Welcome to 1983.

I am now the proud owner of .... (drum roll please)

a microwave!

I know it sounds silly. We manage to do all of our banking and bill paying on-line, we juggle various websites to stream the latest movies, we skype, facebook, blog, etc. And we have been living without a microwave for the last 7 months. We also have cheap pre-pay cell phones with no internet or keypads and we have a house phone for the first time in many years. So that's a little more like 2003 than 1983, but it's just another way we've gotten more high tech and more low tech all at the same time here. Our microwave even has a dial, no buttons, and no digital display.

It's not that I was ever anti-microwave, but when we moved here and had to get so many things to settle in to our new place, it was not high on the list. We also had nowhere to put it - I had to buy a little cart to hold the microwave. German kitchens are basically rooms with water and electrical hookups. We managed to buy our fridge and our sink/countertop/oven unit from the previous renters but there are no built in cabinets or shelves or anything.  I'm going to stop with the kitchen description now because I'm starting to bore myself.

So now we can heat up leftovers to our hearts' content. I will let you know if we pull out parachute pants or start listening to cassette tapes again. And if Brian grows out a mullet, that will really be news.