Sundays are for Laundry

All my major shopping done, I decided that yesterday would be a good day to relax and get some laundry done. I carried my half-full Burpee seed/laundry bag down 6 flights of stairs to the laundry room in the basement to find that, not surprisingly, all of the washers were full, and there were bags of clothes next to them, of people waiting to do their loads next. There are countdown clocks on the washers, and three were within minutes of being done, so I decided to wait. Luckily, a German guy walked in. I asked him for help, and he graciously let me put my clothes in the first washer that was ready, even though one of the waiting bags was his. Here's what he showed me:

1. Press the unlock button.
2. Take out the done clothes and pile them on top of the washer. Stick your clothes in.
3. Choose one of the 6 or so washing programs. "A is best; I always use A," he said. A is for cotton and has three water temperatures: 40, 60, or 90 degrees. 40 degrees (over 100 deg F) seemed sufficient to me.
4. Pull out the little drawer in the machine and add detergent. Optionally, add softener. I had heard that German water was extra-hard, and that if you don't use softener you'll end up with stiff clothes. So when he offered to let me use his softener, I let him pour in tons. Bad idea, it later turned out, as I am sensitive to fragrance and that softener guaranteed my room will have a strong smell for days.
5. Go over to the pay machine, select your machine number, and pay 2.10 euro. That's right,
about $2.75 for a load about 50-75% the size of an American load. I asked the guy, "Really?" "Really," he assured me.
6. Press the green button to start the wash cycle.

The countdown timer showed 23 minutes. "Ok, so about half an hour?" I asked the guy. "No, no, an hour and 30 minutes! Maybe an hour and 20 minutes," he said. Oh man, and I had wanted to go down to the river. Oh well, what can you do?

I came down just over an hour later, to help one of my classmates with his first load of laundry. Someone had taken out my clothes and piled them on top of the washer, so I guess they were done. I went through the steps with my classmate, but when he showed me his detergent, I was skeptical. It had a picture of a washer and clothes on it, but it was called something like Anti-Calc Pulver. I turned the box over, which showed a clean metal coil and a metal coil covered with calcium deposits, and I told him that I didn't think it was detergent, but powder for removing hard water deposits from the washer. We really need our German class! I grabbed my clothes and went back up 6 flights of stairs to get my detergent for him to use.

Right after he started his washing program, the machine showed 20-some minutes, but a few minutes later it showed over 40 minutes. Another German guy came in and I asked him if the machines really take an hour and a half per laod. He said it's more like 50 minutes. We also showed him the anti-calc pulver but he wasn't sure what it was. "Sorry!" he said.

Back upstairs, I grabbed a drying rack from the bathroom, opened my window wide, and hung my clothes. The drying rack was more than large enough for all the clothes I had washed. Nice! This morning, after dreaming about reading an article about washing laundry in Germany, which said that the kind of laundry detergent I'd bought was "not recommended for beginners," I found that all my clothes were dry. Very fragrant, but dry. I am satisfied. I just have to buy some of my own laundry softener, as my classmate, who used my detergent without any softener, said his clothes ended up a bit hard.

I'm grateful that I actually did make it out of the dorms and down to the Elbe river yesterday. My classmate and I caught the tram there. We walked around a bit and crossed the river to go into the Neustadt district. There was a nice pedestrian corridor there. Lots of people were out, enjoying the good weather and eating ice cream. We got some frozen yogurt that was delicious, even though it was the "rotten fruit" flavor. No, not really, "roten" means red here.

The old buildings in Dresden are impressive. I need to buy a guide book and start reading up on them and the city's history. The Elbe is a nice river as well, though I have to admit I like natural or at least more natural rivers better than rivers with a lot of development built up next to them. The Mississippi has spoiled me for life!