Thinking Happy Thoughts

Some days, living in Germany just really, really sucks. I'd like to think of a more eloquent way to put it, but there just isn't one.

Greg was assigned today to a month long duty in January that requires him to be within 3 hours of post at all times. It wouldn't be so bad if, you know, I hadn't already booked and paid for a 4 day snowboarding vacation in Garmisch for MLKJ weekend. I get it, the unexpected is part of "army life", but that doesn't make it any less irritating. Plus, from the second you step off the plane in Germany, everyone is telling you how you need to go travel. Then, the second you do attempt to travel, the Army makes other plans. We almost didn't get to go to Switzerland because of his school and now we probably won't be going snowboarding again this winter between his extra duties and my new job.


Instead of being frustrated, I'm going to attempt to be positive and think of all the good things we have going on right now. Today, we custom ordered a 2014 Jeep Rubicon X from ENCS. While Greg was still in Afghanistan, he expressed a desire to trade his car in for a Jeep again. Most of you know, when we met, Greg had recently bought a Rubicon and managed to win his first date with me by offering to take me for a ride in it. I know, it sounds incredibly cheesy looking back, but I'm sure girls have fallen for worse things than that. After moving to Colorado, Greg traded his Rubicon in for his GTI which he's loved, but also outgrew. We were planning on trading his GTI for another Jeep when he returned from deployment last year, but changed our minds when Greg received orders to Germany. Having a VW in Germany seemed like a much better idea than a huge Jeep. For that reason, we left my Jeep Sport with my Dad in Georgia and only shipped his GTI.
After spending a few months here, we started to rethink our decision. Sure, the GTI is great for small parking garages, but it's also quickly depreciating in value and our financial situation is not permanent. Right now, we both have good paying jobs with benefits, very few bills and disposable income. That very well may not be the case when we return to America, and we know it. We have always talked about eventually getting a larger sized Jeep as a "family" car and realized that we're better off taking on a car payment while we can still afford it. Will the Jeep possibly be a little inconvenient here in Germany? Probably, but we know our situation here is not permanent and we still have the "beater" BMW we bought when we got here. Ultimately, we decided to buy the Jeep because we want it for the future and would like to be able to pay it off before we leave Germany.
Because it was ordered from the factory, we won't get to pick it up for a few more months when it comes to port in northern Germany. Once we get it, I'll have plenty of pictures to post!

Today, I also got a letter in the mail from the 4 year old Nepalese girl I sponsor through a charitable organization. I've sent her a few letters and gotten some updates from her caregivers, but this was the first letter I received from her. It was just a very simple page allowing her to circle pictures that showed things she like to do and eat. Even so, it helped to put a smile on my face this afternoon.

She drew me a flower.

Greg completed his GoPro compilation from Zermatt which you can view here. I tried in vain to link it directly into the blog entry, but it wouldn't work properly. Fair warning, it gets really loud after the first song.


We may be taking a day trip close by this weekend to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. Since Greg can't leave the 3 hour radius, we'll probably visit Trier, a city in western Germany known for his Roman history. Others around here have told us that it's a cute city to visit with a lot of interesting things to see, so we're hoping it will be worth the drive!

Christmas Markets

Let me start this post with some necessary disclosure: We don't celebrate Christmas.

Actually, we don't really celebrate holidays at all. Greg grew up primarily celebrating Jewish holidays and I hate holidays for personal reasons. I don't talk about religion, so we'll keep this short and sweet.


A lot of people we met here told us that their favorite part of living in Germany was the Christmas Markets. Basically, a Christmas Market is the exact same thing as the festivals they have from Spring until Fall except they serve gluhwein instead of beer. Gluhwein is essentially just mulled wine. It comes in red, white and apple, as well as some other regional types. (Greg swears they all taste like Tamiflu, which I don't understand because I thought Tamiflu was only available to adults in capsules...?) We both agree that apple is the best of the bunch, but is still basically just hard spiced apple cider. You could probably get the same experience from warming up some Strongbow.

Our first Christmas Market experience was last weekend in our town. We met some friends down there and it was a pretty good time. Christmas markets, unlike the festivals of summertime, are more similar to craft fairs. There are a lot of vendors selling overpriced trinkets. I'm okay with admitting that I am extremely cheap and would never partake in buying things other than food at a Christmas market. The food, however, is pretty similar to anything that you'll get at any festival all over Germany. We had, you guessed it, bratwurst with curry ketchup on a roll. They were serving lamb wurst the night we went, which was a nice change of pace. They were also selling potato pancakes with applesauce which we had to get since we didn't make latkes at all this year. Aside from that, we drank some gluhwein, hung out with some friends and walked home. Pretty average festival night.

This weekend, we went to nearby Frankfurt for their Christmas market which was massive. However, it was the exact same ordeal, just different scenery. Same booths and trinkets, same food, same giant crowd. It was a fun time but honestly, I'm totally unimpressed with the whole Christmas market thing. I'm actually shocked that people find Christmas markets to be the most enjoyable part of Germany. The weirdest part to me is that people around here actually go around visiting different town's Christmas markets all through December. I can understand going to the local ones within your area, but I wouldn't be willing to take a trip from where we live to say, Munich, just to go to a Christmas market. No thank you. I could get the same trinkets and bratwurst here within the three major cities in my area.

Basically, Christmas markets can be fun for the experience of drinking outdoors, but we weren't impressed by them at all. Festivals in the summer are much more enjoyable for us because they are less focused on purchasing things and more on enjoying yourselves. The festivals we went to during the warmer months typically had entertainment, rides for children and a greater variety of foods and drinks. However, it may be that others find so much enjoyment in Christmas markets because they have an over-all love of Christmastime in general, but that's obviously not us.


