Return from a Long Absence!

02 January 2011
Written by: Lea

Bon soir!!!

It has been a long time since our last post. We have thankfully been out of our transient living state for a month now. We were NOT sad to see the hotel go away, though it did suck that we didn't have internet for so long. But we settled into our new house and things are underway for our German Adventures!!

I had a mini-crisis when we first moved into our house. I'm not a fan of our landlord and kind of want to poke him with a sharp stick every time we see him. Fortunately, Elliott does not share my feelings so he did most of the dealings with him. My number one complaint was that in the 10 days he was living in this house prior to us moving in, he smoked like a chimeny in it. It was disgusting. We had to buy an air purifier and left it running for about a week just to clear out the smell. The first night we slept here (on a borrowed, slightly under-inflated air mattress) was miserable. We were using limp pillows and had left the windows open to air out the smell and it was freezing inside. I woke up in the middle of the night with chattering teeth and two cats that were desperately attempting to snuggle down under the covers to stay warm. Poor little guys. My eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and I wanted to cry.

The next night was just as bad. The heaters didn't seem to be working (though we later discovered it was because they were working overtime since the windows were all open) and the smell was still overpowering. It was like we were sharing our house with a demon for a roommate. Fortunately, the smell started to dissipate and the heaters seemed to work. Then came the fun with the showers. The first time I tried to take a shower it was lovely, but the house was so cold I thought limbs would fall off. The second time, the house was toasty warm but the hot water didn't work. Again, I thought limbs would fall off. Finally, we have gotten everything to work and our limbs are intact.

Things got crazy at work. I'm loving my job and Elliott has been working his ass off at the house fixing this and that. We spent a small fortune and several weekends at IKEA getting the house decorated like we wanted. Our household goods were delivered after some minor screaming matches between me and the moving company. It was hilarious. They brought in all 101 boxes through the second floor WINDOW!!! Seriously, a giant truck pulled up to our house and then pulled *up* to the 2nd story window. Never thought I'd see a couch and mattress come through my window, but okay! The movers unpacked for us, so it was all pretty quick. Elliott plans on posting pics of our house before and after the furniture was delivered... wait for it...

After that, we celebrated Christmas at a friend's house. Ashley and Eugene have become wonderful friends of ours and are so welcoming! They have the cutest 19 month old son that I've fallen in love with. The feeling is mutual and he has a bit of a crush on me as well. We call him my boyfriend...Elliott tries not to be jealous.

After Christmas we jetted off to Paris for New Years and just got back today!!! It was amazing. It's the first time either of us have been to Paris, so it was a great way to start our travel adventures. The food was amazing, the sights were unbelievable, and the only thing that surprised us was... the LACK OF FIREWORKS!!! Yeah, not really any pomp and circumstance. We sat outside the Eiffel Tower for 90 minutes and then all of a sudden it was 2011. Hmmm. Maybe the economy is so bad they're trying to save money?

Anyway, I know I should describe more about Paris, but I'm TIRED!! So that will be my (or Elliott's) next entry. Goodnight all!

And here is a link to my facebook Paris album. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2098596&id=1173096770&l=a4c056ac40

Rolladens

I have come to love these new things, rolladens, that I didn't know existed 1 month ago. Isn't that funny? How your life can be changed by something you never knew was there? No, it's not some fancy new religion, it's not a cool psychotropic medication, and it's not the strip club down the street. It's mini-blinds...on steriods. Rolladens (roll-AH-dins) are like steel traps that come down over your windows and effectively block out all sunlight. Apparently these are key during the summer and fall when Germany stays light out pretty much all the time, but I sure have grown to love them, especially when we're attempting to sleep in on the weekends.

Every weekend morning I crack open my eyes, stare out blurry eyed, and think "crap, it's only 6am. I don't need to be up right now." A quick nudge from Zoomer and a heavy pounce from Zipper informs me that, in fact, it is not 6am - it's 10am and it's time for their feeding, dammit! Rolladens: The Slacker's Choice...Used by pot-smokers and teens everywhere.

We have signed a lease on our house! We will move in on 1 DEC and are really excited. The house has an ODD layout (pictures to come once we move in). It's got 2 kitchens!!! Apparently the upstairs area was used as a second apartment so that's why the second kitchen exists. On the nice end, German refrigerators/freezers are tiny so now we have two! Haha! Way to stick it to the man :)
The house is in Kaiserslautern, the largest city around these parts. It's a lot of fun and we're only about 3 blocks away from the big pedestrian walking zone where there's a huge Farmer's Market every Sat and tons of good restaurants and SHOPPING!!!! It's nice to have things slightly more settled. Our household goods should be arriving shortly thereafter.

The biggest plus about this house (other than the location) is that it's pretty big, so we can have guests!! So start planning your trips, people! It's first come first serve :)

The weather here has been pretty chilly. It started snowing this morning and a very soft dusting of snow was on the ground. It's pretty much gone now, but it sure was pretty while it lasted. Apparently it's pretty common to get snow around Thanksgiving and then we won't see more snowfall until the end of December or January. The weather here is similar to Roanoke's, so it's not bad at all.

