The new place

Today is the official move-in day. We checked out of the hotel this morning and drove over to our new house to greet the quick-ship movers and the FMO guys (furniture permanently loaned from military--like washer/dryer, etc.). Later we decided to go for a walk in our new town. There are many walking/biking trails from our house. We didn't know where any of them led, so we took off and soon came to this: I couldn't believe it. Acres upon acres just like this! I wanted a picture of both of us in the flowers, but they were so thick and long, it was a chore to get out there. Jeremiah opted for a photo on the trail instead (smart guy):
We found a cemetery. It is a fairly new cemetery with the oldest grave (that I saw) from someone born in the 1890s. They plot their graves differently than I'm used to. Each plot has a garden on top. It's quite beautiful and makes for very different styles. The family members are in charge of the gardening/upkeep of the plot. All in all, we walked at least 5K today. It was good exercise and a good way to see our town. We live on a huge hill, so the walk back up was invigorating to say the least! By the time we got home we were very hungry so we decided to go investigate more of the town by car. The thing I like about the towns here in Germany is that there are little restaurants all over the place! They hide in the old buildings you would normally never notice (because many are residences), but after only a few weeks we are developing a keen eye for spotting them. We haven't had a bad meal here yet, and this place did not disappoint. I would even venture to say it is my new favorite restaurant!
As we were leaving, a man at a table made a comment to me, which I did not understand. So, I said in German "a little slower, please". I guess I have an American accent because the whole table had an immediate understanding, even though there aren't a lot of military living this far from base. They were the most pleasant people! Many Germans can speak English--at least a little bit--but these folks did not. For the first time, I had a fun conversation in German with locals! It was not stressful for me, trying to remember words, or trying to convey something important, but was light and happy. We talked for about 7-8 minutes then paid our bill and left. I have found that as I try to communicate in German to people, they are very warm and inviting to me--even when I don't know the words. We have felt very welcomed here and think we'll enjoy our new home.

Scattered Pic-tures (hangin' on the wall)

So, I've taken some pictures that haven't found a place on my blog yet, but deserve some recognition...
The Germans have a sign for everything. And I mean everything! Here is one of the more amusing ones: I took some pictures of cool motorcycles for my nephew Seth (look at the orange one--there is a seat ready for him!). There are some other cool cars around. I'm keeping my eye out for other car photo opportunities...
We ate at a Mexican restaurant tonight. This was an experience!
I need to back up a little. First off, everything you ever order at any restaurant is charged to your bill. I mean everything. I have tried to order a tap water before only to be given bottled water instead with a short "sorry we don't serve tap water" reply before hurrying off. Of course the bottled water was nicely opened for me and put into a glass with the leftover still in the bottle. This has gotten annoying as I'd really just like a tall glass of water with ice and "no gas". (Do not just order water, as they will give you carbonated water--no ice). So, that's 2+Euro easily (times 2 for Jer). Plus, there is a 19% tax included in everything you buy in Germany (not on base). That is some seriously expensive water! And no, it is not magic water. And where's my ice?!! Now, if you get a cola instead, there are no refills. So, this is really the only thing that has upgraded from inconvenient to irritating.
On a happier note, at least the price advertised is including tax, not added after like we do in the States. I think the Germans have a better idea.
Back from my digression, we ate at Cantina Mexicana tonight in Einsiedlerhof. We got a basket of chips and salsa for 2 Euro. This was unlimited. That means refills! YES! We ate through 3 full baskets of it. They also served tap water with ice and free refills (and no charge for the water)!!! The food was excellent, as always, but the fun part was we were then treated with a Mariachi merengue! They were really talented! They sang to each table independently and really made the restaurant lively and exciting.

We signed a contract!

