I Falled Down :-(

You'd think that after thirty-three years, I would've mastered walking. I haven't. Yesterday, I had an errand to run at Conn Barracks (where Jerry works), so I took the bus for the first time there. I felt very proud, venturing out on my own! I got there fine and took care of the errand and got to see Jerry. I was also introduced to several people in his office. They all seem very nice. And very strong! I've always considered my handshake to be pretty strong (y'know, for a girl), but some of those soldiers almost crushed my little hand!! Ow!

When I left Jerry's office, I had just missed one bus and it would be another half an hour before the next bus came. I knew that if I used the back gate, the walk would only be a couple of miles. And I had my iPod. So I set off for home. It was actually a pretty nice walk, except unlike almost everywhere else in the area, there was no designated walking area. It was a narrow road with not much to walk on next to the road, as it's all overgrown. Maybe I'm using that as an excuse. I was walking on grass and that's why I tripped....sure. Whatever the case, I went down pretty hard, twisting my right ankle and slamming my left knee into the ground! Ouch! I quickly looked around to see if there was anyone who saw that. Not a soul in sight! Whew! Not that I mind falling in front of people. If I'm with friends, I don't mind because it's a good laugh. But falling in front of strangers sucks, because they get all worried and everything.



Luckily, it wasn't that much further to home. I even managed to hobble myself to the commissary and pick up some groceries on my way. It wasn't until later, after sitting, that I realized how much pain I was in. I'm taking it easy today and am starting to feel better. Just a little dumb for not being able to walk!

Today's pictures are the before pictures of our dining room. You can see that we have lots of windows and get lots of sun, which I love! It's kinda strange having a dining room table, and we've only eaten at it once! We've borrowed this from the Army, but don't have one of our own. When we get our own stuff, we'll probably be using the dining room as a work area, a place for our giant desk and laptops, along with a couple of stools at the counter.

Today, Jerry had to take a trip to Grafenwoehr, a post a few hours away from here so that he can get his military driver's license. I was invited by his boss to join them, but ended up not going because I'm all hobbly-pants and they said they make this trip fairly often and I'd be welcome to come again. We also got word that our car is in-country and will be arriving here in Schweinfurt next week! We're pretty excited about that since the VW hasn't been the most reliable.

Jerry and I are both looking forward to the weekend, though we don't have specific plans. Well, we definitely plan on bowling. We've been meaning to go all week, but things like the car breaking down and my legs breaking down keep getting in the way! We'll also be visiting the Volksfest before it leaves on Monday. Though I don't think we'll be drinking quite as much as last weekend!

Tschussi!

We Like Stuff

It's true. We may be materialistic. But we like stuff. Especially our own stuff. Our own furniture (especially our own bed and couch). Our own movies (a pretty impressive collection). Our own photographs and boxes of memories. Our own dishes (yay, Fiestaware!). Our stuff. But right now, we don't have most of our stuff. We have stuff that the Army has lent us until our stuff gets here. Our stuff was moved from the states on April 15. All of our paperwork indicated it would take about 90 days to get here, arriving in the middle of July. When I first arrived in Germany, the transportation office gave us an estimated arrival date of June 23, which made us happy. We'd have our stuff sooner! Yesterday, we received an e-mail message letting us know that our stuff was here!! Well, sort of. It's at their shipping agent's warehouse. They won't be able to deliver our stuff until June 12. But we're pretty happy! Only two weeks until we're reunited with our stuff! So it seems a good time to start showing some 'before' pictures of our apartment so you can get an idea of what it looks like without our stuff. Generally, it's kinda messy because we don't have what we need to properly store the stuff that we do have.


Here are a few pictures of the kitchen. It probably won't look that different when we do get our stuff, since most of the stuff will end up in cabinets. We've made a little progress in making it homey around the window: cute lace curtain, glasses from the Volksfest (along with our plant that's still alive) and some wedding present spice containers decorating the sill.

This is the second bedroom. As you can see, it's currently being used to store all of Jerry's army gear. We plan to get all of the army stuff into the closets and use the rest of the room as a work space for both of us.

I'm finding the built-in storage throughout the apartment to be both an asset and a challenge. It's great because there's a lot of storage space. But it's a challenge because it takes up a great deal of wall space (especially in the master bedroom) and it's storage space that doesn't always quite meet our storage needs. For instance, I have a lot of shoes. I have shoe racks for my lots of shoes that would normally sit on the floor of a normal closet. But our closets have shorter hanging spaces with drawers built into the bottom. So, little things like that are proving to be a bit of a challenge as we plan for the arrival of all our stuf.

