Bummer dude

This has just not been a good week.

Nothing catastrophic has happened, nothing sad, nothing that is unrecoverable from.

I'm just bummed out.

It must be a transition thing.

Okay, it's a transition thing and an isolation thing.  I know once I have a car, I will probably not go as many places as I dream of going now.  But the limitation is killing me.

I think I have a lot of self imposed limitations as well.  They are most likely stemming from fear which is a result of being in such a new environment - both geographically and military wise.

What I'm saying is - this is most likely in my head.  And will pass.

But still.


The feeling is isolation is starting to get sort of painful.  Which is ironic since I've had more outside human interaction this week than ever before.  I had my first "Senior Spouses Coffee" (which was actually dinner out) and met a lot of other spouses.  I had to leave early because John hadn't eaten and we only had one car...
Then last night, we had a Hail and Farewell where I met some more spouses and soldiers and families.

And I hate to bring it up because it was on accident.  It was.

But we were forgotten.
John even got up and hailed and farewelled some people.  But the commander forgot us.  Right after everyone started standing up and disbursing, another Major came over and handed me a yellow rose.  (A welcome to the wife/family.)  That's when the commander walked up and said "oh shit, I forgot John."  He quickly looked around the room to see if he could command everyone's attention again, but it was too late.  He looked down at me, still seated, and gave me a heart felt apology and shook my hand.  I immediately forgave him, of course.  The whole evening was put together so quickly and there wasn't a script or anything.  In the long run, it's not a big deal and it doesn't really matter to John.  He's the XO.  Everyone will know him eventually.

But very few people know who I am.  I am the wife who lives in the sticks without a car and limited internet (i.e. communication) access.  It made me want to cry.  But it was an accident.  That's all.  It was just the icing on the cake for the isolated girl who is trying to apply for jobs, trying to make friends, and trying to communicate back home...all fairly unsuccessfully.

So far.

Things will change.  Deep down I know this.  John's car will come in soon.  I will have independence to do whatever I want soon enough.  Go wherever I want.  See other people for Pete's sake!  I will volunteer and find a job and settle in.  It was just a rough week.

The silver lining (as there always is one) was after the Hail and Farewell.  We got around to talking with the commander, the Major who handed me my rose, and their wives and kids and started walking down to get an ice cream at a shop in the town center of Amberg.  It was a lovely night (especially after being in that hot restaurant for a few hours), and we chatted, and the charming environment of downtown Amberg was all around us.  Then we all walked back to our cars and window shopped and joked.  It was a really nice moment.  And hopefully a moment of turn around.



EDIT:  Today has already turned around when John informed me that the Jeep came in today!  It's purty! And more importantly, I have my own car again.  I am at the internet cafe.  Because I can be, and not because we had to do some major arranging of the schedules.  :)  PLUS, I signed up for some major training through ACS tomorrow.  I think I will be there from 9-5.  It's a lot of FRG stuff, but it's training.  Official training.  Something that I will be doing for me.  For free!  I figure, if anything, it will give me good insight to the workings of military spousal life that John just can't give me.  AND, I am in the midst of arranging a phone call to the states for some friend time.  Thanks Sarah!

So....see?  Things have already gotten better.  But man.  What a week!

Random pics from our first few weeks here

 I took this on the bus from Frankfurt.  I have no idea where we are.  I just enjoyed looking at the villages we passed on the autobahn.

 Our first fest, the Vilseck Volksfest!  John is eating Sauerbraten and Knodel.

 mmmm, beer!

 Lots and lots of beer.

Packing for the new house and getting out of the hotel.  Once again, Otis reminds us to take him with us. :)

Ammerthal!

 Our house!  We live above our landlord on the second floor, and it's still a nice spacious place.

 By the bank, walking up to the town center.

 The town center.  Look!  It's the Ammerthaler Hof!  In front is a fest tree.  Sometimes they have fests there and decorate the tree.

 With my back to the Ammerthaler Hof, looking toward more of the town.  A little shoppette is on the on the right there.

 Church #1

 Church #2  (from a completely different angle.  I'm a bit East of the town center here.)

A fast and furious storm blew through one night and it rained HARD for about 20-30 minutes.  This was the aftermath, looking East.  OMG, double rainbow all the way across the sky!  WHAT DOES IT MEAN???  (not sure if you can see the doubleness of the rainbow....but it was there.) 

It comes up better on this picture.