We spent Thanksgiving at a co-worker's house and it was a blast. She's around our age and it was great to be around people. We were a little worried (or I was) that T-Day would just pass like any other day, but it ended up being fantastic.

Anyway - I KNOW there were a million other things I wanted to write, but I'm tired! More later

Lea

"Just add some pork!"

Written: 19 November 2010
Written by: Lea

Well, we have officially passed Week 3 and things are settling down. I will start seeing clients on Monday and my schedule is already pretty packed. We're expected to carry 6.5 hours of face to face client time per day! That's pretty crazy. The burnout rate is pretty high at the hospital, but thankfully we have a
great new commander that is doing everything he can to keep the workplace a positive environment.

Outside of work Elliott and I have been searching like crazy for a place to live. Our free ride at the hotel runs out next Thursday and the pressure is on! We've seen a lot of places but haven't found one we really loved...until tonight!!! We were seeing one apartment that was perfectly fine and great and we were very interested in (only downside is that it only has 1 bathroom). The landlord then asked if we'd be interested in a larger place. The iffy part is that the current tenant has been using it basically as a big storage unit. He
lives with his wife, but keeps paying rent on this apartment. So it's not for sure that he'll be leaving. But we fell in love. It's awesome. So cross some fingers and toes that we get it!


We have another two places to see this weekend, so we're not putting all our eggs in one basket. But we do need a place soon! We are getting so sick and tired of eating out every night. Pickled vegetables just stop hitting the spot after 21 days of eating nothing else. I swear I'm going to become a vegetarian when I move back to the states just to get my fill of veggies. For now, I load up on salads at work and whenever we go out. The food here is great, but we desperately want to cook. It seems that the solution to any German cooking dilemma is, "just add some pork!" It's everywhere. It's on top of chicken, stuffed inside of beef, and even wrapped around green beans. It's fantastic, but I can only eat so much of it before I grown a tail. So getting a kitchen (kuchen) is our priority. Where we're hoping to live (Kaiserslautern)
has great little markets and an outdoor farmer's market every Sat. They also have several Asian food stores where we can stock up on furikake and tofu.

We're both trying to learn a little of the language. The USO offers German language classes pretty frequently, so we'll be signing up to one of those once we're more settled. Elliott's teaching me how to drive a stick shift since 90% of the cars here are manuals. All of our rental cars have been and Elliott's
been driving me to and from work every day. It's nice. Now if only I could get him to make me a brown bag lunch too... We're also working on buying a car. We're seeing two tomorrow and will hopefully
just get one of those.

We took and passed our driver's test. It's a USA/European license. 100 questions multiple choice. Pretty standard. There was a study guide and about 90 of the questions came straight from the study guide. Word for word. The other 10 came from a brief video they made you watch during orientation. You can miss 15
questions and still pass. So even if you missed the 10 that didn't come straight from the study guide you should still be able to get your license. However, the failure rate is incredibly high. About 10 of the people that were there the day we took our test had failed at least once (there were about 25 of us
altogether). It almost became a bragging right. "I failed last week" "Oh yeah? I've failed twice". It was like a very sad sorority. And they were all one-upping each other. Until, that is, one girl piped up and admitted that she was there taking the test for the SEVENTH time. Yeah, that's right. SEVEN. At that point I'm pretty sure they shouldn't let you WALK, let alone drive! It terrifies me knowing I'll someday be on the road with her and she's STILL not going to be sure if that road sign means "yield" or "barrel ahead like an
idiot". Truly frightening.

The kitties are doing well. They're getting awfully tired of being in such a small space. We thought about moving to a bigger hotel, but with all the changes they've been through in the past 2 months we decided it was better to be cramped than uprooted. The lovely care package we received from Mom and Dad Mattice
contained a fantastic remote controlled mouse for which they have gone crazy! They chase it around for hours until Zoomer picks it up by it's tail and runs off to a corner. If Zipper gets too close and tries to steal it, Zoomer will lay down on top of it and then look up all innocently.

I'm sorry we haven't been posting any pictures. My stupid camera broke!!! And the stupid cell phone I have takes horrible pictures. There's a big Nikon roadshow coming to the PX this weekend, so I may find something there. The Christmas markets are coming and I need a camera. We'll post pictures as soon as
we have some decent ones. We're planning on a weekend trip to the Nuremberg Christmas Market probably in early December and then a few day trips to some ones that are closer. Then Paris for New Year's and Rome in January. We are also trying to plan for Dublin for St. Patty's Day. Although this is
proving difficult because the flights out of Frankfurt on St. Patty's Day are already full! So, we might have to do it next year instead. We'll see.

We have been invited over to a co-worker's house for Thanksgiving and I think we'll be going. It sounds fun and it will be nice to be around other people. And, I'm pretty sure pork is not on the menu.

Can someone from the Didion side give my dad a copy of this email? And maybe tell him to get email!!!

Okay, that's all I can think of to say right now. More to come...

Lea

Guten Abend!