Next week, we plan to skip out on the Christmas market scene in order to spend money somewhere that I'd much rather: Ikea. Back in Colorado, Greg had a nice locker at work to store all of his Army nonsense. Since we've moved here, his Army stuff has slowly spilled from our tiny closet, to our bedroom, to our spare bedroom and is now taking up all of our storage space. My goal before going back to work full time is to organize our mess and hopefully get rid of some of the junk we've accumulated. I know I haven't officially announced it, but I will be finally going back to work full time very soon. Once I have the paperwork in hand and details about my start date, I'll give more information on my new position. I will go ahead and say that I am VERY excited to go back to work doing something that I love.

Greg did light the candles for Hanukkah one night this year, but sadly no latkes.

Zermatt, Switzerland and Snowboarding the Matterhorn

Before I start what is about to be a very long and in depth post, Greg and I had a really awesome time on our snowboarding trip to Zermatt, Switzerland. The weather was great most of the time and we got a lot of great pictures and GoPro videos. It was a wonderful break from Germany that left us really missing Colorado and my Jeep. By the time we got home, we were both exhausted and ready to sleep for a full day straight. After the jump is all of the details of our trip and some advice for anyone planning a trip to Zermatt or Switzerland in the future.

Nuremberg and Our First Train Experience

I have been a miserably bad blogger recently. I currently have at least 3 posts saved as drafts that I have yet to finish. I'd like to say that I have been busy lately, but that's not entirely true. Although I have been somewhat more busy over all, I also had enough free time to binge watch all of Dexter on Netflix last weekend and feel horrible about myself afterwords. One of these days, I may just pick up a hobby that doesn't involve my computer.

Anyway, Greg left several weeks ago to play Army at a school in Bavaria. He's nearly done and has been very proud of himself for everything he's accomplished, so we decided to have some fun this weekend while he was off. We decided to head to Nuremberg!

Fall, Frankfurt & Frankenstein

I haven't written recently because it seems every time we start planning something, it falls apart at the last minute, but that doesn't mean we haven't stayed busy. I was hoping for several weeks to take a trip down to the Black Forest to see the autumn leaves, but the weather here has been horrible the past few weeks. It's been cold, wet and miserable. Our front lawn is currently a sea of wet leaves that act almost like snow in how slippery and sticky they seem to stay. Fall appears to be just about over here in Germany and winter is quickly approaching. According to most of our friends, winter here tends to be cloud, cold and miserably but not particularly snowy. I personally hope we get some good snow!

Leaves in our neighborhood a few weeks ago.

Last weekend Greg had a four day. If you aren't familiar with the military, four day weekends are relatively common place and happen about once a month, usually around national holidays. Columbus Day warranted a 4 day here in Germany. To celebrate, we had a camp fire at our house, a party at a friend's house and went to Frankfurt with our friends and their children to check out the natural history museum. Germans have no issues with nudity or sexuality, so it was pretty interesting to see a whole area on how babies are made- explained to children- through the use of very "adult" pictures. We also got a good laugh at the American children's responses to said pictures. Needless to say, Germans aren't shy.

Aside from that, there were some pretty cool exhibits about dinosaurs, sea life and oddly enough, preserved human and animal parts for medical experiments (?). Most of the descriptions were in German, so we were a little lost.

Halloween is quickly approaching. Apparently, Halloween is viewed as an American holiday here in Europe and isn't celebrated, but the younger and more "Americanized" generation of Germans seem to be catching on. Our neighbors have warned us that trick-or-treating around our homes will be flooded with confused German teenagers who want to participate in the festivities, but don't really understand the concept of dressing up. In recent years, the very real Frankenstein's Castle, which is about thirty minutes from our house, has started to cash in on the young German's sudden interest in the holiday by having an adult Halloween party and haunted house in October and November. The castle itself is not very magnificent, as it is mostly in ruins now, but it was pretty entertaining to go see how German's try to celebrate the holiday. The party had shuttle buses that proclaimed "This way to Halloween!" and a lot of the Germans dressed up like movie characters. All of the food was apparently supposed to be in some way horror themed, but we didn't always understand the analogies. Maybe they were German horror movies?

Hanging out with Frankenstein's monster at his castle.

The "haunted house" itself was pretty hilarious. In Georgia, I remember friends going to Netherworld every year where you would wait in line for an hour or more to walk through a house where they told you made up spooky stories and tried to jump out at you to scare you. At Frankenstein's Castle, it was mostly just people dressed up in crazy (and sometimes very realistic) outfits trying to touch you. At one point, I got shoved inside a metal cage by two of the actors for trying to out-smart one of them. An older bald man apparently took my earwax and turned it into a piece of amber, which he let me keep. At certain times of the night, all of the "monsters" came together to dance to "Thriller" which was pretty good. Pretty much all of the actors tried to come after me at some point to scare me, probably because they thought I was a 14 year old girl. It was a lot of fun, but kind of pricey so I doubt we'll go back.

 

So, this picture was taken in the pitch black chapel of the castle (one of the only parts still remaining.) I couldn't see this guy standing there until the flash went off, so we all had a good laugh at his great photo bomb.

Also this week, Greg had a very interesting Army experience that I don't think he would have in America. To make a long story short, Heidelberg is also pretty close to where we live and once had a huge military presence. It's a beautiful city that is apparently extremely friendly to Americans and tourists, unlike where we are right now. Anyway, a guy that Greg works with chose to have his re-enlistment ceremony at the castle there prompting a mini work field trip for them, in their uniforms. Usually, it's highly discouraged for them to walk around anywhere in uniform, so the response from the crowd was pretty comical. Greg came home saying that Germans were asking to take pictures with them, stopping to watch and take pictures of their ceremony, and swarms of elderly American tourists migrated over to shake all of their hands. When he told me the story, I pretty much laughed all the way through because I could imagine being one of those prying spectators stopping to get a good pictures. What was more fun was the way he described people trying to "discreetly" snap a photo by pulling out their phones and pretending to be texting or something while pointing the camera at them. I really wish I had gotten to witness this ordeal.