Pictures of the house coming up.  I have pics of the empty house, but I think I will take more when it we are more settled and post them....probably in a month or two when we get better internet.

Stupid internet.  As you may notice, I'm able to post these as I'm sitting in the internet cafe now.

It's hot here.  About 87-90 outside.  

Remember, Germany has limited air conditioning, so I am in this cafe *roasting.*  I have already sucked down my blended iced coffee.  The PX and commissary have A/C, but no where else seems to.  Even most German stores are downright muggy.  

Anyhow.  Hopefully more pictures soon.  

Amberg!

These pictures were taken on the spur of the moment while we were walking around trying to find a Telekom to see if they had internet connection for us.  (they didn't.)  I'm terrible in that I have no idea what/where things are.  I was just struck by the buildings, and started snapping.  And then we kept walking.  It was kind of a rainy day, and we had limited time on our parking spot.

HHG

Household goods are here!  Our stuff!  We have our stuff!

I am simply in awe of the psychological effect that receiving your things has on a person.

For instance, somewhere deep in my psyche, I did know that I had just moved to Germany.  However, I was physically living out of suitcases, so psychologically, this experience has sort of felt like a very odd vacation.  Like the most boring version of Amazing Race ever.  We were just flown to a different country where we didn’t speak the language (although, to be fair, lots of people speak ours), and given a list of tasks to complete. 

Attend in-processing at 17 different offices (finance, transportation, etc…), get cell phones, pass a driver’s test, retrieve your vehicle and have it properly registered with your new country, find somewhere to live, sign up for loaner furniture, start a new job (for John), try to find a new job (for me), shop for appliances not brought over from the states, get internet hooked up at the house (ha!), and on and on and on.

But it never felt like “oh, yes, of course, I live here now.”

Then Friday arrived.  We were told by transportation that our HHG would be delivered between 8 am and 9 pm.  We were somewhat hopeful that they would arrive early because they arrived at 8 am on the dot with our Unaccompanied Baggage.  We were also hoping for maybe 9 am so we could shuffle some items around seeing as Housing won’t pick up their loaner items until Monday.  (Making unpacking a challenge as we have an extra couch and dinette table in the living room, extra chests of drawers in the office, and an extra bed in pieces throughout the house.  Oh, and easy chairs stacked on the stairway landing and dinette chairs in the garage.  Why didn’t we put everything in the garage you ask?  Because we didn’t want to navigate the winding stairs with heavy and/or awkward shit.  We will let the housing movers deal with it.)

But I digress.

The movers arrived at 7 am.  Luckily (or unluckily?) for me, I had slept about an hour the night before in part because it was so hot, there was a mosquito buzzing around me which sparked what I believe to be very mild case of PTSD after having my legs devoured the week before, and the loaner bed that may be part evil.  So I was up at 6 am without the aid of an alarm.  (A rarity.)

The only hiccup we had was the freak rain storm that started at about 8 am.  In the end, it subsided, and we had the entire truck unloaded by about noon.  (The other sort-of hiccup was the sweaty shirtless German mover leaning his entire sweaty body into my $2500 mattress as him and his associate hauled it up the winding stairs.  Yummy!)  We had a quick lunch, set to unpacking, got the bed put together, and got the kitchen unpacked.

Two days later and we are still working on the details, although I believe that we are about 90% unpacked.  And we are both exhausted.  My feet hurt, my back aches, and my head is numb from trying to process it all.  Thank god for my bed; German sweat or not, it’s still the most comfortable bed ever.

Yesterday (Saturday), we did break away from the house to do some shopping at Real (pron. Ree-all) and a home depot like store that I can’t remember the name of.  Real is like Walmart.  With booze.  I was ecstatic to find Marsala wine there as the commissary does not carry it.  Not even the cooking kind!  John needed bolts for our satellite dish.  He happened to get an AFN dish and a decoder for FREE from someone who had also got it for free, but wasn’t allowed to put a satellite on the house.  So now we will get AFN channels.  Yay!

John attempted to start putting together our entertainment system last night whilst I was cooking dinner.  He had a brand new 1000W transformer.  Twenty minutes later, he had surpassed the surge limit somehow and left the entire apartment without power.  Whoops.  The landlord downstairs still had power, however, so we didn’t think anything was seriously fried. 

