THE LIFE OF THE RIDDLE

THE LIFE OF THE RIDDLE

Sunday, January 13, 2008

German Christmas...as indentured servants.

It really is about time I get around to blogging about my European Christmas! For those of you just stumbling across my blog here are the details. My wealthy father-in-law offered to fly me and my husband (not so wealthy newlyweds) to Germany to spend Christmas with him in his beautiful German house for free!

Their was one catch though. We had to help my father in law (lets call him Heinz which is in fact his name) dig a hole. That's right a hole. Apparently water had been leaking into the basement of Heinz's house and he felt that December would be the best time to fix the problem.

Thus began our stint as indentured servants. Welcome to Germany here is your shovel! We dug and dug. I hauled away dirt and hand washed bricks. My hands blistered. I tried to keep the dirt off of Heinz's precious grass. Spencer handed buck after bucket of dirt up to me. When it got dark we still worked all with Heinz supervising "dig dig dig!" Spencer dug down 8 feet then his friend Michael arrived and did the rest.

2 days, 3 blisters and several thousand Euro later (thanks to a broken pipe line) we had finished the project and Herr Heinz was satisfied.

Apparently most indentured servants had to work for 8 years so we feel we got off pretty lucky. We finished right in time for Christmas. Here is a picture of Michael. Down the hole.

4 comments:

Evenstar said...

Well, at least you didn't have to work Christmas day! And now you know how to dig holes, it's a useful skill. :P

Evenstar said...

Did you bring me back a Milka bar? :)

Give Mease a chance said...

The thing is....insulation. you know?

Karen said...

Great blog Joan! I especially liked your review of the Twilight series. I thought I was the only one not completely enamored with them!