Sperrmülltag

Today was Sperrmülltag (Big Garbage Day) which we have been eagerly waiting for since we arrived. It has taken this long to really get settled in our apartment, sifting through years of leftover junk that each Resident Director needed to have and then left behind. We had been given the green light to do some purging, and it has been a huge job but our apartment actually feels like home now.

Starting last Thursday, small mountains of garbage started to grow outside each apartment building in our neighborhood. We added to our mountain with quite a lot of things that were stashed in the basement storage unit as well as a grimy, worn out, ugly one-armed sofa that was squeezed into the overly full living room. In the photo, one of the garbage men is tossing part of this sofa into the back of the truck as if it was weightless. It was not. Getting it down the stairs and outside was a sight. We were happy to see it go, and Nikolas and Peter watched the garbage truck eat it up.

There's another mangy sofa stuffed into the back of the storage unit hidden behind nine bicycles which are waiting for the students to arrive. Can't wait for the next Sperrmülltag to get rid of that one!