The landlord wasn’t home at the time, so I packed up dinner (I had just started cooking pork marsala), put it in the fridge, and we walked to Ammerthaler Hof to get something to eat before they closed.  The food was delicious once again, and the beer so refreshing, I think I actually chugged mine at one point.

After we walked (shuffled) back home, pointing out constellations along the way, we ran into our landlord and he showed us what had happened with the surge breaker. It was reset, and we were on our way.  (To bed. It was late.)  Although we’re not quite sure how we are going to hook up the game systems along with our DVD and satellite receiver.  We haven’t tried the big transformer again.  Just our little 300 W one.  But that’s a problem for another day.  For now, we are just getting things settled and discovering how the packers did on wrapping up our items in Rock Island.  So far, there are only a few dings and one broken knick-knack that should be easy to repair.  We have yet to unwrap John’s grandma’s wedding china which was not repacked since we brought it back from South Dakota.  John’s mom is now convinced it will be destroyed since it was not repacked as it was only packed for that one driving trip, not an overseas move.  So we shall see if there was any damage.  I will be very sad if our oversight ruined this.  Of course, the moving company will be responsible, but replaced pieces aren’t as cool as the originals.

While unpacking all of my things, I couldn’t help but feel this is like Christmas!  And then I realize I already had all of this stuff.  But it’s still our stuff.  It’s ours. 

And it suddenly feels like we live here instead of feeling like we rented out a lodge on our weird vacation.  It’s starting to feel more like home.

Ammerthaler Hof

Last Saturday night (also known as the night when my legs were ravaged my blood thirsty mosquitoes), we went to our local restaurant.  Our landlord assured us it was “gut essen” or good to eat.  We asked if they spoke English there, and he smiled at us, shook his head, and said “nooo…”. 

So, off we went with our Rick Steve’s Phrase Book and John’s Blackberry, on which he discovered he could access Google Translate.

We walked in and sat down.  We were the only table there other than a large round table of older gents drinking beer and conversing jovially.

The waitress asked us if we would like something to drink.  (We picked out the word “trinkt”.)  John ordered a hefeweisen.  I did the same.  (And, by the way, one of the best hefeweisens I’ve ever had.)  After she came back with our beers, she asked us something else.  To which I promptly used my favorite phrase “Mein Deutsch is nicht gut.”  “Ah” she says, “no problem.”

We are left to the menu.  At the other German restaurant, the menu was in German, but also English.  Notsomuch here.  (And not really expected as we are somewhat off the beaten tourist/military community path.) We picked out the words that we knew and quickly typed in all of the other words we did not know on the blackberry.  “Fresh”, “mushroom”, and “glazed” all helped us muddle our way through.

It seemed easier than using the phrase book, which only had a select few words anyway.

After a few (maybe 10?) minutes poring over the menu, the waitress comes out from the kitchen with another young man and points to us.  He then comes up and starts speaking English.

“You may need some help?”

We had been identified as menu challenged.  Understandable, since we already identified ourselves as language challenged.

However, at that point, we had deciphered enough to decide on what we wanted.  So, we placed our order with him, and he retreated to the kitchen to start our meals.

I ended up getting the “Rindersteak medium” which I thought was beef, but ended up being pork.  (Either that, or just terrible beef.)  John got the “house specialty” which was a filet of both beef and pork.  His beef was much more passable as beef.  All in all, the meals were good!  The beer was great.  This place is walkable from our house.  (The entire town of Ammerthal is walkable from our house.)

The waitress checked on us and we communicated that everything was tasty.

She came back when we were done and cleared our plates.

Then she came back when our beers were empty.  She asked me something.  I thought she was asking if I would like another.  I replied “No.”  She got a weird look on her face and walked away.  In hindsight, she may have been asking if she could clear my glass.

After that, she walked by several times, but didn’t ask if we needed anything else.  (She didn’t ask anything, which is why I know this, because I’m not sure if I could have picked out what, exactly, she would have asked if she had asked us anything.)  At this point, the group of jovial men had left.  We were the only ones left.

John and I spent our final minutes there examining the phrase book and practiced asking for the check.  He never fully got it, so I raised my hand and asked

“Die Rechnung, bitte?”

She smiled and brought it right over and we promptly paid and were on our way after a friendly “Tchüss!” 

She probably thinks she will never see us again.

But she probably will.  Hopefully I will know more German at that time.