Now that the shut down is over, Greg gets to go back to school again. As much as I'll miss him, I'm glad he's going because we were getting concerned that the longer his classes got pushed back, the more likely they were to cut into Thanksgiving and our trip to Switzerland. As of right now, snowboarding in Switzerland is still the plan for next month. Hopefully, everything will work out. We also have a hotel booked for a four day in January to spend in Garmisch, which should be fun. I was hoping we could go over our anniversary weekend, but pretty much all of December is booked everywhere I looked into going. Next year, I guess I'll have to plan further in advance.

Speaking of planning, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping we can settle on a Mediterranean cruise sometime this upcoming spring or summer. I really want to see Greece and cruises over here are crazy inexpensive, but it always seems that cruise lines try to throw in extra destinations that you really would rather not see along with the best ones. For example, I don't have any desire to stop twice in Turkey on an 11 day cruise of the Greek islands and Greg would prefer to stay far away from the Middle East. The only cruise I've found that met our parameters was through Norwegian, which is more expensive than the European lines. I told Greg when we came to Germany that the only thing I really cared to do here was go on a cruise to Greece. Considering that a week long Mediterranean cruise is about the same price as 3 days snowboarding, I don't think that's an unobtainable request.

LEGOLAND Deutschland

On Saturday, Greg and I went with some friends of ours and their three children to Legoland. Our original plan for this weekend was to go hiking in the Black Forest to enjoy the peak time for viewing the leaves. Unfortunately, the weather called for heavy rain in the Black Forest area all weekend, so we scrapped that plan and decided last minute to go to Legoland. The USO here sells discounted tickets, so both of us got into the park for about the price of one ticket to Six Flags.

It still rained for most of the day, but the rain was usually just a light drizzle. We don't get many heavy thunderstorms in Germany.

The park itself was a bit different than American amusement parks. In America, amusement park rides seem to typically be geared towards older children and teenagers with tons of roller coasters and thrill rides. Legoland, and apparently many of the other amusement parks in Germany, cater more to families with young children. The rides were mostly some variation of a car going around a set track. There were three roller coasters that were all very small and child-friendly. Ironically, safety features in America aren't so present in Germany. Some friends explained to us that at other parks, the rides were often not manned and designed for a parent to simply put their child in the ride, hit a button, and take off. Legoland rides were manned by employees, but some of them were as simple as an individual just waving you to jump off the platform into the moving vehicle. It was much different than all of the safety features we were use to in America.

At one point, Greg was on the most "thrilling" roller coaster with his friend, his friend's daughter, and a friend of the daughter (confusing enough?) when his friend's daughter began slipping out of the seat of the coaster from beneath the bar. When Greg reached around the back of his seat to attempt to help grab her, he hit his hand against a nearby tree. Her dad ultimately held her in the seat until the ride ended and everyone was safe, but very shaken. On a more positive note, the picture taken from the roller coaster camera was probably one of the most hilarious pictures imaginable. Since everyone made it out alive and our friend's daughter was only slightly traumatized, they bought the picture in the form of a magnet for their refrigerator.

I don't really like rides, so I mostly stuck to the kiddie stuff. Greg and I wrote a little car around a Lego safari complete with animals built entirely out of Legos.

It was pretty impressive how everywhere in the park, all of the decorations were made of Legos.

There was also a pretty huge area called Lego City that was nothing but sculptures and replica towns made out of Legos. They had everything from scenes out of the Star Wars movies to a full model airport, multiple castles, a stadium complete with lights and sound and multiple European cities. Greg was really excited about Star Wars, but I really liked the replica cities. I have hundreds of pictures and Blogger takes about 5 minutes to upload just one, so my Facebook album is the best way to see all of the Lego town goodness.

All of the seats were filled with little Lego people wearing their team's  colors.

The drive there and back was three hours, so it made for a pretty long day. We didn't get back home until almost midnight. On Sunday, we both woke up feeling like we had been binge drinking all day. I'm sad to say that I'm not quite 24 and I'm already too old to stay out past midnight.

Next weekend, we're hoping it will be nice enough to go hiking, although I'm guessing most of the trees will have lost their leaves by then. Also, we just started planning our first out-of-country/overnight trip to Switzerland to go snowboarding over Thanksgiving weekend. Greg's three-week long class he was supposed to attend last month was postponed, so he will most likely be leaving again soon. As sad as I am to see him go, I'm going to enjoy some solo travel while he's gone. I'm tired of hanging out around our house all the time.

DIY Cork Board Map

When we moved into our apartment, we had more furniture than could fit in most of our rooms. The only exception was our dinning room, which seems to be designed for a family of eight living in our two bedroom apartment. Seriously, it's bigger than both of our bedroom and has nothing but one tiny little eat-in kitchen table sitting in it. The dinning room in our last apartment was probably a fourth the size of our current one and was off-set by a large bay window area. Basically, it was a giant window with a table next to it. Not only do we have a big empty room, but we had a huge space of chalk-white walls with no decoration. It made me sad.

So, I got on Amazon and ordered a $10 "vintage-style" map to Modge-Podge onto a cork board to take up some of the space in our unnecessarily large dining room.

I could have done without the National Geographic logo.

I picked up a framed cork board on-post. Living overseas, you have to work with what you can get. There were cheaper boards on Amazon, but none of them would ship here on Prime and it wasn't worth it to pay the shipping. There was a grand total of one type and size of cork board at the store. If I was in the States, I probably would have just gone to Home Depot or a craft store and had the exact size cut and the map would have probably turned out better. Also, I could not get regular modge-podge, so I had to make it myself.

I also cannot write properly on chalkboard

Since my cork board was just slightly too small, I had to trim the map down. This didn't turn out too great at first, but after modge-podge-ing it onto the board, you couldn't notice my lines were slightly uneven. I may go back and paint the edges of the board and make it even less noticeable.

