So last week my landlord leaves me this note saying that she noticed all the bottles of mineral water in my kitchen. That it was fine, but Obermensing, the burb I'm living in, has the best water of all the German villages. So I felt stupid, like I'm some big fucking American waster of resources and money. I started leaving my empty mineral water bottles at school. 

Then this week I start to run out of clean clothes and decide it's time to do some laundry. My lease specifies that I'm only allowed to do five loads of laundry a month, so I waited as long as I could. I went and bought some laundry detergent, and the next day I find another note saying that I can't use this kind of laundry detergent because the water in Obermensing is "VERY HARD!" 

My landlady left me a different kind of soap, that looked like the tab I throw in the dishwasher at home. ONE tab! I'm like, "I've been here two weeks, don't I at least get two fucking tabs?!?" So I cram 14 pairs of boxers, 14 pairs of socks, some jeans, and five shirts into this tiny european washing machine. I figure I'll have to wait to wash the rest. I throw in the dishwater tab, and press go. The timer says it will take 70 minutes, and the thing ends up stopping 4 or 5 times. I'm not sure why, cause I can't read what it says, but I hit go and it goes for like another 15 minutes and stops.

I finally finish the damn load of laundry, and have to hang all my underwear on this archaic fucking rack in the middle of the living room so that when the neighbors walk by they can see what great taste I have in boxer shorts. Germans don't own dryers. It's apparently wasteful and indulgent to wear dry underwear. Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe wearing dirty pants and no underwear.