Default Foreign Language

In a conversation with John, we discovered something kind of humorous.  We both have a “Default Foreign Language”.  Unfortunately, it’s the same language for both of us.  More unfortunately, that language is Spanish.  This would be very helpful if we were stationed in Spain…but alas, we are not. 

This was discovered when we were talking about learning various words and then trying to communicate with the locals.  As it turns out, when we don’t know a word that we want to say, we automatically search our brains for any foreign language substitute for that word.  If you want to confuse a German, start speaking Spanish.

Even practicing with each other while driving…

“Oh, look, ‘caballos’!”

“No!  They are ‘Pferds’!”

(Above mentioned animals are horses.)

In the meantime, whilst I am stuck in Ammerthal with no car, I have been occasionally picking up useful information from a “Learn German the Fast and Easy Way” book that John picked up in the States.  At first, I didn’t think much was happening in my noggin, but then suddenly, I understood parts of the sign above our landlord’s garage, which states that he works on windows and doors. 

Or has a window and door technique. 

Or something to do with window and doors.

Like I said, I only understood part of it.  

John wondered the other night why some words were capitalized in German and others weren’t.  I automatically piped up “Oh, nouns are capitalized.”

“They are?  How did you know that?”

“From the book, I guess.”

I am actually kind of anxious to get back to using Rosetta Stone.  Some things make more sense now that I have some grammatical background…of which Rosetta Stone offers none.  Grammatical…is that a word?

Anyway, using Rosetta Stone will only occur after we have internet.  Which, we may never have.  Even when we inquired with Telekom yesterday in Amberg, just 10 minutes away, they informed us that only the lowest speed on DSL is available in Ammerthal.  384 kbits/s.  Their highest speed is 6000.  We will have an option for 3000….but not until November.  Now, TKS, with whom we do have a deposit with, is offering 1000 kbits/s.  But, they have had us on hold for 2 weeks now.  We keep checking back to see if they even have an installation date for us, and each time we come up with nothing.  Not enough technicians.  (This should change after August when most of the country –continent?- comes back from holiday.  August is when most people take off and do their vacationing.)

Still, it’s frustrating as hell, and honestly, if we had known that internet was so shoddy up here, I’m not sure we would have taken the house.  We have heard stories from people who had terrible luck with the housing office, and went out to find great places to rent through realtors in the area.  The fee is pricey (equal to 1-2 MONTHS of rent –which could be up to 3000 euro!- but reimbursable through finance), but people have found great places unavailable to the housing office.  Still other people had little luck with Vilseck Housing and went to Graf Housing, where they found places, no problem, in locations that were convenient to both Vilseck and Graf.  We are located South of Vilseck, not that convenient to Graf.

This is on the long list of things that no one tells you when you get here.  We have yet figure out TV as well.  We have access to our landlord’s satellite dish.  Which is, what, all German TV?  There is a satellite company called AFN (Armed Forces Network) that has about 7 different channels and compiles selections from different networks from the states into these channels.  But getting a satellite and decoder are terribly expensive for 7 channels.  Then there is SKY satellite, which has some American shows, but is based out of the UK.  Also expensive.

(In the hotel, we had access to a few German channels, one of which played mostly American shows, whether they be movies - like “Twilight Eclipse” or “Date Night”.  I was bummed when they had “Get Him to the Greek” dubbed in German - or reruns.  I watched a few episodes of “Gilmore Girls” and “Friends”.  The show that was on the most was “King of Queens.”  Germans love them some “King of Queens”!) 

You would wonder if maybe the housing office could shed some light on these options, but seeing as they are a government office, they cannot do or say anything that would look like they are recommending one company’s service over another.  It would be easier to research different options online…if we had internet.

It would have actually been easier to research these things online while still in the hotel, but we didn’t think it would be this big of a deal, of course having no way of knowing where our house was going to be, and then, not knowing in what a dead internet area it turned out to be located.  Everything is online.  Especially job search information.  Hopefully the Jeep arrives soon for I will be using my car to hit internet cafes and do research.  And be productive.

Not that learning German isn’t productive.  It is.  Maybe it will even replace Spanish as my default foreign language.

Poacher

Haha....  still poaching!    It's a terribly slow connection, so this might not get saved/published until next week sometime.  Or maybe even after that.

I'm a rebel like that.

I say it may take longer to publish because next week is a busy week.  We finally received word that our washer/dryer will be delivered on Tuesday!  No more laundromat for me!  (I sincerely hope.  It was quite convenient to get all the clothes washed so quickly...not so convenient to have lug clothes all over post.  And, to display my bras proudly air drying in the back seat.  ha!)