After gluing the map on, I ended up with a few creases. Most of them are over ocean area, so they aren't very obvious. I wasn't thrilled with how it turned out, but for less than $25 for the whole project, I can't complain too much. Since this will most likely end up ruined in our move back to the States anyway, I'll probably end up redoing it a little more accurately in the future.

Yes, I did add Greg's deployments

The map is 2 ft by 3 ft and is still dwarfed on this giant, empty wall, but it's getting somewhere. Eventually, I plan to surround it with pictures to help fill up a little more of the void. Now, all we need to do is actually travel some places so I can use up some of these extra pins!

Off Topic: I love my husband

Ever since we've been in Germany, it seems like we're constantly meeting people who have such difficulty in their marriages. Never have I encountered so many couples who bicker and argue at each other over absolutely nothing. Words can't describe how entirely out of place I feel when I'm surrounded by women complaining about how they don't get along with their husbands. Greg has commented how strange it is to him that men will look forward to going to training or to the field so they can "get a break" from their families. It seems like a foreign concept to actually enjoy spending time together with your spouse. Some days, we feel very out of place.

I'm not saying we don't have our moments of getting on each other's nerves, but I'm extremely thankful to still have such a great relationship after three years together.

Frankfurt Auto Show

After a bit of a break, I've finally gotten around to blogging again. It's been a pretty crazy two weeks around here and we've been spending a lot of time at home, but things are starting to settle down and we're getting back into our usual routine. On Sunday, we took a trip to Frankfurt to the big international auto show at the Messe Frankfurt.

Day Trip: St. Goar and Rhinefels

Last time I posted about visiting a castle, Burg Eltz, I made the mistake of including it as part of the Rhineland, which is misleading because it's technically in the Moselle Valley. Speaking of castles, we took a short trip today to visit some nearby ruins in St Goar on the Rhine River.

"I'm just a nurse."

A friend of mine from nursing school shared this wonderful blog earlier today on Facebook, and it made me tear up just a little bit. Kateri's blog post served as a perfect reminder to me of why I do what I do.

Day Trip: Gamescom in Cologne, Germany

Yesterday, Greg and I took another road trip to Cologne, this time for Gamescom. I never thought in my life that I'd be going to a gaming convention, but it wasn't too horrible.

We didn't pre-order tickets since we decided to go pretty last minute, so instead we had to wait in line for close to 2 hours before actually getting inside. It started drizzling towards the end, but not so bad as to make it miserable. Once in, the Koelnmesse was filled to the brim with nerddom and angst and we were probably the oldest people there who weren't someone's parents, but it was an interesting experience. I was surprised there weren't more people dressed up. I've never been to Comicon or Dragoncon, but I know it's pretty typical for people to dress up like their favorite game/comic/TV characters.

We found the Nintendo area pretty quickly, which was the main thing Greg wanted to see. I wouldn't say my husband is an avid gamer, as he probably only plays video games for maybe a few hours a week and frequently falls out of interest with them for long periods of time. Also, unlike much of the male population, he's not so interested in fighting games. We don't own an Xbox or Play Station, but we do have a GameCube, WiiU and matching Nintendo 3DS XL's. Obviously, Greg is a big fan of Nintendo.

The layout was extremely confusing and we constantly ended up walking in circles. We missed probably 75% of the conference because we had no idea where we were going, but ultimately Greg was happy just seeing the Nintendo games and eating a wurst.

I'm going to be so over this by the time we leave Germany.

It's hard to come up with things that Greg enjoys doing around here because he isn't a fan of sight-seeing and doesn't enjoy traveling just to look at things. Most of the places that he would like to visit are too far for us to just take a short trip, so having one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world an hour and a half drive away every year is nice. The drive is very beautiful and scenic as well.


Today, it is cold, dreary and rainy, just like everyone told us it would be in Germany. It's the kind of weather that makes it difficult to get out of bed. In celebration of this wonderfully messy day, I finally replaced my camera! You may recall from my previous posts that my beloved Elph that I've had for years now started leaving white lines in my photos several months ago. I'm extremely money conscious and it's almost impossible for me to buy anything without thoroughly considering all of my options. I've spent months reading reviews of every camera in my price range, but was having a hard time making a decision. I had narrowed my options down to the Nikon D3100 or the Canon Rebel T3i. The PX was having a sale on Nikon cameras this weekend and offering the D3200 for $150 off, making it much less than the Rebel T3i with more features. I finally broke down and invested the money in it. Considering I've had Canons for years with no issues, I can only hope for the same from my Nikon! Now I just need a good trip to test it out!

Rants & Raves: Volume One!

I mentioned in my post about expectations for our blog that I would include rants and raves about all the things we love and miss while here. Here is the first installment of what I love and hate!

Local: Rheingau Wine Festival

Today marks the last day of one of the biggest festivals in our city. Rheingau is an area of Germany around the Rhine river known for it's Riesling. I'm not a fan of Riesling because I think it's entirely too sweet, but considering we live in an area known for a particularly wine, it felt necessary to go to the fest.

When I try to describe German festivals to friends or relatives back in America, it's almost impossible. In America, a festival is generally more of a craft fair dedicated to selling random overpriced homemade trinkets in a park or maybe based around a parade. Food served at an American festival is mostly deep fried sweets of some kind that cost about 20 cents to make and are sold for closer to $5. In America, everything is catered towards families and festivals are usually overly "kid-friendly" in that they often center around some sort of entertainment for children, are completely alcohol-free and end by 7 pm. I've never heard of anyone between the ages of 12-40 being excited about going to a festival in America. And why would they? American festivals are boring.

In Germany, when a town is having a festival, it's typically positioned right in the downtown of the city and often requires closing down several main streets for days or weeks on end. Vendors will be out most of the day and pretty much all night. German festivals are almost always centered around food and drinking. Whole squares and streets will be filled with tables and surrounded by places to buy fresh made wurst, pasta, pizza and kettle cooked chips. In certain areas, you can sit and be served like a giant outdoor restaurant. There will usually be a stage with a band covering some American music with thick German accents. Children are welcome and free to play in the open grassy areas, but you won't always find much entertainment for them. Some festivals will have areas with fair rides, but not always. People go all out for these events, too. You'll usually see them dressed as if they are attending a wedding or church service while they're maneuvering through the huge crowds of people who turn up for the fest. When you show up in jeans and a t-shirt, everyone knows you're American.