We have found a place to live! We will move in April 27th. It is a wonderful townhouse in a little village outside the heart of K-Town (Kaiserslautern). It is perfect for us. The window on the left is looking out from the kitchen. If you go to the back of the house (same level) there is a deck overhanging the walk-out basement porch. In most of the houses/places we looked at, there is a mudroom, or entrance room to each house. This is almost always closed off by a door before entering the actual living space.
Every room in every German house has a door. These are not like doors one would find in the States. They seal closed. They don't close flush into the door jam like I am used to; they seal into them and have a lip about 1 inch wide that covers the wall (hence, it is not flush with the wall). It was odd at first, but didn't take long to get used to. ( I haven't seen the American style doors here at all--not even on base). The houses are made like this to be able to shut off every room in the house, thus saving on energy costs. (And these doors are solid wood--none of the hollow doors that I'm now ashamed to say Jer and I had in our house we sold...)
As you walk through the mudroom doorway, this is what you see: To the left is the dining area (and to the extreme left--to the left of where I'm standing to take the picture--is the kitchen). There aren't sliding glass doors in Germany. They are glass doors that open like a normal door. Anyway, out the glass doors is our stone patio. Now panning to the right a bit, you can see out of the other glass doors that enter onto the small overhang deck The staircase to the right goes to the basement and up to the upper 2 floors (Note: the rugs, fan, etc are leftovers from the tenant still living there).
We will use the basement as our entertainment area, the main floor as dining and formal sitting (this is where I will put my piano!), the 3rd floor is where our bedroom will be, and the uppermost story will be used for storage.
Here is a view taken from the doors looking back at the mudroom (kitchen door is just to the right of the mudroom door).
There are skylights in the bedrooms, making it easier to see the beautiful view!:

Easter

Here I am at the library on my laptop with a card reader for the SD card from the camera! (Like that sentence?) I have been postponing my next post until I could post pictures. I have posted pics to my old posts, so if you want to see some, go back to look.
The Germans celebrate Easter in a 4-day weekend. First, there's Good Friday, then Saturday is a bonus day, next comes Easter Sunday, and finally Easter Monday. A really fun tradition is that they hang Easter eggs from trees. Another interesting thing: there is a truck that drives around the little villages delivering colored eggs (real ones!). One lady bought 4 1/2 dozen (a LOT!) and then gave us one egg each.

Freedom

We got our car today. Now we can drive wherever we want! Just like any other DMV, it took a few hours and we ran into a disgruntled federal employee. It is inescapable. Surprisingly, there was just 1 person with an attitude problem. Everyone else seemed to be happy to have a job. So, all in all, better than the US.
We also finally got the combination to our post office box. There were a few packages--adaptors specifically made for the Wii, XBox, etc. Those will come in handy if we ever find a place to live.
Housing always seems to be closed, so we've just picked up the fliers, but know nothing about actually renting or contracts or anything.
Today was mostly filled with appointments and other non-exciting things to report. The glamour hasn't worn off yet, but there are things to be done.
Hopefully the next post will have something more exciting. I can't wait until I can post pics!

Day 3 in Germany

I want to buy a new camera. This would solve a few problems. One, I can't charge the battery on my current camera without buying a transformer; and wouldn't you know it--the BX is fresh out. So, I keep using it and expect soon it will die, since I have used it a LOT. That leads me to another reason: I could transfer the pics to our laptop and (theoretically) post them (as soon as we can get to the library with WiFi 5 miles away). I also want a camera that I can control more. Point and shoot is nice, but I want to control the aperture setting, the F-stop, etc. I want nice night shots too.

Today we visited a castle. It is near Landstuhl called Burg Nanstein. It is about 600 years old. It is so fun to imagine living back then: cooking in the huge kitchen made from stones and the natural rock of the mountain; the small-diameter, 15 foot long passageway for cats that is probably more likely a spy hole of some sort where they could shoot arrows and such; the steep, rounding staircases; and especially the carvings in the stones.
I called a few places today to find somewhere to rent. I usually introduce myself, say I'm American, then ask if they speak English. After a while, I wrote it down for Jeremiah so he could take a turn. He did very well--he is smart, so is picking up German very quickly. It was my turn again. I spoke with the landlord who asked I call the tenant for a time to look at the townhouse. So, I called the tenant and gave my normal introduction, but after my question about speaking English, he said, "nein." CRAP! I stumbled a little, but started speaking German. Those of you who really know me know I took German in high school. That was 1/2 my life ago. The amazing thing was: I said what I needed to say! Now, I don't claim to be fluent, nor was my German "pretty", as I said "uh" and "um" a lot, but I put the sentences together correctly, and somehow old vocabulary I haven't used in years came out. I was in survival mode! So, I'm speaking German and get my point across of what I'm looking for when the tenant interjects in a very American accent, "You speak good German!" "You're mean!" (Yes, I said that). Jeremiah started laughing really loudly when I said this. I started laughing too, and so did the tenant. It actually was funny, and obviously this American was fluent in German as well, but needless to say, that was my last apartment hunting call for the day.

