Added a couple more Karlsruhe pictures. Not of my bike yet though, be patient. Instead they show the street I'm living in and a couple more random things.

The guy who looks after a block of flats in Germany is called der Hausmeister. They like the word Meister here, and I can see why, it's has an excellent sound. When the German's women's team won the world cup, they became Weltmeisters. Every year, readers of a certain German football magazine vote for the player they think was best in the air (i.e. with headers and stuff) in the past season. He then gets called der Luftmeister.

Anyway, to get back to the point, our Hausmeister is called Mario Stankovich, and likes to be known as Stanko. I've just arranged a visit from him tomorrow morning to look at my currently lauwarm shower. He doesn't speak a word of English, so it will be tough for me. I predict a lot of hand waving and contorted facial expressions - a bit like what happens when I get in the shower at the moment.