I don't think Americans can wrap their heads around the concept of German festivals for a vast number of reasons. The main one being that this kind of event would probably be in some way illegal in America. People drinking and smoking in public around small children seems outrageous in the States. Closing businesses for what's deemed as a "party" is practically scandalous. One person would complain because it was too loud or not safe enough, and the whole event would be cancelled. Americans aren't taught to control themselves. They don't teach their children how to behave in what is deemed as adult situations. We cause this separation in having a family and enjoying yourself. I remember living near Savannah, Georgia in college and every year when St. Patrick's Day came around, Savannah's streets became flooded with drunk college students partying along the river to the point of throwing up or blacking out. There were areas of the city sectioned off as almost a "family friendly" zone. You could take your kids to one area of the city to have their faces painted and ride a little green train in a circle or you could go down to River Street and drunkenly throw up into a dyed green river (so long as you weren't double-fisting, because that's still illegal). There's no middle ground. Festivals, especially ones dedicated to a particular kind of alcohol, will never work in American culture, so we have to enjoy them in Europe while we can. As I've heard others here say, "Americans would take something wonderful and ruin it."

Aside from the wine fest, we ventured out even a little more by getting sushi. It seems ridiculous that we would consider that venturing out, but ordering food is always a terrifying experience for us. I've picked up on enough words to know when something is beef or pork and I know how to recognize if a dish is made with salmon or tuna rather than shellfish. That seemed reason enough to try ordering sushi! It wasn't a total disaster, but it didn't go very well either. We thought we were going to a place that a friend recommended which was more English friendly, but we were wrong. After lots of pointing and confusion, we got something that we didn't mean to order from a very sweet waitress who was trying her best to please us. So, we ate it and felt like idiots for not being able to communicate better. I've picked up a little bit of German, but I doubt I'll ever feel fully comfortable walking into a restaurant and ordering food.

In other news, being back to work has been great. In February, I'll be starting a program to become a certified lactation consultant. I wish I could be working full time rather than part-time, but anything helps at this point. I'm happy to be able to keep my skills up and continue to learn new things while also living abroad. We are definitely much luckier than most!

Day Trip: Burg Eltz and the Moselle Valley

Greg had a four day this weekend, but since tomorrow is my first day of work, we wanted to take it easy. There is a huge wine festival in town this week that we almost went to, but changed our minds late on Friday night when Greg decided we should check out some castles instead. Next week, we'll probably head over to the wine fest. Saturday, we took a very scenic drive through the Rhineland countryside and visited one of the oldest and never destroyed castles in Germany, Burg Eltz.

Day Trip: Cologne, Germany

Today, we took our first real adventure outside of the comfort zone of our city or a neighboring military installation. We packed up the GTI and headed to Cologne!

Quick Update

I haven't had much to post recently because, to be honest, we haven't been doing anything interesting. Greg has been hating his job miserably and I have been actively looking for one. Good thing for me, I found a job working part-time in a program here providing breast feeding and nutritional education to mothers. Bad thing for Greg, it doesn't look like his job will be improving any time soon.

We spend our weekends trying to stay cool in the July heat despite a severe lack of air conditioning. Recently, I've been attempting to learning to drive my manual 2000 BMW 316 coupe with little improvement. Hopefully, by the time I start working I will have it mastered.

Another goal of mine that was nearly shattered with our move to Germany was going back to school. I had every intention of starting my MSN at University of Colorado in 2013, but that is obviously not going to happen now. I've been actively looking into schools that I can at least begin taking classes online and possibly finish when we move back to the states. There aren't a whole lot of options out there for my situation, but I've talked to a few advisers and have a better idea of what direction I may need to go. Hopefully, I'll be able to start taking a couple of classes in 2014 if I can find a school willing to deal with my unique situation.

This week, we're hoping to take a trip to Cologne and maybe see a few of the castles along the Rhine. We definitely need a break from spending all of our time here in Little America.

We get it.

I couldn't possibly think of a better title for this blog post.

Ever since we found out we'd be going to Germany, we've heard the same advice repeated again and again, "But you'll get to travel everywhere! You'll have plenty of opportunities, you have to ttrraavvell!"

Can I just take a moment to say: We get it. We're living in Europe. Berlin is closer to my current home than my college was to my parent's house. You could be stuck in Atlanta traffic longer than it takes to get to France from here. We have three years and we'll do plenty of traveling, so please stop reminding us that we HAVE to get out and travel the second we get off the plane. We're going to, it's just not as simple for us right now as people seem to believe.

I think people in the United States have a lot of misconceptions about traveling in Europe, particularly if they have never tried to do it as an adult who wasn't, you know, 19 and backpacking. Gas here is close to $10 a gallon on the economy. Train tickets can cost as much as flying across the United States depending on where and when you're trying to travel. How many times a year does the average American afford to fly cross country? Probably not too often. 

My point is, yes, everything is close, but that doesn't exactly mean traveling is cheap, it just means you don't have to go as far, but even the shortest trip is more expensive than the equivalent in America. And that brings us to our next issue- money. In the US, Greg and I were doing very well financially. We were dual income and living almost entirely off of Greg's basic housing allowance, giving us plenty of money to play around with. Since coming to Europe, our income has been reduced to less than a third of what it was 3 months ago. We're living on less than what grocery store clerks make in the EU. We're perfectly able to support ourselves and aren't hurting for money, but it does take some adjusting when your income suddenly reduces substantially. We're having to realistically accept the fact that there are little to no jobs out here for me. It really puts a huge damper on our plans for Greg to get out of the Army in 2016, as we may have very little savings at that point.

