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.