Moving In

*** This first part of this blog is lengthy and pretty boring.  It's mostly for Carissa and I to be able to look back on in the future.  The casual reader will probably want to skip to paragraph 7. ***

Over a week since I last blogged, been really busy lately.  Carissa had Thursday through Monday off and we pretty much spent the whole time running around.  Thursday I drove down to Vilseck (another town with an Army post that is affiliated with Graf's) to get my driver's license.  We found out about a week in that I had been driving illegally and that if I were to get caught I would've faced a year suspension of my license, or even worse, had I gotten in an accident, a 5 year suspension.  Since no one told us this and Carissa had to work, I continued driving when she wasn't around for another week and half because we really had no other choice.  Thank god I didn't get caught.  To get the license I had to take a two hour class followed by a 100 question test, which you have to get an 85 or better to pass.  Prior to leaving Carissa told me not to worry about studying because the guy that teaches the class tells you everything you need to know so of course I didn't study except for a little bit the night before.  The guy teaching my class was German and didn't cover everything so I got to relive what it felt like to take an Organic Chemistry test at Olaf.  I was literally sweating bullets trying to answer questions about how far I can legally park from railway crossings and roundabouts, how many meters I need to allow when I pass a bicyclist and other random tidbits.  Failing meant I had to wait another week to take the test, but luckily I'm a good guesser because I passed.

We followed that up by picking up the girls early from school to take them to Weiden for physicals that they didn't need but were required to get by the Army in order to participate in activities on post.  It turned into a 4 hour appointment and the doctor came to the conclusion that both Lydia and Haaken need to be seen by an optometrist to check their eyes.  We didn't think their testing methods were very good, so I'm canceling the appointment they made for us this Friday.  Lydia passed the vision test at school the next day anyway.

Friday we dropped off the girls at school and Haaken had his first day at his "school" which is a very nice facility.  We then headed to Weiden to pick up the van we rented and then to IKEA.  After getting three carts worth of IKEA merchandise for our house we headed home to pickup the kids, got caught in construction and a Nuremberg traffic jam and arrived 30 minutes late.  Thankfully the teachers were great about it, but we felt horribly.  We headed to the house, dropped off the IKEA haul, and then began picking up other furniture from around the area from locals that were selling their things on the internet.  I finally got back home at 10pm.

Saturday we had to return the rental car and then spent most of the day at the house trying to put all the IKEA furniture together and making trips to the PX to get more supplies for the house.  We also met the neighbor who is very nice.  He works on post doing logistics for the battle simulations they run on the ranges.  We haven't met his wife yet.  He brought over some temporary shrunks for us to hang our clothes in and he showed me where to dump our yard clippings in town.  Lydia also had a birthday party at the indoor park.

Sunday we spent the morning moving all our things out of the hotel and checking out.  We followed that by brunch at the DFAC (Dining Facility) and then had our first night in our new home.

Monday we took another trip to IKEA to return some things, pick up some more and let the kids pick out bedding, a rug and a lamp for their room.  This time we only had our little Accord and the trip home was pretty uncomfortable.  Through all of this "holiday" weekend the kids were great for the most part.  Hopefully we are now through the worst of it and life can start slowing down and becoming more enjoyable.


***Paragraph 7 ***


We are finally living in our house.  It's bigger than at least I expected before we came over to Germany.  I'm guessing it's because we are in a small town so rent is cheaper and there is more room for bigger homes.  We have three bedrooms and a full bathroom upstairs and then a kitchen, pantry, dining room, and a spacious living room on the main level.  We have a cute little "L" shaped yard with about a 4' x 8' patio.  The yard is fenced and is lined with tall shrubs.  We also have a detached one car garage that has a little storage room on one end.  Since we were really under the gun to get a place to live, housing is very limited right now, and we haven't really been to any other homes, it's hard to judge on if we got a good deal or not.  From the small number of places Carissa was able to look at we think we did pretty well.  One of the downsides as I said before is we have no appliances at the moment.  We thought we had a free fridge lined up, but we found out last night that it's broken so we're out of luck there.  We bought a little double hot plate so we can at least boil water and we have a microwave.  We do have appliances lined up and will have them on June 18th along with our dining room table and chairs.  So for now we will limp along with what we have, try to find a mini fridge possibly, and continue eating our dinners on cushions around the IKEA coffee table.

First Dinner

One thing I didn't know before moving here is that they heat with oil.  In our basement we have two 2000L plastic tubs that hold the oil.  Our basement does not smell pleasant as a result and the smell gets into the main level if we open the basement door.  The laundry room is down there, but I would think the clothes would take on the smell of the oil.  It doesn't matter anyway because we don't have a washer or dryer so we will be taking our laundry to the laundromat.  The flooring isn't great either - pretty ugly linoleum - upstairs it's kind of an orangy pink and the stairs are some sort of stone tile that will probably result in a trip to the hospital if one of the kids take a spill.  Small complaints that we can live with though.  We should be quite comfortable here and have enough room for guests.  It's a nice quiet neighborhood and there seem to be kids around, we just haven't had a chance to walk around and meet anyone yet.  I did meet a guy at the recycling area outside our house that was quite the character.  My neighbor told me I would be sure to meet him - he is German and had just been to Florida.  He was very excited about how cheap the US is and kept randomly bringing up and even showing me receipts from his favorite places - Arby's, Golden Corral, Dollar Tree, etc.  Pretty interesting what he finds great about the US are some of the stores and restaurants I detest.

The weather here is still not great.  The last 3 days have been in the 50s and rainy.  The kids are doing well, although Elise had a couple weak moments today and told me she didn't know what was so great about Germany and wanted to go home.  All 3 of them are so tired just like mom and dad from all the running around the last 3 weeks, and I think it will be much better once we get out and have a little fun and meet some people.  This weekend is supposedly going to be nice so hopefully we can get outside.  We also are talking about trying to plan some trips.  It would be great if some of my globetrotting family and friends gave us some suggestions on the first things to see and do that the whole family would enjoy.  I would guess we will try to take 1 or 2 long weekend or week long trips this summer, but there are so many places to go it's hard to decide where to start.

Well I think that's it for now.  Two more days and it's the weekend!  Below are some more pics from the house. 

Kiddos on the couch

Kitchen

First night in new rooms

Living Room

Kids Corner