Speaking of the Army, did I mention Greg has to get approval for us to leave Germany? I found an awesome deal the other day for a 3 day trip to London and asked Greg if he would be interested in me "surprising" him with it. Turns out, I can't do that because he would have needed to request a pass to leave weeks ago. Bummer. Also, the Army is particularly enjoying making Greg's life miserable the next few months. He is being sent off to several different military bases for weeks on end soon for various training. It's hard to travel when you find out 2 days before that you're husband is going to be gone for the next 3 weeks.

We have ventured out to different festivals in the area and even took a train across the river the other day, but don't expect anything too exciting out of us any time soon. When we get settled and start saving money again, we'll start exploring further out of our comfort zone. Until then, we'll be at the fest drinking dunkles bier and erdbeerwein and walking home. Tschüs!

Dragon boat races on the Rhine last weekend

The Move

In case you've been curious what we've been up to, Greg and I have been lost in a big black hole called moving. After 30 days of living in a hotel, we finally have a place of our own that is somewhat put together. If I ever run across someone who is PCS'ing to Germany, I have a whole ton of advice for them when it comes to the move itself.

Two weeks before our apartment lease expired in Colorado, Greg managed to set up for us to have all of our household good shipped. So how do you prepare to move overseas in less than 2 weeks? You don't. You just wing it and hope everything arrives in one piece in Europe.

When the movers arrived in Colorado, we were surprised to find that the moving company had sent two older women and one young man to pack up our whole apartment in four hours. Yeah, it ended up taking 2 days. At the end of day one, it was pouring rain and hail to the point that they decided to just give up and come back in the morning. Greg ended up needing to be around the whole time to help them move out the larger furniture.

Our big empty apartment in Colorado

A couple of things to note:

• Greg and I sent all of our clothes, half of our linens and some of our kitchenware and utensils "unaccompanied" meaning that it flew on a plane instead of being packed onto a ship to get here. The purpose is that some of your stuff gets to your new location earlier so you aren't completely stranded. The trade-off is that it's less secure and your stuff is more likely to be damaged this way, so don't send anything of any significant value. How did this work out for us? Well, after spending all the time planning what we would send and shipping it 30 days before our arrival in Germany, our unaccompanied goods arrived 2 days after we did. However, we were not able to access our unaccompanied goods until we had a place to live, which didn't happen until we had been here for a month already. By then, our household goods had already arrived as well and both shipments were delivered the same day to our apartment. Luckily, nothing in either of the two shipments were broken or damaged, not even so much as a picture frame. So, send some things unaccompanied, but don't set your heart on actually getting them sooner than everything else. Maybe you'll get luckier than us and get a home right away, but if you're coming to where we're located, don't hold your breath. The housing situation here is crazy and you don't get to decide whether you live on or off post.
• PRO-GEAR! Make sure you separate everything that is pro-gear and most importantly, if you are  a spouse with a career (or in school), everything needed for or related to that career counts as pro-gear. Textbooks, work clothes, diplomas all count as pro-gear and do not go towards your total weight. Greg and I don't own much stuff, but we do know of others that have gone over their total weight and had to pay for part of the shipment. We shed several hundred pounds off the shipment total by being sure both of our work related items were labeled pro-gear. This also allows you to get away with more stuff in your unaccompanied goods, if you choose to go that route.
• Buy things you'll need before you leave and pack them to ship! We did this to an extent, but no where near like we should have. Fair warning, don't expect air conditioning when you move to Germany. If you are coming in summer, you'll want some good fans and black out curtains at the very least. Get them before you come here! We knew we wouldn't have air conditioning, but we were told that the temperature stayed so low that you didn't need it. Summers are rather mild, but there are days it gets 90 degrees and your apartment will feel like a sauna even when it's 80, especially if you ever plan to use your oven. You'll want fans to cool the bedrooms and living areas and good thick curtains to keep out the light. One set of curtains at the PX cost $70, when I know the exact same ones were half of that price back in the states. You'll be hard pressed to find black out curtains on the economy because German buildings have these awesome metal blinds to keep the light out that you won't get on post (and probably won't get to choose if you live on post or not). Fans at the PX are often sold out and will cost you $40 for one of those ugly stand ones that won't match any of your decor. Sure you can wait for Amazon to deliver, but if it's 85 degrees the day you're unpacking, you probably won't want to wait. Plan ahead and buy curtains and fans. If you want to be really proactive, you could consider buying an air conditioning unit, but they are not allowed in government housing. Yes, a lot of people over here have air conditioning units even though they aren't supposed to, but we surprisingly aren't one of them. I'm way too cheap to spend $400 on one. Finally, look into whether or not your housing will have a microwave, and get one if you feel you need it. We don't have a microwave and we may eventually break down and get one, but I'm not a huge fan of them anyway. If you can't live without a microwave, you may want to buy one in the states before leaving because they aren't a household staple here like in America.

We've surprisingly unpacked most of our stuff in the past 3 days. It helps that we have a whole spare room just to throw empty boxes and storage. We've realized that we still need a lot of things to really make this place home. Slowly, it will come together I hope. Until then, I'm just enjoying having my own bed back and a kitchen to make bread in!

Housing Crisis

Before I write this entry, I'd like to explain that my purpose is not to bash the housing workers here or the military, but simply give my point of view on an ongoing issue. From everything we've heard, we have not been the first people to have this same experience. My hope is that others coming here can use our situation to help them make their own personal decisions should they end up in the same predicament as us.

For anyone who doesn't know, Greg and I have been living in a hotel for a month now. Compared to a lot of people here, that's nothing. Some in bound families have been stuck in the hotel for many months at this point with little chance of getting out. Let's be honest, living in one room for over a month is horrible and wears on your nerves quickly.