And, the best news ever - HHG ARE HERE!!!  We just have to schedule a delivery for next week.  John was notified today so hopefully he schedules with them to get our stuff.

STUFF!  We will have STUFF once again!

Give me 5 days before I'm bitching about how we have too much stuff.  I'll be buried in boxes before I know it.

Now all we need is for John's car to arrive.

And I just lost my open network.  Bah.  So much for poaching.

Oh!  It's back....I should try to get this out now.  :)

Our Place

It’s the little things that remind you that you’re no longer in the states.

Windows – Our windows rock.  They are large and clear and numerous.  And everywhere you look, Germans are putting plants in windows.  I have determined that Germans love all things green.  Anyway, our windows have handles.  If they are turned down, they are shut and locked.  If they are in the middle, they open up fully sideways, like a door.  But then you can also turn the handle upward and crack the window so it falls toward you about 4 inches.  And if they are closed, the block out lots of sound.

They rock.

The outside also has blinds.  They are raised and lowered from the inside, but the blinds are on the outside on tracks.  They are very sturdy and, if lowered completely, block out all light.

They friggin rock.

The kitchen sink – is smaller than our bathroom sink.  And, unlike most kitchen sinks I have come to know in my lifetime, this sink only has one side.  Also, no garbage disposal.

Fridge – I have mentioned before that our fridge is tiny.  Housing has provided us with a full sized fridge.

Closets – none.  None whatsoever.  We get wardrobes in a few days.  We are each allotted one and one for the household.

Oven – about the size of an easy bake oven.  We thought about getting a toaster oven, and then joked that our current oven *is* our toaster oven.  We may just need to get a regular toaster.  I’m not sure my fancy Pampered Chef baking sheets will fit in our oven.  But it does have two baking sheets that come with it.  I’m not even sure the dutch ovens I have will fit inside.  Also, the temperature is in degrees Celsius.  All of my recipes are in Fahrenheit.  I have made myself a little cheat sheet.  The range is quite tiny too, but it hasn’t been a problem so far.  Oh yeah, and no timer.  No timer on the microwave either.

Other than those things, and aside from the fact that we can’t figure out what to do for a TV package, the house is still very lovely.  The rooms are large and will be cozy soon.

Autobahn

Oh yes.  I have driven the autobahn!

It’s really not that much different from an American highway.  I had my GPS on so I could tell where I was going, and with that display, they have the speed limit in that area, as well as your speed.  Once I hit the autobahn, that speed limit number just disappeared.

It is true, there is no speed limit on the autobahn, but there is a recommended speed and if you get into an accident and it was found that you were exceeding that recommended speed, you can be put at fault for the accident.  The recommended speed is 130 kph which is roughly 80 mph.  It’s a pretty good clip.  There are even high traffic areas where they DO have a speed limit, and it gets as low as 80 kph (~50 mph).

I got up to 90 mph (140-145 kph ish). Apparently, my tires were not well balanced for anything over that speed.  John speculated that my tires weren’t rated for that speed, but because I have those fancy wheels, I have to get performance tires for my car.  I believe the brand new tires we purchased in Davenport are rated to 140 mph.

However.  The main rule of the autobahn is GET OVER.  No one cruises in the left lane unless they are passing.  It’s illegal to do so.  So, while the autobahn is much like an American highway, I did spend way more time looking in my rearview mirror because there were one or two moments when the area was clear behind me, and then suddenly there was a sleek Mercedes flying down the road.  And I was in it’s path.  One time it was a Ford Fiesta.  The autobahn does not discriminate.

I was a bit scared of driving the autobahn at first.  And then I decided to follow my GPS on the way back from Ikea (there is one in Nürnberg, and we decided that it was a great place for some missing household goods that we needed like lamps and shelving).  It had me exit the autobahn way sooner than necessary to take the shortest route possible back to the house.  I ended up on some cow path (only wide enough for one vehicle) through the forest and ending at a village tinier than ours before I hit a road that looked more like Germany and less like Endor.  (John and I frequently joke that a lot of German forested areas look like Endor.  If you’re not into Star Wars at all, this reference is completely lost on you.  I apologize.)

Ah, GPS adventures.  At one point we traversed back over the autobahn and I’ve never wanted to be driving on it more.  Stupid GPS.

