Day 5

Sunday (Söndag) means “laundry day” to me. So, after a little sleeping in and loafing with coffee (and the “Honey Cheerios” noted below), I gathered up my dirty clothes and marched downstairs to the laundry in the hotel to begin the next step in my naturalization. Of course, there’s some interesting twists on mundane things.

First, the washers are all front-load. That’s fine. Had that at home. But these are tiny! Here’s a pic of the washer with my hand in it – you can see that the door opening for the washer is maybe 9” or 10” across.

Luckily, I don’t have too many clothes to wash. Also, the dryers basically “go to dry”, as opposed to the old dinosaur that was in the basement in the US. There’s a moisture/humidity sensor and it goes until that says the load is dry. Wild.

Also, I’ve noticed that sometimes, there’s some pretty niche vocabulary (like washing detergent info or machine instructions) and those are times when the camera feature on Google Translate is a life-saver. It’s pretty easy to imagine putting your supplies in the wrong bin!

Anyway, it looks like my kids’ schools have been closed for the next 2 weeks (and then week 3 is to be spring break), so I’m guessing they are going to go ignorant in that time. Global pandemics are so inconvenient!