The policy where Greg is stationed is that almost everyone has to live on post unless there is absolutely nothing available. However, the post is broken into separate housing areas that vary greatly in quality. Some are for enlisted, some are for officers and they range from 2 to 5 bedrooms. Since Greg and I are child-free and not of any particular importance, we've been on the housing list for a long time. When the option finally came up last week for us to take a place and get out of the hotel, we were thrilled! We talked about it and decided that no matter what, we would take the first place offered to us. I mean, how bad could on post housing be?

Then, we saw the place offered. I'll make this as short as possible, it was atrocious. The apartment itself was okay, although you could tell nothing inside of it had been updated since the building was built in the 50's. It was worn and old, but I didn't have very high expectations from the beginning. The area around the apartment, though, was about equivalent to a housing project. Many of the building around it were completely empty or only had a few residents. Trash and construction waste was thrown outside and through the stairwell and neighboring playground (which I failed to mention was literally right outside our bedroom window). There were no cars parking around the vicinity of the building. Doors were left wide open and there was evidence of break-ins in the storage area. We decided we did not feel safe there.

We were informed on multiple occasions that we would be given two options of housing. Since this was our first option, we planned to just return to the office, decline it and move on to our next option. Once back to the housing office, it was apparent that declining housing was easier said then done. In my opinion, the housing workers know that many of the quarters offered are less than desirable, but they still have to get them filled. I don't think it's the individual worker's fault, I believe this company just has certain policies that are not in the best interest of the families. They offered us an unsafe place to live, and when we tried to decline it, they attempted to tell us that we were not allowed to do that because the "housing list was too long". During this conversation, the office manager got involved, some yelling happened (from her, not us) and ultimately Greg was able to look up the regulation and prove that we were in fact allowed to decline the housing offered in order to see another location. They were less than happy that we were informed and standing our ground, despite their attempts to guilt and deceive us. Clearly, these tactics had worked on other families who were now living in these run-down areas.

That night, I got online and submitted an ICE complaint about our treatment and the condition of the apartment we saw. Trust me, they read those things. Our next experiences with the same individuals at the office were a complete turn around. I popped back into the building we were shown yesterday and it was obvious an effort had been made to clean up the area and make it appear safer. Here are some pictures after the clean-up started:

Waste all over the stairs being cleaned up 

Piles of dust and trash

Area where the walls were breaking apart under the stair railing

Temporary fix

Water damage from leaking down the ceiling

Greg was called on Monday afternoon and told there was another unit available for us to view today. We were cautiously optimistic. I mean, nothing could be worse than what we were shown first, right? The whole feeling in the office was completely different this time around. They seemed happy to see us , offering fruit and making small talk. Needless to say, our next option was far beyond what we were expecting. It was a top floor stairwell walk-up that was completely renovated with brand new appliances, windows and fixtures. The kitchen was three times the size of the one I had in Colorado and the living area in general was much more spacious. It was in a good location close to where we can easily walk everywhere and you could tell the neighbors were keeping up with maintenance. Plus, it didn't have a giant playground right outside the windows. Obviously, we hurried back to the office and accepted it. We're moving in on Friday.

Seriously, this kitchen looks like the inside of an Ikea.

So, what is the point of me even sharing this story? If there is one thing I've learned the hard way in life, it's that you really have to be your own advocate. We could have easily been pressured into taking a home that we were unhappy with and felt unsafe in, but we (mostly Greg) stood up for ourselves. We decided that we were not okay with being pushed into making a decision we would regret, and were ultimately rewarded for it. Do not let anyone try to take advantage of you or guilt you into something simply because it's easier for them. Always, always, always stick up for yourself because no one else will do it for you. Trust me, it will save you a lot of grief and disappointment in life!

From CO to TX to GA

It's been 16 days now since Greg and I landed in Germany and moved into a hotel. It's not looking like we'll be getting a place to live any time soon, which apparently we should be thrilled about. Supposedly, we're going to end up getting enough cash in TLA (temporary live allowance) to pay for a car and we're spending the hottest months of the year living in the only place in the area with air conditioning. Did I tell you how much I miss our apartment in Colorado?

View of Colorado Springs last night we were there

Anyway, before jumping on a transcontinental flight, Greg and I spent a month visiting our families. This was probably the longest visit either of us has had with our families since Greg joined the Army and since I went away to college. However, this was definitely the longest time we've ever spent with each other's families.

After the mover's packed up our things and we said a tearful goodbye to the place we've spent our whole married life, we set out for Texas where Greg spent most of his childhood. Since Greg still had to drop off his car in Dallas to be shipped, I drove my Jeep and he followed behind in his car. This was my third cross-country trip in my Jeep. The first was right after Greg left for deployment and I drove it back to Georgia. The second was the day after I graduated from college and packed that sucker down with all my belongings (and Augustus, of course) set out to my new home in Colorado. This third trip was not as upsetting as the first, but still not as exciting as the second. I hope to never drive a 2-door Wrangler with a lift kit from one side of the country to the other again.

We spent a little less than 2 weeks in Texas. Since each side of Greg's family lives in a different city in Texas, we went on an extreme road trip crossing all over the state to visit his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Because I only met most of his family once at our wedding, it was nice to get to know everyone better and spend some quality time together. It would have been awesome to spend more than a day with each side of the family, but we were pressed for time to see everyone we could.

After visiting his extended family, Greg and I went back to his parent's house to spend the rest of our time in Texas with this mom, dad, two sisters and brother-in-law. In case you all might have forgotten, this was the same period of time that strong storms and tornadoes were consistently ripping through Oklahoma and northern Texas. We narrowly missed hiding in bathrooms as a tornado ripped through an area just a few miles from Greg's parent's home while we were visiting family in Austin. Luckily, everyone was safe!

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of visiting Texas because I took all of them on my Diana which I haven't developed the film from just yet.  While we were there, we visited the Fort Worth stockyards for the first time, ate some famous donuts and bar-b-que and spend a day canoeing on the Brazos. Mostly, we spent quality time with family until it was time to say goodbye and continue our road trip to Georgia.

