Day 28: Packing Up
Final Night
With my final night in my hotel in Sindelfingen, I’m packing up and getting ready to move to an Airbnb for the remainder of my stay in Germany. While I’ve enjoyed staying in this hotel, I’m looking forward to having my own place that doesn’t involve constantly worrying about my keycard, parking ticket, or when it’s time for room cleaning. Thank you to the Niu Star!
A Maze
To make my life easier, I decided I needed some large trash bags to carry my dirty laundry. Optically, I’ll look like I did in college, slinging a trash bag around with my laundry in it, but I don’t have another choice. I’d prefer not to put dirty running clothes inside my suitcase. Plus, it’s only for a short drive to Stuttgart.
Walking into Kaufland, I first grabbed a bite to eat from the bakery section. Given that it was 40 minutes till closing, the bakery section was nearly empty, except for a few pieces of bread here and there. Inspecting the remains, I came across ready-made hotdogs, which I had to try. I’ve never seen something like this before.
To be honest, it wasn’t half bad! The bread was harder to chew into than I’d normally prefer, but I thought it was interesting that the ketchup, mustard and onions were already on the hotdog, ready to go. I’m not sure if I’ll have this again, but it certainly hit the spot.
With my ready-made hotdogs in hand, I set off to find some trash bags. I’m not sure if it was from being tired from the day, but it took me almost 35 minutes find the trash bags. In the US, one normally finds trash bags near the cleaning supplies (e.g. mops, cleaning solution, trash containers, etc.). I walked up and down the same aisles, painstakingly inspecting each and every item to see if I missed it when walking past previously.
This proved fruitless. At one point, I walked through the entire grocery store, confused why I couldn’t find any trash bags. I asked a store employee, but all I could do was point to the translated word for trash bag in Google Translate, Müllbeutel. She walked me to the end of one aisle, then with a series of hand motions and mumbling to herself, she ended with the word links (translation: left).
I had no idea what she said as she basically whispered to herself, and then she immediately turned back to her work, leaving me even more clueless than before I asked her for help. Clearly, it was somewhere on the left side, just not sure which aisle. Eventually snaking my way to the back of the store, as I turned to face the section containing plastic sandwich bags and freezer bags, just beyond, there they finally were — the trash bags! I would have never guessed the trash bags would be located next to sandwich bags, but there they were.
Embarrassed, I grabbed a pack, checked out at the cashier and ate my ready-made hotdogs on the walk home to finish packing up and getting ready for my move tomorrow.
Frieden und Liebe ❤️ (translation: peace and love)