The Refrigerator / Der Kühlschrank

Our apartment has a small kitchen with aqua cabinets and a white tile backsplash with a stripe of red running through the middle of it. Very chic. Built into one of the cabinets is the refrigerator. That is not the mark of a high end appliance hiding behind faux cabinet doors. Oh, no. The fridge is built into one of the cabinets because it is the size of one of the cabinets.

Not much bigger than a fridge you might take to college, we thought our mini-fridge may cause us a problem or two when we first saw it in March. In some ways, the tiny fridge makes sense in a European lifestyle. Without a car, groceries are carried home by hand. We are lucky to live within a couple blocks of two small grocery stores with a third, much larger one, on the other side of the park (about a 15 minute walk or two stops on the bus). This totally changes the way we shop. We've been to the store almost every day because it's hard to get much more home.

But, the size of our fridge is ridiculous. A few drinks, a couple yogurts, some eggs, and it's full. So, we decided we needed a second one and made room for it in the 'Winter Garden', an odd sun porch off the kitchen which is a good place to dry clothes (more about laundry on another day) and store things. The new fridge has about three times as much space as the old fridge, so should we be able to haul everything home, we're ready to store it!

But forget about ice cream....freezer space remains pathetic.