Unaccompanied Baggage

Well Christmas has come and gone, and yesterday our last load of things arrived, woohoo. I spent about 8hrs unpacking, organizing, and setting up things. Andrew spent about the same. I'd say 95% is done. He worked half days W,Th, Fri. Which means being at work at 630am and home between noon and two. I also spent about two hours yesterday and today at the job center, filling out forms, revising my resume, and getting help finding jobs. By the time the information is all done I will be too tired to get a job. It is 19 pages long, on top of my resume. I have been informed that I will most likely be underemployed, possibly even working only part time. I will let you know more once my application is out there and will refrain from discussion until then.
This afternoon we ventured out to find the furniture thrift store (the redcross), Gama(bedsets, furniture, etc.), and managed to not get lost. We bought a couple things at the thrift store, some soup bowls and a glass mug.
We just got home from a nearby Chinese restaurant, very good. Although I feel weird eating Chinese in Germany. After we went to a EisCafe...ice cream, and checked out the small mall.
We hope to try out our TomTom (gps) to visit a castle tomorrow. We will let you know how that turns out.
Andrew has off til Wednesday, we hope to go with Mandi, her husband Erik, his friend Dominic, and is German girlfriend Dani, to several local venues, up until midnite, we will then head to a high hill in town to view fireworks. Supposedly it is the one day a year they are allowed to purchase fireworks around here and everyone puts them off at midnite.

Christmas Eve

we just got home from the 7pm candle light service on base. it was pretty good, other than the fact that the boy behind is going through puberty and the girl was singing quite loud, needless to say neither one was on tune. we live across the street from the chapel, so we walked. we have already opened all of our presents. andrew couldn't keep mine a secret very long, he purchased it this morning and gave it to me this afternoon. he gave me a beautiful bike, with fenders, a light, a bell, and a rack on the back (euro design). he received a watch, a backpack, and a handmade wooden christmas ornament. plus, we just bought a tomtom for the car and new cell phones to keep tabs on each other.
we had a lovely taco dinner this evening, but will have an even better one tomorrow when we go to our friend's houses. hopefully, we will find somewhere to drive to tomorrow or tuesday, to see something exciting. i've been quite lazy today. im itching to see something historic, or buy some furniture to replace our loaners.

Apartment

we are officially in our apartment, have our vehicle, both are legal to drive in europe, received our first load of things (2 more weeks for the majority), and we have even bought a few odds and ends (stools for the counter, rugs, glasses, plates, etc; ikea is a great place). we both feel like we should be out doing something, since we are in germany, but it feels great to just be lazy in our "home", to have a couch to nap on, to have more than one room to be in, so we went to a movie on base tonite, i actually have now been to 3...they are only 4 dollars.
i have not talked to the job guy yet, i have been busy being home, waiting for this delivery or that delivery. we had our internet connected, as well as, cable...unfortunately, the internet isnt working right and i am forced to rely on my wireless picking up on the neighbors connection :) hopefully I will get to talk to him this week to get things moving forward for the new year, that is if the office is open. It’s hard to know which places follow which calendar, there are german holidays, American holidays, and federal holidays…every place you go to does it a little different.
I went about a mile off base today with a girl from my class, she helped me buy our cell phones. They are much cheaper off base, but you have to face the language barrier. We were lucky and the girl who waited on us said she knew a little English, she was wrong she was pretty fluent…next we went to a mall, where I quickly learned you need cash (euro) to be able to purchase anything (on base you use usa cash), I had to borrow because all I had was usa cash and plastic…also you have to bring your own bag or basket for your things…
The next day andrew and I ventured out to find ikea, a nice gentleman at the place we picked up our car drew us a lovely map…we found it without trouble, spent two hours there, used our whole giftcard (thanks girls) and than some…we ended up in a line where the girl couldn’t speak English and we didn’t have a eurocheck card, so we backed the line up…I was able to say im sorry in german, after the interaction she had a coworker tell me in English that it was her fault…we both felt bad, and kinda stupid…ahhh, time to learn a few more things/rules…luckily she was sweet about it, and luckily we had a cart to take our things to the car, no bags…
We are headed to my sister’s friend’s sister’s house for dinner Christmas day, she is from waterloo, iowa…she works on base as a civilian/lives off base, her boyfriend lives on base here, he’s in the air force. After that we are headed to my friends apartment for a little more social time. Not sure what else we’re doing, everything pretty much shuts down on Sundays and holidays, which is a good thing BUT not when you have nothing to do.
While in the states I would always order water because I like it better than pop and it’s free, but here water is more expensive than pop, and pop comes with no ice, in a tiny little glass, and costs more than a huge beer…no wonder beer is so big, its cheap…
Well, id better get going to bed…you all are just getting started and im ending it here, have a lovely day weekend etc…