My immediate family all live in the suburbs of Atlanta relatively close to each other while all of my extended family still live mostly in Pennsylvania. While in Georgia, we stayed very busy with my parents, sisters, brothers-in-law and nephews and nieces. My dad's house is just a short drive to both of my sister's homes so we made the rounds visiting everyone. I can't say there was a single day in which we were at a loss of things to do. We climbed Stone Mountain, had cook-outs, went out downtown, played with my sister's four children under the age of five, ate at every awesome restaurant in the area, went on a guided fishing tour and spent a day at the aquarium. Luckily, we also made time to visit with my best friend from growing up and his new wife.

It was great to get to see and spend time with everyone. Greg had barely met several of my family members until then and even I hadn't had much contact with everyone since moving. Actually, this was the first time I got to meet my 9-month old twin nephews! I was able to be there when my oldest nephew and niece we born, but the twins weren't born until shortly after I moved to Colorado. They've all grown up so much that it reminded me how much I'm going to miss being in Germany for three years. Not just with the kids, but with my whole family. Mind you, even when we lived stateside I didn't visit hardly at all, but that fact of knowing that you can't visit is pretty hard. At least we got to all really enjoy quality time together for about 2 weeks before leaving. And I didn't even cry nearly as much this time as I did before driving out to Colorado.

I'll leave you with some pictures from the Georgia Aquarium, biggest in the world!

You all notice that line to the far right side of all of my pictures? Yep, my Canon is done for. I really had no intention of replacing it any time soon until I noticed all of these pictures were marked with that white line of death.

I'm a horrible blogger thus far. Since we've gotten here, we've gone to two festivals and explored both of the cities we are closest to. We've also passed our driver's tests, eaten way too much fast-food and been super depressed over our endless lack of permanent housing. This upcoming week, Greg will be busy at work so hopefully I'll have some time to update. Once Greg's car gets here, we already have out first day trip planned to Cologne!

First Day.

So, I haven't updated in over a month. In the past month, we packed up our entire apartment, visited all of our family and flew out to Germany. I plan to post all about our move and vacation once I get a chance, but I'll start with something much easier- our first day in Germany.

Greg and I were extremely lucky to be able to fly a commercial airline from Atlanta straight to Frankfurt. Most military families PCS'ing to Germany are required to fly on Patriot Express (a military chartered flight) from Baltimore to Ramstein AFB, but we lucked out. When Greg was completing the paperwork to receive tickets, the man in the travel office accidentally booked him to fly out in May instead of June. Opps. Once they realized their mistake, there was no room left on the Patriot Express to bring Augustus. Instead of making us leave our chihuahua-child behind, a very kind woman at Carson Wagonlit filled out some extra paperwork so we could fly Lufthansa and bring Augustus aboard with us.

Did I mention they give out free wine?

Pretty much everyone who knows me knows that I'm terrified of flying. It doesn't matter how many times I do it, I hate it. This trip was no exception. I'll spare you the details, but I'm extremely happy to have a husband who has learned how to deal with my anxiety. Augustus did much better at flying than me. Mind you, he's flown many times before, but only back and forth from Colorado to Atlanta. That 3 hour flight was nothing compared to the 8 hours he spent confined to his little carrier.

Once we got to Frankfurt, we were both dead tired waiting for our luggage to appear. Every minute felt like an hour. Once we finally got everything loaded onto the trolley, we followed everyone else out the exit. The sign pointing to the customs area was closed, so we didn't even have to go through customs. We went to so many vet appointments with Augustus to get the proper paperwork filled out to get him into Germany and then literally no one looked at it throughout the whole journey. No one working for the airline, no one in Atlanta and not even a single person when we arrived in Frankfurt seemed to care that I had my dog with me. The most eventful moment with him was when the girl sitting next to me on the plane told me that I had "a very well behaved cat."

No one had really specifically said what we were supposed to do once we landed in Germany, so we figured we'd just find the USO office and see if they could call Greg's unit. After walking for all of a minute, suddenly two men appeared behind us yelling "Brickman!? Are you Brickman?" Apparently, Greg's sponsor was on top of it! They picked us up, took us to our hotel and then starting showing us around the area.

Now, I have to say, I don't remember a single thing we learned in our first 24 hours here. Greg's sponsor gave us a lot of wonderful advice, but I can't recall a single word of it right now, I was so exhausted. I felt like a zombie wondering around aimlessly staring into space. The only thing I recall is them telling us over and over again that the wonderful weather we were having was not normal. It was low 70's, sunny and gorgeous, much different than the usually overcast and rainy German weather. I could imagine if we weren't completely dead tired, we would have probably really enjoyed being outdoors yesterday.

At 2 pm, we finally got back to the hotel and crashed. I remember telling Greg, "Don't let me fall asleep, I'll never wake back up" and then waking up at 9:30 in the evening starving. Great. Everything within walking distance closed by 8 and our only option was to call an Italian restaurant that would deliver. Listening to Greg attempting to order was seriously comical. Thankfully, they delivered wine as well. You know that feeling that you get when you're at the Vietnamese owned nail salon and you know everyone in there is talking about you because they know you don't understand them? Imagine having that feeling all the time. All the Germans know you're American and have zero understanding of the German language. They are all very kind so far, but you can't shake that feeling that everyone is talking about what an idiot you are for not understanding them. I don't blame them at all, but learning an entire language when you just found out you were moving to a different country 3 months ago is pretty much impossible.

We ended up staying up until 4 am because we took the world's longest nap. We can't really go anywhere right now, so we get to hang out in the hotel and watch German programming and AFN until we get some understanding of this area. I'm not sure if I even want to venture outside after witnessing my first German cockamouse last night. Once Greg wakes up, maybe we can explore this particular housing area we're isolated to for the time being. 

As of right now, we're both extremely jet lagged, disoriented and in complete culture shock. Not only have we never lived in a foreign country, we've never lived on a military post before. Even the "American" way of life around here is totally different than in Colorado. We have a lot to learn!