Written: 5 November 2010
Written by: Lea

Things are continuing to go well here in the land of sausage and sauerkraut! The cats are finally settling down and are downright adorable again. Though the cleaning woman came into the room and vacuumed today and apparently both cats freaked out. They (mainly Zipper) has taken to jumping into the closet and

sleeping on the second shelf (which is pretty high up, so it's pretty impressive). I'm attaching a picture of their secret hiding place (although this is Zoomer in the picture)

We looked at our first potential apartment today and it was cute! Unfortunately we'll have to get used to small kitchens, TINY refrigerators (with a "freezer" the size of an ice tray), and no closets...at all. I guess we'll be investing in Belgian armoirs. Oh darn.

We opened German bank accounts, got cell phones (only good for use to other German phones), and finally ate some traditional German food (until now we've had Korean, Mexican, Italian, and Taco Bell). I had Oxen carpaccio as an appetizer. It was yummy. We also discovered fantastic beer. It's a dark Hefe

weisen - Karlsburg Hefe Dunkel Weisen. Freaking amazing. And we finally saw a train! I was kind of hoping it would be an old timey train, but it was bright and red and super fast!

We're also starting to plan some trips. We'll be hitting the Nuremberg Kriskindlemarkt (Christmas Market) in late November and are thinking about a weekend in Budapest with Elliott's friend and maybe London for Christmas (and Paris for New Years!) We're also hoping to hit some of the smaller Christmas markets in surrounding cities. However, some of that might be contingent on my
on-call schedule. I just got assigned my first on-call night. Monday 29 Nov. Kill me. I'm terrified. I'll have barely learned the computer system at that point. But nothing like starting your week by sleeping in your office and then having to work a full regular work week! But it could be much worse (right Kent?)

Anyway, that's all I have to report so far. Miss everyone! I'll be putting some pics up on facebook soon - not too many though, we just haven't been good about taking pictures so far!

Lea

I swore I'd never blog...

Despite oaths to the contrary, my Japanese guilt has won out. Rather than continuing to send mass emails and then worrying incessantly over whether or not people really want to read them, I've decided to start this blog about the adventures Elliott, Zipper, and Zoomer and I are having. Here are some backdated emails. Hope you enjoy and hope you never tell me if you were, in fact, irritated with my emails.  :)

Written: 29 October 2010
Written by: Lea

Hello all!!!

We arrived yesterday. The flight was horrendous. The cats were great for the first 4 hours or so, but then their meds wore off and they (mainly Zipper) screamed nonstop for the next 3.5 hours. The poor little guys were so terrified. They were panicked and sending themselves into a frenzy. Zipper then peed and pooed all over himself and we were barely able to clean him up since we were on the plane. He was so miserable. And the smell was just lovely. I had a meltdown on the plane; it was just so heartbreaking to hear their frantic meows. It was a nightmare. We will not be doing that anytime soon!

We got to the hotel, cleaned up the cats, and then were whisked off for the next 6 hours getting my access ID card and renting a car, etc. Unfortunately we were not able to clean ourselves off before we went and we smelled of cat pee all day! The poor woman, Jennifer, who was in charge of taking us around the first day probably thought we were just smelly Americans. Although she's an American too...so maybe she just thought we were smelly.

The hotel is nice. They first tried to put us in a room with separate twin beds. Thankfully Jennifer spoke up, otherwise I would have been a good Japanese girl and not questioned authority. The hotel serves breakfast and has a good restaurant (so I'm told). Elliott's excited because the restaurant is attached to a butcher shop! Too bad we don't have a kitchen.  

My first official day was today. I was there a half day to do some in-processing paperwork. But the job seems like it will be really good and the people seem extremely nice. I'll be doing all outpatient work and I really like my boss. Major Todd Neu (pronounced "New") is really funny and seems to be pretty supportive. As I was leaving today the buses were pulling in and unloading the wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan. It was sad, but felt really good to know that my job will be to help these men and woman. Everyone on base is incredibly friendly. All the administrative support people are German nationals, which is kind of nice. Apparently they love their forms and paperwork. I swear I'll need to fill out a form in order to wipe my ass. It's kind of crazy. I got my own office (and it's big!) and will have a phone and email account soon. Our APO mailbox is working - we collected quite a ton of mail today - including the sweetest card from Tracie - thank you, sweetheart! It was so fantastic to see that amidst our mail :) and you've got to send me the website of the place that did your address labels. Love them.

The food in Germany is great, actually! Though I suppose it depends on what you like. It's a lot of meat - so if you're not a big sausage and beer person you'd hate it. We are quite happy. We are probably going to try a Korean restaurant tonight. I'll report back. We grabbed a quick meal yesterday on the economy - nothing exciting: pizza. There seems to be pizza everywhere.

The military community is massive here. It could easily feel like you've never left the states. The PX (like a giant shopping mall) is the largest one in the world (yep, you read that right) - they have everything in there. From a Victoria's Secret to The Body Shop. We are working on housing, cell phones, and buying a car (though we need our German driver's licenses first). And we'll be buying a GPS navigation system. A definite must. Maybe we can get a Tom Tom and hear Darth Vader reading German street names.

Anyway, nothing else really to report. Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry for the mass email, but it seemed like the most expeditious way to let everyone know of our (mis)adventures thus far!

Love you all,

Lea