Life

We are working on getting insurance set up for our vehicle here. Our vehicle arrrived sometime today, but we are unable to drive it until 1. One of us takes and passes the test, 2. We get the vehicle insured, 3. We get a special safety kit for it, 4. In turn get the plates....so Andrew is going to skip out on the town tour, to take the test. Also, he will look at the apartment that they have offered us. We will get a loaner bed once we get the place, ours doesn’t arrive until beginning of January. We could also get other loaners but we hope to find a couch/chair soon. We just have to decide if we want a new or used, American look or European. Euro furniture is much lower to the ground, comfy but not as supportive. Our first load of things arrives approx. Tuesday....i only wish our bed was in that load....
I plan to take a tour, with the class, we get to try out public transit, meet the mayor and eat at a restaurant....these early mornings are wearing me out. We have to get up at 530, catch the bus at 620, arrive at 720 to sit and wait until class starts at 8am... but I suppose it could be worse. I met a girl who's my age, married, with a 3yo and 2yo, trying to do what we are doing. She said they brought 12 suitcases/bags, 2 car seats, one stroller, and 2 kids on the plane here. And we thought our 8 was tough. We talked to many people, who think we should live off base, but at this point we want to get used to things for a year or so, and than possibly move off base.
We checked out the library today, its descent size. I figure I can find what I need. New magazines are a hot commodity, for instance the People magazine Lisa gave us before we left, is just arriving to stores/library here. I am already tired of my food options on base, or maybe it is just that I am ready to have a stove to make something rather than pbj, or microwave meals. We have eaten German food a couple times; so far I think I need to try a few more things. I haven’t fallen in love with anything in particular.

Arrival

I will try to answer all or most of your questions. I have now figured out that it is safe to plug the computer into the outlet we have, but I have to purchase a transformer to be able to plug the phone in. We hope to get that done tomorrow. Our flights went well, they fed us three different meals. We had to go through security three different times, and when we reached Copenhagen, we weren’t sure whether or not to leave the gate we were at, proceed through security and through a passport check or to sit where we were....they do not post gates until 25 minutes before you are due to board. We decided to go midway, only through the security check, and it turns out we had to wait about an hour before the gate was posted. After which we had to go through the passport check, and much to my dismay we waited in a boring section and the "mall" area was after the passport area. Oh well we wanted to play it safe and not end up too far from where we needed to be. Also in Copenhagen they do not make boarding announcements, when its "time" to board, you just get in line and climb on board. On are long flight from Chicago, every seat had its own movie screen but our row didn’t have them on the seat in front of us. I was kind of sad at first thinking my first long flight and I don’t get to watch, than I realized that it was below my seat and I had to raise it up to watch it. So my mood than changed. We sat in the middle section on that flight, on the last flight are seats were not near each other and there were empty seats by both of us, but they wouldn’t let us move around. The last flight, for some reason charged the people in the rows behind us for any type of snack or drink, but we got meals and drinks for free. All of our luggage made it. The weather is perfect in my mind, 50s this week, I have been told its most comparable to the state of Washington weatherwise. It rains often, daylight tends to be short now and very long in summer til 10pm. I tend to be nosy with all the guys we meet, its funny how the introductions differ between Andrew and I. I get the more personal hello with a first name, he gets the professional hello with rank lastname. There are many Christmas markets in the country.
Our hotel is on one base, Andrew works on another base, and we possibly will live at a third base (there are 4). Thus far I like the one with the apartment the most, it is close to a lot of things, also walkable to all stores, church, etc. We went to the px today, got some milk and micro meals, by the way they sell cheer, dove, jiffy and mac and cheese so no need to worry I will continue to thrive.
Also, to send stuff here and me there, we use US postage stamps. Kinda simplifies things, on base we can use u.s. money and credit cards. They have pizza hut, burger king, taco bell (unfortunately not taco johns), baskin robins, and Anthony’s pizza. A new px dealy is being built with double the amount of stuff that the other base has, my food options. We will have to take a driving test to get a license here; we each got a book to study from. I am allowed and encouraged to attend all of the upcoming info days, which I do plan on. Our room is nicer than the one we had in the US, plenty of storage drawers etc to put things, microwave, fridge, and the stove is next door in a community kitchen. The housing people say the place we may get needs a paint job, is on the first floor and like I said close to everything I could truly need for an American life on base. Not sure what else, we have to get up early tomorrow to catch the bus and get to the base we need to be at, the city is huge, it lies in a valley, the airport is on one side of the valley and the base is on the other. People here like to honk a lot, motorbikes can weave in and out of traffic, and they don’t like to yield. I have been told germans don’t have personal space, if you are in line and leave space between you and the person in front of you they will slide between you because you must not be in line, they drive like that too. When you come to visit, be sure to have a quarter to get a cart to carry your things on, you get it back when the cart is returned. Well I spose I will end for now, keep up with the questions, send this to whom you please, omit what youd like.
also msn messenger is a good way to reach us, we are 7hrs ahead so keep that in mind... one last thought, the roads here are very narrow, parking spaces are small....good thing we got rid of the bigger vehicle... also they have rt of ways at all four way/ three way intersections WITHOUT using stop signs confusing!!! I have been studying for the test, I got 146 out of 154 rite…of course I studied from the test….:)