We don't like it when our stuff breaks. Like our new car. Last night, Jerry was driving home from work when he realized he left his ID at work. The military ID is pretty important as you have to show it almost everywhere you go. It's scanned everytime you enter a post, and then is often required to be shown at many locations on post. So he turned around to go back to work to retrieve the ID and mid-turning around the car just stopped. He was able to get it to the side of the road, but that was it. He had to walk home in his full army uniform. And let me tell you, our soldiers have it rough. They wear long sleeve (heavy) jackets that they're required to keep on. So even though it was superhot and Jerry was sweating like nobody's business, he kept that jacket on for the 20 minute walk home. When he got home we made arrangements to have the car towed, which required us both walking back to the car (Okay, I didn't have to go. But I did.),which wasn't a big problem except when we got to the gate closest to where the car had broken down, it was closed for the evening. So we had to walk around to another gate, exit the Askren area and basically backtrack around the perimeter of Askren just to get started on our walk. It was a little silly! The tow lady was super nice and we're supposed to hear back from her today about what it will take to fix the car. After we gave her everything she needed, we walked at a more leisurely pace back home, stopping at the Volksfest for ice cream, which was, as always, a delicious treat!

On My Own

So Jerry went off to work yesterday and I was left to fend for myself. I had a really productive day. If you know me, you know I like productivity! I can't say the day was particularly exciting, but it made me very happy. As you can see, I made a little sign for our front door! I also walked about 4 miles, went to the gym, PX and commisary, and made a delicious dinner using a new recipe that I made up. Again, not too exciting. But a good day!

This past week, Jerry and I have spent a lot of time talking about our goals and trying to plan to achieve those goals. One of my personal goals is to get back on track in terms of weight loss. When I met Jerry, I had just lost over a hundred pounds. In the time we've been together, I've gained too much back. So I'm taking a little time to really focus on getting back down to a lower weight. But trying to set realistic weight-loss goals. As much as I'd like to see the weight melt off in just a little bit of time, I want to do it slowly enough that I have an easier time maintaining it. So I'm hoping to lose 10 pounds per month for awhile. We'll see how that goes :-)

Volksfest!

Jerry returned to work this past week for a total of one day!! On Thursday, we got a little sample of what our 'real' lives are going to be like, starting at 6:00am most days. Here's Jerry as he headed off to work, the first time he's been in costume (as I like to say) since I've been in Germany.

Seeing Jerry Giant in uniform fills me with a lot of emotion. Of course, I think he's totally hot :) But it also fills me with pride to see him in uniform, proud of a man who is pushing himself physically and professionally, proud of a man serving our country and protecting the freedoms I hold so dear. And it scares me too, as I'm reminded of the possible risks he faces by being a soldier.

Anyway, Jerry returned to work on Thursday. But Friday began a four-day weekend :) Thursday was very productive for me. Jerry had to be up at 6:00 in order to make his 6:30 PT (physical training), which happens every day. I woke up with him and while he was at PT, I walked a mile with Scooter, made 3 dozen cookies for Jerry to take to his office, and went to the recycling center. All before Jerry returned for a shower and breakfast at 7:30! While he was at work, I'll admit that I almost immediately took a little nappy. But after my little rest, I kicked into gear and got a crapload of stuff done around the house. I walked to both the PX and the commissary and cleaned a lot. It felt good to be getting things in order and being productive on my own.

The Schweinfurt Volksfest (folk festival) is being held now. After a few weeks of extensive preparations just outside the housing gates, the festival opened on Friday. Though it's a traveling festival, it has some pretty intense rides that would rival many amusement park rides. And the food!! My goodness. Jerry and I ate and drank so much this weekend. We're lucky that it will be shutting down in a week. Take a look at these giant biers!!

On Saturday night, Jerry and I met up with a few people that he works with and drank a lot. Those beers we're holding are each a liter! We each drank three liters of beer that night. And we felt it the next day! Generally I don't like beer, but I totally enjoyed the beer and the festival atmosphere. It was great to meet new people and I even had a conversation in German with an older German guy who came to our table and started up a conversation.

