05 June 2008

A rough start to the trip.

Thursday, June 5th:
I mentioned that we had a delay in starting our trip. That would be because the German managed to get stuck in our elevator.

(this is not our elevator. It is a representation of one;))

He was carrying the car seats down to the rental when he let a strap get caught in the doors. Luckily he had his handy with him and called me or I might have fallen asleep on the couch with the girls and left him there all night.

I tried vainly to get the strap through the doors and went back to get a knife to try to cut it, but the strap was too taut and the end was too thick. The German kept pressing the emergency button, but it only produced a shrill audible alarm: it wasn't hooked up to any service notification. Luckily, a woman who works in a business one floor down from the elevator heard the alarms and came up to investigate. She very kindly talked to the German while I went for a knife and tried to persuade the girls to stay and watch a movie rather than stand on the stairs in their nightclothes watching me saw at a strap....

When my knife failed and I went to look for something else, she found a compatriot who had a smaller knife and was able to saw/push the end of the strap through the doors (after 5 minutes). And when that didn't work, she knew where to find the hausverwalterung and sherousted him out and made him come and deal with the fact that the elevator was still stuck between floors (turned out pushing at the doors rythmically made it drop down to the next floor).

After the German explained to the house manager that he didn't get stuck on purpose, we then had to carry all our stuff down 6 flights of stairs in multiple trips. That's a box of food (not to be left to rot, we brought it and ate it at the in-laws), a bag of our clothes, a box of clothes for the girls, bike helmets, cat, two children, 2 car seats,backpack, two cameras,sippy cups, bottles, milk in cooler bag... argh.

We got to the Sauerlands and to bed at 02:30. Tomorrow Amsterdam.

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