Another thing to look forward to is the staus.  Apparently I have yet to see a real stau.  Stau (pron. shtow) = traffic jam.  If there is a very bad accident, traffic can be backed up for hours.  If there is a big German holiday coming up, especially related to the school year, we are told to prepare for an increase in traffic so great the volume itself will create gridlock.  I am looking forward to riding some trains while we are here.  Especially if we leave the country.  And buses too.  All of the MWR tours are done by bus.  Hopefully we will get on one of those soon too.

Language Barrier

Our landlord speaks very little English.  We speak very little German.  This has resulted in comical conversations that look more like games of charades.  The first morning we slept in our place, he came up speak to me, and I told him we had no hot water.  He said I had to wait for it to run a little, then it would warm up.  I told him, that no, I just took a shower with it on hot and it was still cold water.  (This was a fun experience.  I recommend everyone try it and then thoroughly appreciate your hot water.)  By the end of the day, we had hot hater again. 

Even though there is a language barrier, a German phrase book has proved to be invaluable and we can still communicate quite a bit.  His brother also works in town as the handy man.  His son fixes refrigerators.  His daughter is a doctor in Amberg.  Actually, John communicates with him better than I can.  He received all of that information on a drive around town.

He is a very sweet man.  He has also provided curtains for our place!  I have so many sets of lace curtains, it’s kind of amusing.  Not to mention, a few sets of curtains that fall under the “oh dear” category.  

Speed Bumps

(posted from internet cafe on post)

We have finally moved into the place we will call home for the next two years if all goes right.  I have nicknamed it “The Lodge”.  Along with the wooden ceiling and the slopes of part of the roof and into our ceiling, I very much feel like I’m in a lodge in the mountains.

Except that I am in Germany.

Currently without a car or internet access.  Actually, at this very moment, I am poaching internet from somewhere, quite by accident.  But it is so slow and unreliable that I’m typing everything in Word and then cutting and pasting when I do have internet access.  I have no idea when that will be.  TKS is promising horrendous speeds for internet as well as not giving us a date for installation because we are so far out in the sticks.  (which is NOT really the case…only 3 villages from Amberg.)  So, we hopefully will get a chance to talk to Telecom (who I thought was the same company as TKS until recently when they informed us otherwise) this weekend about a sooner date.  I would like to email people about things I see for sale in the paper, about meetings to learn about job possibilities, and to email Verizon and say, hey, WTF?  They’re charging me charges they ought not be charging.

And SPEAKING OF – stupid Lufthansa charged us stupid extra baggage fees (NEVERMIND WE WERE TRAVELLING ON ORDERS!) and an overweight bag fee as well.  (again, paying no mind that we were travelling on orders.)  Well.  Apparently finance has found a loophole to avoid reimbursing us said travel fees.  They are claiming we were not authorized to fly from Denver and we should have flown from the East Coast.  (Lie.  It was authorized and SATO issued both tickets.)  Why they aren’t reimbursing baggage fees is beyond me.  The Government can be very generous when it comes to perks of serving in the military.  This, however, I feel is the work of stinginess where they come off looking like assholes.  (Notice I did not actually call them assholes.)  John is too busy getting settled into his new job to have the time to fight it.  I have no way to get to post.

Anyway, back to being stranded in the sticks.  With no internet.  Monday, to kill the time, I went for a walk in Ammerthal and it was gorgeous.  I also covered the village in about 45 minutes.  I am guessing if I walked up and down every street, it might take me 90 minutes.  Monday also provided me the opportunity to practice some German I have learned.  A man pulled up in his car and asked directions to some “strasse” (= street) and I proudly replied “Mein Deutsch is nicht gut.”  This, of course, means “My German is not good.”  He laughed, said “ahhhh!” and drove away.  I apologized in English.  I haven’t got the word down for “I’m sorry” yet.  It’s kind of long.

As for the car, we DO have Inga.  She made it in one piece and passed the inspection, although I have to say, just barely.  I have to get her shifter fixed.  But not until we get John’s car in country, through customs, insured and registered.  Until then, he’s using Inga to drive to work.  While I sit and home and wait for deliveries. 

We hope to get the wardrobes in a few days.  Still no word on when we get a washer/dryer.  (These things are provided by housing.)  And hopefully we get the rest of our stuff buy 17 Aug!  Ah, our stuff.  How I miss it!  It feels like we can do so little until we have our stuff!