As I mentioned, the festival food is amazing! We've eaten many bratwursts, sampling and comparing the brats from the various stands. We've narrowed it down to our two favorites. While Jerry's favorite festival food is Bratwurst, mine is the Brezen (pretzels). Not only are the pretzels ginormous and delicious but they come in many varieties. Many pretzels have been baked with cheese, vegetables and meat, and have become encrusted with tasty goodness. Other pretzels have been split in half and filled with meats and cheese, like big pretzel sandwiches (my personal favorite pretzel form). My favorite combination is a pretzelf filled with cold cheese, salami, pickles and butter. Reading that over, it looks a little gross. But trust me, it's delicious. We've also sampled some roasted candied nuts (almonds and cashews) and have tried some sweet popcorn and ice cream. All have been good, though we have yet to find ice cream that's as good as the ice cream at our favorite eis cafe (which also has amazing cappucino and hot chocolate). Oh, on the topic of ice cream, we've also had ice cream from an ice cream truck. Here, the ice cream trucks have ice cream and the drivers make ice cream creations for the curbside customers, instead of carrying pre-packaged frozen treats, as in the States.

Enough (for now) on the culinary delights of the festival!

This weekend, when not stuffing our faces or drowning ourselves in bier, we did manage to take a couple of nice walks, have cappucinos and great conversations at a sidewalk cafe a couple of times (okay, i guess that could be considered part of stuffing our faces), and see the movie Iron Man (which we both really enjoyed). We intended to go bowling today, but failed to remember that the bowling alley is closed on Mondays. Silly us!

Tomorrow Jerry begins a longer week of work (four days) and I'm hoping to do more settling in. Next week I will be starting my German class which meets three days a week and hopefully will be taking my German driver's exam as well. So that I will be able to drive our sweet VW. I have a photo of the car, but every time I try to upload it, it uploads sideways and just looks silly. I'll take new photos and post them later.

Time to call it a night. We have an early day tomorrow. A day that promises to be filled with adventure (cooking a new dish!) and fun (shopping for shampoo!).

Shopping and Bingo

Today was Jerry's last day on leave and we spent it pretty leisurely. By the time we left the house, it was nearly 1:00 and we didn't have any major plans. We started with the PX, where we picked up some exciting household items (not really exciting: dish drainer, curtain clips, hangers) and then had some American fast food. Since I've been here, we've steered pretty clear of the American fast food on post, with the exception of one meal at Burger King. Today we enjoyed some Taco Bell, which in my opinion was superior to its American Taco Bell counterparts. After a tasty (and very belly heavy) lunch, we finished a few errands at Ledward Barracks and then drove over to Conn Barracks. Since Jerry's going back to work tomorrow, I'm going to be relying on Army bus transportation if I want to go to Conn Barracks. We decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to show me the bus route today, as well as some places at Conn that I may want to visit while Jerry's at work (primarily, the gym).

After getting some gas on post (which is purchased at a fraction of the cost that Germans pay), we left post and went to some real German stores. Our first stop was Aldi. We have these in the states, but they're much more fun to visit in Germany. The best section was the "authentic American" section, which carried the weirdest (and not what I would consider very American) food items, including a condiment ribbon of ketchup and mayonnaise, dried fried onions and white barbecue sauce! Then we went to OBI. Ahhhh, OBI. It's the German equivalent of Home Depot and one of my favorite places to visit. Here you can see the store (looks a little bit like Home Depot, eh?):



Here are our purchases! Today we purchased the plant with orange blossoms (Tassmania), as well as the amazingly awesome cow welcome mat! We had previously purchased our lucky bamboo and ivy. While we still don't have most everything that will make our house our home, we're starting to bring life into the place and give it some homey touches!

We didn't want to leave Scooter out in making this place our home. At OBI, we purchased a brand spankin' new pillow for the Scoots. As you can tell, he finds it quite comfortable and I'm pretty sure that if he could talk that he'd say he loves it!!

After our day of shopping, we stopped at home briefly before heading out for some Bingo on post. I've always had particular luck with Bingo and tonight was no exception. Between me and Jerry, we had three Bingos over the course of the night. Unfortunately, we both got a Bingo at a time when someone else did. They break tie bingos with a coin toss and both of us lost our coin tosses, and therefore lost the prizes. But I won one Bingo and got a wine set as a prize: 2 bottles of wine, a wine holder/pourer thing (it's pretty cool), a cheese board and set of cheese knives, 2 wine stoppers, a champagne stopper, and a weird pop-up carrying case thing.

