What Did I Do???

On Thursday morning I went out to the apartment to do some organizing.

I first put our new dishes in the dishwasher, studied the panel and after a few minutes was able to start the machine. It happily went along, washing our dishes. Success!

Then I tackled the washing machine. Much more complicated than the dishwasher, I pulled out the manual helpfully provided in English by Frau M. I placed our new bedding in the drum, turned the dials to the recommended temperature, selected the correct spin cycle and pressed the start button. It also began to whirl happily.

"This is not so hard," I thought as I left the room.

About 10 minutes later I went into the kitchen and saw the dishwasher was still running smoothly. Then I went into the bathroom where the laundry machines are located. And immediately stepped into a pool of water and suds. There was water all over the floor and two very angry looking orange lights flashing at me!

"Oh! My! God! What did I do?"

There I was, in the apartment less than a day, and I already broke the washing machine? I was pretty sure this would be a problem!

I had only three small dish towels in the apartment. It took me a very long time to clean up the water. Then I read the instruction manual and walked my way through the trouble-shooting steps. But the orange lights refused to stop flashing.

In fear, I e-mailed the issue to Frau M. Fortunately, she replied that she didn't imagine it could have possibly been me. On Friday afternoon she stopped by to have a look. She couldn't fix the issue either. She brought in a repairman. He didn't know what the issue was and needed to call the manufacturer. Turns out it was likely something that happened when the apartment cleaners cleaned the machine after the previous tenants moved out. Finally it was fixed and happily washing as well.

Frau M was lovely about it all. And she definitely wasn't angry, because we were invited over to her house for Swiss Fondue last night, along with our new neighbors. The food was fabulous and the company exceptionally enjoyable!