I am so far behind in posting that the next few posts will be brief. Besides, my main activities have been grading papers and preparing for my classes.

On Sunday (AKA the appliance day), I tried out the dishwasher in my apartment only to discover that it didn’t work. When the facility manager could not fix it, he called the technician. I expected one guy with a bunch of tools. Nope. Two guys, a pair of pliers, and a stair climbing dolly. This is what they did:

Cultural lesson #478: At least in Luxembourg, they commonly fix your appliances off-site. I suspect that my kitchen area is bigger than many, primarily since it’s also a dining room and living room. So that’s one reason for doing things this way. It probably saves time since the repair man doesn’t have to drive back-and-forth between his shop and the appliance.

“What do they do when your refrigerator breaks?” you might ask, thinking that it would be difficult to move a refrigerator. I suspect that most refrigerators in Europe are much smaller than the ones in the US. The refrigerator in my apartment is roughly 6′ high, 2′ wide, and probably 30” deep. That’s significantly more narrow than most US refrigerators. It’s plenty big for me, especially since I go to the store almost every day.