Now it's almost bedtime. Tomorrow we start our 'real' lives here in Germany, with Jerry leaving the house at 6:00am for PT. It's been a nice 10 days, but I think we're also looking forward to getting into our regular routine and settling into our life together, for really the first time since we got married.

A Good Day

I can't say that today was very eventful. But it was a good day, nonetheless. We started the day by meeting with a financial advisor on post to start making financial plans for our future...better late than never! We got so much good information. And while at that office, I got some information on a German class that takes place next month. And while it will be great to have a refresher course in German, it will be even better to meet new people, many of whom will also be spouses new to the post.

We spent a big chunk of the day walking to, around, and from downtown Schweinfurt. The top two pictures are of the Schweinfurt Rathaus...the Germans like their fancy town halls! Here's a picture of the Markplatz in front of the town hall...today it was full of flowers for sale!

During Jerry's in-processing time, he was taken on a tour of Schweinfurt which included visiting a church downtown (St. Johannis Kirche) that had been almost completely destroyed, but has since been reconstructed to look as it originally did. Over the centuries, Schweinfurt has recovered from three periods of destruction! The outside of the church carries scars...cannon balls lodged into the clock tower. Here is a picture of the inside of the church with sun coming in through giant windows.

We did do a substantial amount of eating today, beginning with two shared sandwiches at a bakery. Later, after walking around a bit, we shared a bratwurst....we both agreed that we would probably be happy to only eat bratwurst during our entire stay in Germany! With the supergood bread of course!!

Here is a photo of the Rossmarkt, the central area downtown where all buses converge. The bus shelter is a pretty cool construction that I thought was worthy of a photo.

As if we hadn't eaten enough already, we couldn't pass by our favorite Eis Cafe without stopping for ice cream. We shared a cone of my favorite flavor (Hazelnut) and then sat outside with a cappucino (Jerry) and hot chocolate (me). It seems that Germans really value their lounging around at cafes time. People take their time and enjoy their coffee beverages and ice cream creations, along with the shared company. It's really a nice part of German life. Though we suspect we should lay off the excessive ice cream eating!

We returned home and spent the day pretty leisurely....a very good day indeed. We have one day left before Jerry returns to work on Thursday. But then we have a three (or possibly four) day Memorial weekend!

We did get some sad news from Elyssa today. She's torn something in her knee...ouch!! She's going to doctors and will be taking good care of it, but she had been hoping to play softball this summer and now it looks like she won't be able to :( We hope her knee feels better soon and that she gets to get back to doing all of the active things she loves to do.

Bamberg

Today we took a day trip to Bamberg, a town about 45 minutes away. We hopped into our sporty 1991 VW Golf and hit the Autobahn for our little outing. We haven't quite figured out how the parking works in terms of permits, so we took our chances parking in an area that didn't appear to have any signs saying we shouldn't park there. We still don't know if we were really supposed to have parked there, but we didn't receive a ticket. We're going to do a little bit of research on general parking rules in Germany before our next outing!

Bamberg's claim to fame is that it has the biggest Old Town in Germany to have survived intact through the centuries. The city is over 1,000 years old! It's pretty wild to think that buildings that we saw today are multiple times as old as the country of the United States! Here's a picture of the old Rathaus (town hall) which is actually built in the middle of a small river and has a bridge running through it.

After exploring the twisty, tiny streets of Bamberg (and sampling a piece of fresh bread from a bakery), we ate at a cafe located at the foot of the bridge leading from the old Rathaus. Our waitress was very sweet and helped us with our German. Knowing full well that we were Americans, she humored us by letting us order 'auf Deutsch' and communicating with us primarily in German. I hope that every day we give ourselves a little German challenge while we're here. I had the most interesting salad there. One that I'm sure my sister would love!! It was a regular salad with mixed greens, tomatoes and cucumbers, served with a light mustardy dressing. Sitting atop the salad were fried mozzarella sticks...brilliant. It may have ruined the salad in terms of healthiness but it was tasty! And they did this clever thing where the marinara sauce was baked into the center of the cheese sticks!

After our day at Bamberg we returned home and hit Rock Band on our Xbox 360, our new favorite passtime :) All in all, a very good (though a bit chilly) and very enjoyable day.