The past five days

- My car showed up!  We got it on Friday and JUST in time as the office closed at noon that day.  We were literally the last people they were helping that day.  We have temporary plates for now as we still have to get an inspection and then get our real plates.  We have to plan that out as inspection lines can take a while.  Apparently this weekend is a three day weekend for people in Europe and there is a huge fest in Graf...so we're not sure if we'll be able to get it done this week.  Unless I take John to PT one morning at 5:30...and then go sit in line....  and then go get John.  Actually I might do that anyway.  I will need to get out of the house.

- I saw Harry Potter 7.2 on Friday!  It was on a tiny Army post movie theater.  The sound and video quality was terrible.  The movie still rocked!  Also, I learned something about movie theaters on post.  Before the movie, in lieu of previews, they play the national anthem, and everyone stands up.  Immediately after the anthem has played, they cut the lights and you have to fumble around and try to find your seats and sit down again without bumping the head of the person sitting next to you.

- With our new found freedom (the car), we drove to Graf, missed our rental car by 30 minutes (the Enterprise office closed early on Saturdays), did some shopping (I now have my own GPS!), drove to Amberg  and then drove to Ammerthal to make sure we could find the house again.  That evening we went to the Zur Post of a town about 3 villages away.  (Just about every village has a Zur Post.  It's a hotel/guest house with a restaurant as it was explained to me.  This particular guest house's restaurant has an excellent reputation.)  It.  was.  FANTASTIC!  We each had garlic soup to start (super yummy) and then I had Jaegersnchitzel with spaetzle and John had a pork filet dish with cheese spaetzle.  They were both so yummy and so filling.  We didn't finish our dishes, but each ordered dessert too.  And each had a beer.  Best meal here so far!

- Sunday was a lazier day, but we did drive back to Amberg and explored a bit more.  We found the hospital!  It's not a big town, but it's big enough.  We also started packing and organizing our exodus from the hotel, which finishes up tomorrow.
I have been doing the majority of the driving as it is my car, although John will be driving it a lot when we have officially moved.  I have never played such close attention to the road when driving - frantically trying to recall all the details from the driving booklet and review course.  Speed limits aren't always posted here.  They are only posted if you are supposed to go more slowly than the known speed limit for that particular area, be it within or outside of city limits, or on the autobahn.  (which I have NOT ventured onto.  yet.  There is an IKEA in Nurnberg we are meaning to visit.)  After I have gotten used to seeing the signs and being familiarized with their presence in certain areas, I have relaxed a bit.  All with experience, yes?  That said, driving in Germany is FUN.  At times, of course.

-I went for a run on Saturday as well.  I haven't ran in about 4 months.  It was really good because I had spent so much time at altitude before we moved so I felt really good.  I have been paying for this exuberance in exercise ever since.  My legs are sore.  My abs were sore (but feel better today).  My ankle is sore.  I am tired.  It was worth it, because it's all a good feeling...and a reminder that I could start running again ...  and do well.

- We saw Bridesmaids last night!  I recommend it - at least for a rental.

- Which brings us to today.

(edit:  I have no idea what I was going to say about "today".  It was our last night in the hotel and the internet crapped out and I did not save the rest of my post, which was a bit lengthy!  I was quite ticked.)

So, let's see...last Monday....  we had received loaner furniture from housing until our stuff arrived.  Our bed is a double.  Not ideal for two tall people as John and I are.  And it's not so much a mattress as the softest piece of limestone they could find.  (I'm writing this in retrospect and I STILL **HATE** our loaner bed.  This is a lesson learned for having such an awesome bed that I miss it so much.)  This bed creates so many pressure points, my spine is crying for an adjustment.
After our stuff arrived (including the full sized fridge from housing - but not the washer/dryer yet.  One of my errands whilst on post today was laundry at the laundrette.), we packed up and prepared to move homesteads.  The cat was unamused.

(I have to say, he is quite resilient.  I think he will be happier when we receive and put together the huge cat tree we purchased for him from Amazon.  At least there will be something to scratch.)

Hmm, yeah, the rest of my post is lost in memory.  Hopefully the other posts will fill in what we've been up to.

I also just remembered I could have used my little USB that I used to transfer the other blog posts to John's laptop to add some pictures.  I do have pictures.  But alas, I did not think to add them to the USB.

Sorry.