Learning Curves

There are a lot of things that are just a little bit different here. Each one has its own unique learning curve.

For example, our oven is a combination oven, microwave, and grill. You can even do fancy programming, such as “microwave for 5 minutes 5, then bake for 15 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius.” That’s a fun idea, unless you have to learn it through Google translate as you are trying to simply bake a frozen pizza while jetlagged, holding a 9-month-old and having the other 4 kids asking you to explain how the oven works and asking when dinner will be ready.

Another example is our dryer. Our dryer in the US heated the clothing and blew the humid air outside. Our dryer here is a condenser dryer, meaning it captures all the liquid in a container that you have to empty after every cycle. We, of course, went through three days of thinking the dryer was broken before finally learning the secret.

Out final example is keys. At our home in the US, locking the door was a choice. It was almost impossible to accidentally lock yourself out of the house. Here, the door only opens if you put in the key. No doorknob, just a keyhole. So, don’t ever leave home without a key … Ever.