Signs Signs Everywhere Signs

I must confess to my fascination with German street signs, as evidenced by my first photographs of Germany. Today, I almost got into trouble with the Military Police while photographing the sign leading into the gated military housing area. After walking to the PX, which is at a military installation a few blocks away, I was returning to the apartment. As I approached Askren Manor (name of the complex), I realized I had my camera with me and figured I'd take a quick shot of the sign leading into the complex. After taking a few pictures, I saw that I had the walk light and started to cross the street in front of a military police car turning out of the gate area. I thought nothing of it, but then the police car was back at the gate having made a U-turn down the street. The MP man got out of his car and stopped me before I went through the gate to ask me what I had been taking pictures of. I showed him the photos I had taken in the display screen and I had to delete one because it showed part of the gate itself. I guess it was kinda dumb of me not to consider that in a place where you have to present a military ID to enter any area, taking photographs could be considered a security risk. I felt pretty stupid. But relieved that the MP hadn't gathered my identification info. Because stupid army wives reflect poorly on their spouses. It was an interesting lesson learned in army life. I'm sure there'll be many more lessons to come! When Jerry saw the picture that I was allowed to keep, he commented that it looked like we live in a prison! I'm sure you'll agree:


Though it should be noted that within the barbed fence, there's a lot of trees and playgrounds!

After a week of things being a little strange, it feels as if a sense of normalcy is starting to develop between me and Jerry and it feels really great! Maybe I'm just basking in the glow of bowling! We went bowling tonight and though I completely and totally suck when it comes to bowling, I always have such a fun time! I hope that bowling will become a regular part of our
routine and that maybe we can find some other couples (friends perhaps?) to join us! I also hope that with time I won't suck quite as much :) But bowling is one of the few activities where my perfectionist tendencies don't prohibit me from having fun!


Jerry will be returning to work on Thursday. So we're looking forward to three more days of unlimited together time. But we're also looking forward to getting into the routine of daily life, with Jerry working his regular hours. Which will allow me to start exploring my employment options and will help me get into a better fitness routine.

I'll leave you with a few views of streets in the area surrounding our apartment (outside the gates). Hopefully I'll have some of the downtown Schweinfurt area to post in the next few days.

I'm home!

At last, I'm home. In Germany. With my husband. And my Scooter. A family again!

Saying goodbye to my family in Massachusetts was very difficult, but I feel so lucky to have spent those last weeks in the states with them. I feel equally blessed to have had a great visit with my friend Jason (and his wife Alex for one night - not just his wife but also my friend!), which reminded me how lucky I am to have the greatest friends in the world!

I won't lie, coming to Germany hasn't been all roses and rainbows. Of course, seeing Jerry again brought me so much joy. But there are things that will be hard for me to adjust to as an army wife. It was difficult to arrive in Germany and receive little demonstrative affection, as my husband picked me up at the airport with a superior officer. It has been strange to accept our apartment as my home, as it is one of countless apartments that look like all the other military units. This is accentuated by the fact that our stuff has not yet arrived. So the place is void of personal touches, holding the barest essentials for living and some furniture on loan from the army. The military installations that make up the Schweinfurt post are boring and uniform. Anyone who knows me probably can imagine that this is not the ideal fit for my personality!

But those are just initial impressions. Ones that I suspect will change as I make our house our home (when our things arrive in June) and as I get to know the people that call this home.

While the aesthetics of the military housing and the posts have left much to be desired, the city of Schweinfurt has all the German charm and character I had hoped for! In less than a week, I can already see myself feeling very much at home here and not wanting to leave! Since Jerry's been given time off to spend with me, we've spent much of the week not only taking care of business on post, but walking around and exploring Schweinfurt together. We've eaten yummy foods and even yummier ice cream (yeah, I know that technically ice cream is a food...but it's so good that it needs a separate category), walked a lot, and tonight went to a city fussball (soccer) game.

I'm happy to say that I've retained some of the German that I learned in high school, even though I haven't really thought about it much since then...fifteen years! I'm excited to learn as much as I can while I'm here and to immerse myself in the language and the culture as much as possible.

I feel like there's a lot to be said, but I'm not able to say it right now :) As I settle in, I should be posting more and adding more pictures. Today's picture is a simple one, but one that makes me happy. In many places surrounding the posts, there are very large sidewalkes that are divided in half, with one side designated for pedestrians and the other for cyclists. When the sidewalk reaches a street, the crosswalk sign is a little different from the ones in the U.S.. Pretty cool, eh?

Overall, I'm so happy to be here. It feels like Jerry and I are finally getting the chance to begin our lives together. Which is amazing and scary at the same time. We have a lot of love and a lot of work ahead of us!