edible

So far, we've eaten a lot of fast food, and it's the same greasy mess over here that it is back in the states. The most obvious difference is that there are lots of doner shops. A doner sandwich is a little like a gyro, only on a bun. Plus, you can get shredded cabbage (what I would call slaw) on nearly anything. Pizza Amerikan comes with sliced hardboiled eggs on it.

I think Germans have a different relationship with ketchup than we do. When we had schnitzel and fries we poured gravy over the fries. Plus:

Curry ketchup! Ketchup chips! Genius! Only, nobody likes the curry ketchup. Noah ate the chips, but the rest of the kids declared them 'weird'
The pastries were our yummy celebration breakfast after finding a home, the yogurts I bought because I like hazelnuts. Unfortunately they were gross.

Pieces

Yesterday as I made dinner Noah took it upon himself to peel an entire head of garlic. There were little bits of papery skin all over the place, and one very, very proud little boy. Is he trying to curry favor with his garlic-loving mother? He should have put more thought into cleanup!

We also found a home. It's smaller than we would like and farther away from base, but we both feel good about it and our new landlords are glad to have us living next door! And, this: will be on Ben's daily commute. The picture was taken on a rainy, cloudy day so you can't see all that well, but it is lovely. The kids love seeing so many windmills, and so do I.

How do you explain to young kids about the iron curtain? I'm afraid we didn't do that great of a job, the kids still don't know why I was so excited about the pieces of the Berlin Wall.

Just one week in the emerald country

Seriously, so green everywhere!

Why don't German windows have screens? I love the option to open the window from the top or swinging open into the room--more kid safe options! Wasps everywhere, too, which makes even dining inside a little buggy.

The kids are seriously confused by the whole 2 different flushes option, this does not bode well for my future plumbing.

I am having the hardest time memorizing our new handy number (handy=cellophone). It's like the space in my brain devoted to phone numbers could only hold a certain configuration, and now it's all gone to mush.

Cloudy days here mean I cannot for the life of me stay oriented. No mountains, no tall landmarks, just long, green, windy, hilly roads. And then I get to the wrong town and realize that I should never, ever turn the GPS off. Or else I need to learn more German and pay better attention to the signs.

We're walking a lot and people driving past either smile indulgently or gape in astonishment.

The kids have been telling each other all morning about how they walked ALL THE WAY to the commissary (maybe 1/3 mile) yesterday. Should I tell them that they're going to be walking all week?

. . . . and walked and walked and walked and walked

Together Again

First of all, I want to know how we got everyone into that picture? Hyrum's camera must have a super power. Secondly, even though I was functioning on very little sleep the entire time I wish it could have been longer. The learned macrame skills came in handy when Deanna woke up at 2am and couldn't go back to sleep--I just handed her one of the belt and bead kits and took myself back to bed. Thirdly, I need a copy of Liz's poem so Ben can hear it.

Lastly, we thoroughly enjoyed the Toblerone award for longest distance traveled home from the reunion in the Chicago airport, where it was rainy and we watched our luggage sit in a sodden pile during the entire layover. It was a good way to mentally gear up for the rainy weather here!

When we walked out of the airport the humidity was so high you could see the humid haze in the air. It's like being in Georgia only with no air coniditioning--people here just open the windows and turn on a fan. Luckily it is not as hot as Georgia, but I'm still glad to blast the cold air when we get into the van!

Speaking of vans:
Or more specifically, trucks. Can you see the name on the grill? Ben thinks all trucks should have this label.

Adventure

My first glimpse of Germany thrilled me--look at all those cute little white houses with red tile roofs? Charming! Sweet little villages! Windy rural roads!

After a week of very discouraging house hunting those same things are bumming me out. It is impossible to get where you want to go without going through the middle of those charming little villages and their windy, narrow roads. I've never slalomed between parked cars so much in my life and I'm beginning to wonder if our american-made minivan is going to survive its European adventure. We've scoured the ads, made numerous appointments to view houses, gone into homes which weren't even available yet, and made so many calls we've had to refill the minutes on the phone twice. Yet we are still without a place to call home. Even if we found a place which was perfect there's no guarantee that we'd be able to rent as has been demonstrated to us with landlords telling us that we can rent the place--and then renting it to someone else before the papers have been signed. (I was under the impression that Germans took verbal agreements very seriously, and yet this has happened at least twice) We've found places which are big enough for us, but too expensive or places which are priced right but too far of a commute. Or else we have too many kids. Can't do anything about that one! Supposedly a landlord can't discriminate against you for having a lot of kids, but Ben's made offers on houses only to be told he has too many kids.

Is this the point where I decide that we aren't going to find a place that fits most of our requirements and just get that house on the busy road which smells of smoke? Bribe someone? (I have no idea who'd we bribe, but we're doing everything we can--surely there is something else we can do?)

Maybe I'm just so down because we rushed through our lunch to get ready and go see an apartment--only to get there and be told it had already rented. They're always so very, very sorry, but it's not their problem and no, they don't know what else you can do. I cried. Can't even blame jet lag for that.

In the meantime, I have sent Ben out to go grocery shopping with all the kids so I can blub while taking a hot bath.

I should have beautiful pictures, but we have been non-stop house hunting and all I have is a picture of our milk carton propaganda.

I'm re-considering all right.