Week 2 in Review

Once again, if you aren't family or extremely bored, you will find this sleep promoting and a waste of time.    These reviews are meant to keep our parents happy, and as a journal-type record for me.

Really these weeks seem endlessly long.  We are busy and constantly doing or going, but in comparison to the busy and stress that was Texas, we are taking things easy.  We have been in another "hotel" house this past week.  It is in a city closer to the base.  It is conviently located, but not nearly as beautiful as the other.  Monday when we got here, the kids found Brittish TV.  The shows are strange, but the lure of English TV wins out.  Really though, what are those crazy Brits thinking with some of their shows?

Darin spent most of the week running around to finalize the house papers, getting one paper signed or another, or setting something up.  Half the time we were with him and the kids were fighting and complaining.  The other half of the time we were at the room and the boys were making up games using all our paper plates, then fighting and complaining.  Brittish TV is only good for so long.

We went to our house twice and can't wait to finally unpack our suitcases.  Tuesday is the day our "loaner/stick furniture" is being delivered.  We won't have any closets or wardrobes for another week plus, but hey, they can throw their clothes on the floors of their own rooms.

Our landlord took us to the local kindergarten and Noah and I were able to meet the lady that will have the pleasure of putting up with him.  It is a little building and the cute director, Sonja, spoke English (better than the German I spoke).  I think that it will be great for Noah to have something to do, and I'll have my own little translator in a few months.  Sonja said that he was the last kid that could fit, "Good Lucky."  Yes!  Good Lucky.  He is supposed to have 3 other Americans in his class. His only school supplies were house shoes, rubber boots, and 3 euro a month for juice and fruit. His first day is on Tuesday, I hope we don't get kicked out on the first day.  I am hoping that he will take his time to warm up to his loving, punching, yelling self. 

I've had a week of learning.  Learning to use the stove because I had to have cookies, not from a box, but real cookies.  The oven has a bunch of pictures and if it was just setting the correct temp of 175 instead of the usual 350, I'd have had great cookies.  But the fan.  I just can't figure out what the fan is doing.  First batch and they were really dark and crunchy in like 6 minutes.  Awesome time saver if I had known it was going to take 6 minutes and not 10.  Next batch I changed the fan settings, they didn't seem to be blowing as hard.  Checked the cookies in 5 minutes to be safe...right side brown, left side gooey.   Last batch I decided that I'd just start turning the tray around until they were evenly not burnt.  It is going to be taking me a lot of practice to figure out the ovens.  Fortunately, I like cookies dark (with milk) and gooey and everywhere in between.  No waste, because I wouldn't know which recycling bag to put them in anyway.

Speaking of recycling.  UGH Germany!  As if the language wasn't enough, I have an entire recycling language to try and figure out.  I have 4 different colored garbage cans, yellow bags, trash bags and a list that is going to take real concentration to decypher.  The kids just put it on the counter and expect me to figure it out.  All the food scraps, minus meat anything, go in the brown bag/can for great compost making somewhere in Germany.  It has to stink, because my house stinks after a day of food scraps.  I can't just send them down the drain, because there aren't disposals, so I have become the crazy "eat every last bite" mother.  "Don't you leave one Cheerio in that bowl.  I have to fish it out and put it in that horrible, stinky brown bag."  Like I said, German isn't the only foreign language that I'm trying to learn.

Darin had a family sports day on Friday, so we met all of the bosses and spouses as we tried to make riveting conversation.  I hate the first month of moving anywhere.  I like knowing people.  I like friends.  But I hate introductions and the like.  I hate being new and having to make small talk with people.  It is so much better when this phase is over.

Saturday we went to a Flo Markt (flea market) in a town called Homburg closer to the French border.  It was a giant garage sale in which they also sell good food.  There was a lot of German crap that wasn't that different from American crap. I think that there are also hidden treasures and furniture if I know where to look.  We'll go back when we know what to look for.  We ate crapes, brots, and pretzels.  Then we spent the rest of Saturday looking at and test driving used cars.  We need a car ASAP.  We found a great little car in a town forever away.  We thought that it was a go and were meeting him on Monday,  but received a sneaky email on Sunday in which the sleezy owner tells us that he'd sold it to someone else.  We are now back at square one and mad that we'd wasted all that time.  Grr.

On Sunday we went for a walk to look for bells.  We hear the church bells ringing every hour.  My favorite is at 7AM when they ring for a long time to tell you to get to work, the bus, or just out of bed (my take on them), and it always works.  They also ring a lot at 2200 (10 PM, yes, I am learning time that way.  All of Europe uses it.  Another thing that Americans have to learn as if the metric system wasn't enough.)  I think that means you should be in bed.    We wondered the streets of the town in which we are staying and found the neat churches.  We also found a great war memorial and then the boys got lost in the nearby forest.  They thought that it was the coolest Sunday walk in a long time.

We've lived in Turkey, but this is currently harder.  In Turkey you had to stay in the Hoja until they gave you a house on base.  You could walk everywhere if you needed.  And the only decision that you really needed to make was to hire the gardener or not.  Here we have had to find our own temp housing because they are full everywhere.  We picked a town, picked a house and are now trying to set up utilities.  Darin wanted me to call for phone and internet.  I growled and complained, (I can't buy a pastry item)  but he told me that they would speak English, they are used to Americans.  I dialed the number and waited, hopefully for the message to say, " For English press 2."  Nope.  German, German, German music, more German.  I hung up.  Darin later called and asked the customer service person, "Do you speak English?"  in German of course.... "No."  That was it.  No they don't.  You're in Germany, do you speak German?  Nope.  Danke.  Click.  Now what?