucked in!

Love it!

:)

Anonymous said...

I think the scrap book is a great idea. And 20 years from now, it will be something you and Richard will cherish.

Love,

Dick/Dad

Crazy Shenanigans-JMO said...

It sounds like they need to seriously catch up on the ol' debit/credit system!!!