Some of the hardest things to do here are the things that I don’t even think about at home.  And the worst, laundry.  It shouldn’t be so hard, and yet, please follow along on the adventure of our first load of laundry.

5 pm – put a load in, follow the directions and feel real proud of myself when it all starts to work.  Realize the wash cycle takes two hours and feel like that’s a long time.

8 pm – the machine stops around 7, but I forgot about it.  Open it up and realize it’s all dry!  Whoa, easy peasy!  The machine is a washer and a dryer, but I didn’t realize it would be so easy! Nope, the bottom is covered in soap and clearly I put it on the dry cycle before.  I spent three hours drying dirty clothes.  F.   Start over again.   Think we’re going good!  Two more hours.

10 pm –  woop!  Clothes are wet and smell clean!  But now it’s too late to start the dryer per our apartment rules. So it shall sit over night.

10 am, the next morning – OK!  I’ve dried before, we can do this.  I set to one of the options under sèchage, which my dictionary tells me means “to dry”.  Set, go.  Water pours in to the machine and we spend another two hours washing the clothes. F again.

2 pm – we’ve been out and about, but we really need to get to the wet clothes.  Pick a button that is DIRECTLY under sèchage. Set, go.  It only dries for 13 minutes. Then stops.  Clearly, it’s all wet.  21 hours ago I dried for two hours, which button was that?!  Set, go, 13 minutes. We do this a number of times.  Clothes are still wet.

3 pm – ohh, one button says “minutes”.  How did I not see this one before?! Hit it repeatedly until we get a solid 78 minutes of drying time.

7 pm – come home to only slightly damp clothes!  3 pairs of socks, one pair of basketball shorts, two t-shirts, one sweater and a few underpants.  Just about 24 hours.

Sometimes adventure really just looks like two educated adults staring at a tiny machine and cursing every thirteen minutes.