Adjusting To Life (In Germany)

As everyone should now by now, Todd and I have made it to Germany!  Woo hoo.  Finally.

We've  been here less than a week and it needless to say will take some time to get adjusted.  I don't know if its Europe in general or just Germany, but there are quite a few difference from the good 'ole USofA, but nothing too awful.  It will just take some getting used to.   Now on to our time here ....

Our flight was pretty uneventful.  It was about 7.5 hrs. long.  They served us a full dinner (salad, roll, ham, crackers, beef or chicken, mashed potatoes, oatmeal cookie, and quite possibly something else that I have forgotten) and breakfast (egg mcmuffin which happened to be kinda blah).   They showed 2 different movies during the flight.  The first was "Life As We Know It" and I have no idea what the second one was because I was sleeping.   Come to think of it I think there was a second movie unless it was a dream, but I think it had Jennifer Anniston in it.   The only other thing about the flight is that there wasn't any turbulence which kind of surprised me and we had a super smooth landing.  If only every flight was a nice as this one without the 7.5 hrs.

For those of you wondering, we did in fact bring the cats with us.  They flew in the cargo area so I'm not really sure how they took to flying.   But, I guess there's a first time for everything!   I will say that they seemed a little scared when we got our hands back on them.  Cowboy didn't whine for the rest of the afternoon!!   The downside to bringing the cats with us is that there wasn't a pet friendly TLF available for us so for now the pets are boarded at The Farm Kennel.   I don't really know much about this place except it was recommended on my Ramstein Yahoo Group.  They were nice enough to let us board them the day we got in town especially since we didn't have a reservation.  So far I don't have any complaints with them.  They feed them well (there goes their diet!! ... especially since it was working so well ... NOT) and they put them in a big kennel together.  Just for the record I do feel extremely bad about having to board them, they really are like my kids!!!  Things just aren't the same without them if you ask me (and not Todd).

Some other stuff is that we seem to be getting stuff done in a timely manner.  My jeep arrived in Germany the same day we did, which is totally awesome.  We were lucky enough to have our sponsors volunteer their car to us if need be, but it didn't come to that.   Another good thing is that Todd already passed the drivers test before getting over here, so the day after our car arrived Todd was able to start driving.  Todd passing the test and then being able to drive us sounds simple enough, but there was a little more to it than that - he had to watch a movie, we had to get tags for the car, and we still need to get it inspected (within one month of arrival).  I'm still not licensed yet, but hopefully Wednesday.

We have an American phone number set up as a house phone through MagicJack.  It seems to be working ok.   I've talked to all of my immediate family multiple times since we've been here.

Todd and I had planned to do our first sightseeing adventure last Saturday, but we decided that house hunting was probably a little more important.  Not to mention we aren't sure if we can drive our car into cities since it hasn't been inspected AND we have no idea how to ride the trains yet.  Since we clearly need more time to get things done/figured out we've pushed our adventure to this coming Friday since Todd has alot of homework due by Thursday.  We have a full day planned in Köln (Cologne), Germany.   It is the 4th largest city in Germany and has a ton of stuff to see!   We have many places to see, but one that I think is going to be super cool is the Imhoff-Stollwerck Museum .... aka The Chocolate Museum.  Not only do you learn about chocolate, but from what I've read you can even get samples of chocolate while you are there!  Yummy!  One other thing I'm super excited to see is the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral).  I've read that it happens to be the most famous gothic structure in Germany and its most visited landmark ... 20,000 people a day.   I will be sure to document our excursion in Köln for a future blog post.

