Signing Off

Well, they found housing for us. I'm not going to go into too much detail today, because I want to save my ranting for a time when I can do the subject justice. Suffice it to say that we've been assigned (rather forced into) an on-post stairwell apartment. We're moving in tomorrow, and there is no internet set up, so I'm signing off for the next little while. (Hopefully it won't be too along until we are internet ready - I'm such an internet junkie this is going to be a real hardship!) So, I hope you all have a great week. I'll miss our world wide web interactions....

My New Best Friend

Today I spent quite a lot of time with my new best friend.....quality time - time discovering the pathways and pitfalls of my new place in life. I can see him/her really being a guiding force in my life here in Germany. Would you all like to meet him/her? Without further ado, here he/she is:




That's right - Nuvi and I had quite the day today. And all because our car FINALLY arrived!

*Note the nifty European license plates!

I can't tell you how happy I am to FINALLY have our car here. Of course, one of the first things we did today was go to a car dealership to look into buying another car....But, before I did that, I drove to my friend's house (only 1 or 2 wrong turns, which Nuvi quickly corrected), drove to a lovely German grocery store and purchased some tasty German bread, cheese, yogurt and chocolate, and back home all without incident. And mom, just so you know, I didn't go over 120 on the Autobahn today. We'll save that for tomorrow....

One last picture, just in case y'all are curious. Here is our current home. We've now reached day 15. Hopefully 15 more to go!

Another Expedition

One of the great things about Heidelberg is it's central location in Germany and in Europe. I think we'll be able to go somewhere fantastic every Saturday for quite a long time without duplicating trips. This last Saturday our friends rescued us from our hotel (today is day 12 in the hotel) and took us to this monastery:


I don't know much about it's history (all the signs were in German, and after a week here, I'm still not fluent :) ) but what I do know is that parts of it are extremely old. There was a tomb in the crypt dated at 1080 A.D. It was renovated in 1889, and destroyed in the 1930's. Apparently Hitler wanted a swank place to hold a rally, so he pulled apart the monastery and built this amphitheater:


Wow. Can you imagine all of that stone back in place at the monastery? It must have been beautiful. The sad thing is, apparently the amphitheater isn't used for much these days. What a waste. The whole area has become a picnic/hide and seek destination. It was a perfect place to take our kids - they loved it, and so did we.

Thanks to our friends....

We are extremely blessed to have some good friends from Georgia here (they moved here last summer) who have been hauling us around so that we can get things done and also do some sightseeing. On Tuesday, they watched our kids for over 4 hours while we sat through a scintillating class on German rules of the road and took a written exam. (I have to insert here that I was quite nervous about the test - it has been over 7 years since I finished school, and pretty much exactly that long since I've taken any kind of test.) Thankfully we both passed - I won't mention who did better....ANYWAY, last Thursday (the day we got here) they took us to a beautiful town just outside of Heidelberg called Ladenberg and last night they took us to Heidelberg itself. Here are a few pictures. As our friends put it, isn't it cool that this is now OUR TOWN?!?!

Here we are in Heidelberg...

Well, I'm making good on a promise here, and I've started a blog. It's something I never really intended to do (start a blog - not keep a promise!) but our recent move to Germany was the death knell to my lack of ambition, so here I am! This post is going to be short - mostly because it's late and I CAN'T stay up until 2 again or I'll never really get over the jet-lag. We had a very, very, very long trip here (it was spread out over 2 days) and the kids were fantastic. We had a few adventures along the way (let's just say I'm never staying in a Hilton again!!!) but we arrived unscathed and happy. So, here we are, connected to the internet and ready to blog. We are still without our vehicle (apparently it's in Germany SOMEWHERE waiting for a truck to fill up so it can be delivered here) and the bus we can catch on post only takes us to US army installations, so unfortunately, we haven't done too much exploring yet. As soon as we do, however, the pictures will start coming and then you'll be begging me to shut up. I don't speak German yet, so I'm sure the spelling's wrong, but I've got to end this post somehow....


Auf Wiedersehen!!!!