Knock, knock....anyone home?

Friday, 3:00pm: doorbell rings. I answer to a man standing there asking me if my house number is 2 (in German), which it is. I answer yes and stare at him with a blank face. He goes back to his car, gets his phone and stands at my door talking to the person at the other end of the line. Keep in mind, I have NO IDEA who this is. It is 27 degrees outside and I'm holding a baby standing there with my door wide open while he chats. Eventually, he hands the phone to me along with a sheet of paper. He is a collector saying I owe 354.60 Euro to RWE the electric company and he wants it now or he's cutting off our electricity! Keep in mind this is about $537.00 USD. My jaw drops and I explain there must be some misunderstanding. I eventually talk the lady into giving me until the next morning to get it taken care of. (Long story short, we jump in our car and head to the bank where our automatic allotment has been coming out every month to RWE and they are closed. We head back the next morning and RWE is closed. So, out of fear, we pay the full $537 which includes a collection fee to assure ourselves we are not without electricity for the weekend!) $1000 bucks later - we had electricity all weekend and find out our money has been going to the wrong account. YEAH! We could have told you that :-) The kinks are still being worked out.

Friday, 6:30pm: knock, knock, knock... (ok, actually the doorbell again). This time, two German police. Hallo?! Spreakin si English? one did thank goodness. They were inquiring about our mystery neighbor across the street who we haven't seen for quite sometime. We have deduced he is getting divorced and has a girlfriend on the side who picks him up because he no longer parks his car in the driveway. This is all the Rowland theory of course.... I told the police I had not seen him, but his trashcan was put out on Tuesday (which I only noticed b/c trash didn't come until Thursday). Wonder what he did???!!!! My doors are locked. He seemed fairly friendly. lol

Sunday, 7:30pm: ding, dong.... Hallo! Our German neighbor (very nice family) says he's sorry to bother us so late, but our trampoline is blowing away and it is dangerous. Yikes! We look outside and low and behold it is seriously flying away - like upside down in the drain ditch on the other side of the yard about to roll into the street and smash out some windows in somebody's house! Guess we should have had that anchored down, lol.

To sum it up: I'm not answering my door anymore.