Day 2 in Germany

Today was just about as adventurous as the first! We woke up quite early this morning. We took a long walk (about 35 minutes) to the BX to look around. We met our friends for lunch then headed to the post office to check out our new p.o. box. The post office is located on Ramstein, so we had to head off Vogelweh base and to the other.
Every GPS we've heard of has its flaws. Usually the drive between bases is about 5 minutes--10 at the most. We decided to follow the GPS directions. We saw beautiful countryside and picturesque scenes! Then 45 minutes later we found the post office.
Alas, the sign on the door said they were closed for federal holidays and weekends, but it didn't say they would close for random base down days. My dad would love it here! We found our box and a bunch of mail stuffed in it, but no way to open it. We will have to go back on Monday.
We then went to look at a townhouse for rent. It was beautiful with a courtyard and a stunning view of mountains. We prefer to live in a little village away from the busy Americanized city. This was exactly the location we want! The downside is that the place is HUGE! It was 223 square meters (2400 sq. ft.). Each room was enormous and we wished we could get it, but the heating bills! We will have to keep looking.
We ate at a German restaurant for dinner. The menu was in German. We had strussel! Yummy! It was a wonderful evening. The weather is gorgeous and perfect.
(This was the total bill for 4 people)

Day 1 in Germany

We made it! We are staying in a hotel on Vogelweh (another base), which is about 5 minutes from Ramstein. Yesterday was weird, fun, tiring, etc. We were picked up from the airport by our friends, Matt & Christina. It was fun to see them again. People from Jer's work were also there. We ran quite a few errands!
The bases here have scanners at all the gates. Everyone in the car has to show military ID to get on base. When they scan your card, a pic of you shows up. So, we had to get registered so their scan gun wouldn't beep every time we go through the gate and in the meantime, we carry a slip of paper saying we were registered until their system catches up. It worked last night on Ramstein, but apparently Vogelweh is a little behind because 5 minutes later, coming through the gate here, it beeped.
Jeremiah got his temporary license yesterday. Thankfully he'd already taken the test at Langley AFB, so he just had to watch a (extremely boring, and too long after an overnight transcontinental flight) video. They mail his permanent license to him. That brings me to some more bad luck news for us: Jer found the truck title intended for Todd. I guess we are smarter and dumber than we thought: it was with the paperwork all along, hidden. But our car registration is not, and we can't pick our car up without it. SIGH. The things we wish we knew AHEAD of time! We drove past the lot. There's our car! Today is a down day (for no reason other than they like to do that around here). So, we can't pick up the car until Monday anyway. Now we have to try to figure out getting the registration faxed from VA or something. I'm not really optimistic because you all know how smart DMV people are. Now mix that with people from VA, and you have some confused people!
We took a nap (and slept really hard!) after all that was done. Then Matt & Christina called--thankfully waking us up so we can try to adjust to the schedule. They picked us up from the hotel and we went out to eat.
We went to a quaint town called __________ *(I will soon figure out where we are!). We ate at an Italian restaurant off base. Oh, the food was wonderful! The Germans know how to cook Italian! I was nervous, but I decided to get over myself and try out my German. I did fine, but she spoke back, and I didn't know what was going on! We had apple strussel for dessert, which IS a German food. It was also very delicious.
I wish I could post pictures, but for now I'm on a public computer, so you'll have to wait. Sorry!
Day 1 in Germany was eventful and tiring. This is definitely going to be an adventure!

* The town is called Landstuhl.