I would have really liked to start traveling, but skipping our trip to Köln did indeed pay off.   Friday afternoon I printed out some houses that were available to be rented and started going through them to see what I was interested in.   My top pick was the townhouse in the town of Mölschbach.  The description mentioned having all the amenities we needed (including DSL which is a must for Todd for school and pet friendly for me) plus its a little town "richly enveloped in a forest".   Once Todd got home from work we started talking about all the different houses.  When I told him about this house he immediately thought it sounded perfect as well.   We ended up taking a drive to find the house that night.  When we got to the town we narrowed it town to two different townhouses, but decided we didn't really care which one it was because they were beside each other.  We knew that we loved the location enough that it didn't really matter.  By the time we left we had decided this is the house we wanted so Todd called the owners/landlords and made an appointment for the next day (to be at the same time as another couple).   We made a very detailed plan of all the places we wanted to see plus a short visit to see the cats.  We had heard that getting a house can be a tricky business since so many people are doing the same.   I've heard that just when you think you might be getting a house through a realtor the landlords will be renting it out at the same time or something crazy like that.  I've also heard that if multiple people want the house/apt they will do interviews.   That's crazy talk to me!   Anyways, since we really wanted this place we decided that we would show up at least 30 minutes early.  Saturday morning came and it was VERY rough, i.e. me only sleeping about 4 hours due to my off sleeping schedule, then me breaking a bright red bottle of nail polish all over our WHITE bathroom, then Todd having to go get some nail polish remover at the store, and finally getting it all cleaned in the bathroom and the kitchen (yes, I was stupid and got it in the kitchen sink ... on white dishes).   We finally got on our way to start looking at houses.   Our first stop was to our friend Carlin Gray's house, he nice enough to let us borrow his GPS and it was nice to finally see a friendly face (they were in Cheyenne with us).  Turns out Carlin's house is awesome!!!   He is up on a mountain/rolling hill (whatever you want to call it) with a view of more green rolling hills.  He has an absolutely beautiful view!!!   Like I said Carlin was nice enough to let us borrow his GPS.  I think we might have been the only knuckleheads out there trying to house hunt without one (it was a bit of a struggle getting back to Vogelweh from Kaiserslautern after seeing the house on Friday night ).   **Some advice to anyone who is reading this ... if you are ever house hunting in Germany... and probably all of Europe ... make sure you have a GPS.   It will make everything 100% easier.  You and your spouse will still be talking to one another at the end of the day with the aid of a trusty GPS. **  Back to the story .... we saw quite a few places - some we liked, some we didn't.  We made  a call about one other place but turns out it was already rented.  Then we headed to what we were hoping would soon become our house.   We got there even earlier than we were wanting to, but took full advantage of it.  We drove around the town to check everything out finding a little bakery and at least one neighborhood bar.   We then made our way up to the house.   Todd and I had already agreed that we wanted this house, no matter what the inside looked like, but seeing the inside only made our choice that much better.   The main level has a small kitchen as soon as you walk in the door, half bath, an open room next to the kitchen for a table, a den, and a balcony.  The patio has a view looking down on the whole town which is super awesome.  It has spiral stairs leading upstairs to the bedrooms and downstairs to the basement.   Upstairs had two average rooms, a master bedroom, and a full bath with a bathtub separate from the shower.   The basement has another huge den-like room with a small patio off of it, a tiny bedroom, and a huge laundry/utility room.   The only downside to this place is the people who are currently living in it aren't moving out until April 29th which means living in the TLF on Vogelweh for a month with that cats being boarded (unless we can get into the pet friendly TLFs).   We decided that alone wasn't enough to not make us want this place so while we were on the phone with the landlord 2 other couples showed up to view the house.   At first the owners didn't know who they should let have it, but I think with the help of the current residents pointing at us the owners decided to give it to us.  They said it was because we were the first to contact them, but I think it was the help of the guy pointing at us.   Either way, it appears to be ours.   We haven't signed a contract yet, but we shook hands on it and Todd says that according to German law that is a contract.   The owners actually live about 300 meters away with a big house and land with horses.   They have invited us over on Wednesday to do the contract and dinner, it should be a good time.  This place is definitely bigger than anything that we've had before including our house in Little Rock.  I don't think we'll be anywhere close to filling it up.  That is just the excuse I was looking for to buy some German (or other European) furniture to help fill the space.  From what we've heard most people don't get lucky on their first day of house hunting.  Carlin said he did 2 intense weeks before they found their place although having 4 kids could be make it a little harder.

I should be tired considering its 1am here, but since my sleep schedule is a tad off (putting it mildly) I am still wide awake while Todd is snoozing in bed.  But since its so late and this post is already long that's enough for now.  For anyone who read this whole thing I'm sorry if you go cross-eyed from the length.

Tschüß