The Longest Blog Ever...

Here is the blog I wrote earlier! =) I’ve also added to it, that way you’re completely updated on our fun adventure! =)

Sunday, August 5th, 2007

Hello again!

A few days into being here, we are finally adjusting to the new time zone. We are 6 hours ahead of eastern time and 7 hours ahead of central time. Jetlag hit us all hard. =) Luke is still trying hard to adjust to nights. Just as he’s laying down for bed, his body is telling him he should be up and playing. He did decent last night…let’s hope each night gets better. We think he’s also working on another tooth or a cold. He’s been feverish with a constant runny nose and he’s sneezing like it’s his job. Not to mention he's crabby...=)

Right now, I’m writing this blog on Chris’s laptop in our hotel room. Since the computers on-post have time limits, I decided to write this blog and save it on our thumb drive. That way I can post a longer blog full of details I wouldn’t have time to write about if I were writing this in the computer room. Someday soon we’ll have internet of our own…someday soon…=) Anyway, be prepared for a long blog!!! =)

We are still living out of our tiny hotel room. We hope to get into the temporary housing on-post soon. They have family suites that have a little kitchen area. We’ve been living off bagels and McDonalds. I want a real meal so bad I can almost taste it.

We found out on Friday that our housing will be available on the 14th or so. The only housing on-post is small apartments. We asked about living off-post, but they said if they had on-post housing available within 60 days, we had to live on-post. This was a bit disappointing to me. We just came from living in a tiny apartment in Georgia and I really wanted something a little more homelike. However, God is good! The apartment they offered us is on the first floor – which is a HUGE blessing. It is also in a good location. We’re close to a little park where Luke can play, the PX is just down the road, and Chris’s office is fairly close as well. We were also able to snag a 3 bedroom apartment because of Baby Bee. The funny part was that they HAD to have a memo from the health clinic that proves that I’m pregnant. My big belly isn’t enough evidence I guess. =) I know why they have such strict rules, but it was pretty funny when I’m so obviously pregnant. We still won’t get our household goods until mid-September or so, but once we get into our apartment, we can at least get groceries and cook some real meals. The drawbacks are minimal – we don’t have our own yard (very sad if we bring Riley over…she loves her outside time), we have to share a laundry space with the whole building, we don’t have a garage (Baumholder winter’s are brutal we hear), and we don’t have our own entrance/exit into our apartment. We can deal. =) God has a plan and a place for us, and He knows that this is where we’re supposed to live, so I’m at peace with that. I’ll post pictures once we get into our place…and once we get internet set up. =)

It feels strange to be so far away from the United States. It’s weird to walk down the street and not know what all the signs and words mean surrounding you. We went to what we thought was a Café the other night (I was desperate for real food…you will notice this is a common theme) and found out after we were seated and had menus in hand that it was an ice cream parlor. We ordered anyway…how can you say no to ice cream. =) Here are the big differences I’ve noticed so far:

1. We obviously don’t know what anything (store signs, road signs, menus, etc.) is saying…since most of it is in German. However, Baumholder does cater to us Americans. Most of them speak English here. Some places even post signs in English or have English menus.

2. Everything is very compact here. The roads and sidewalks are extremely narrow. All the buildings are right on top of each other and it seems like houses are much smaller around here. Bathrooms are extremely small! This is the first time in my entire life I want a very small compact car. There’s no room for much bigger!

3. I haven’t seen a switch since we’ve gotten here. There aren’t light switches, there are light buttons. The toilets don’t have flushers, they have buttons. I’ll have to post pictures so you can see what I’m saying.

4. The only English speaking channel we get here is CNN.

5. Everything closes down early. I was desperate for a hot meal today (Sunday)like usual, but everything was closed! We’ll have to get used to not having 24/7 access to stores and restaurants.

6. There are no Mexican Restaurants here. I didn’t really expect there to be, but it was still very disappointing. They do have a Taco Bell on-post, so I guess that will do in a pregnancy craving pinch…but it’s just not the same. It seems that Italian restaurants are the American thing out here.

7. Everything here is outrageously expensive. I now understand why they give you a COLA (cost of living allowance.) One American dollar is equivalent to 70 Euro cents. Not a great exchange rate to say the least. It costs us $20 (American) to eat a normal meal at McDonalds! And if you think gas is expensive in the states, it’s horrific here. Another reason to get a tiny car.

8. Water here is carbonated…can’t get used to that.

9. No free refills! Chris can’t get used to that.

10. You only get one napkin with your meal. If you know how messy I am when I eat, you know how tragic this is. =)

11. Germen men don’t wear swim trunks…at least from what we can see at the little lake down the road from us. Speedo’s all the way!

12. The computer keyboard is set up differently. The Z is where our Y is and the @ sign is with the Q.

13. The internet pops up in German.

14. In the states, everywhere you go is a no-smoking zone. Here you can smoke anywhere.

15. Buildings aren’t air-conditioned. If you want to sit in air-conditioning, you better have it in your car.

16. You can’t drive here until you get a Europe drivers license. In order to get one of these, you have to take a class and a test (we hear it’s hard and has a high fail rate…yikes!) Chris is taking his this week so we can actually start driving ourselves around. Right now, our Sponsor gives us rides around. We have a really great Sponsor, but he’s got a really stressful job right now and we hate to bother him about giving us rides everywhere.

17. Breakfast is served a little differently here. Things like lunch meat, cheese and cakes are normal.

18. Time is told differently (not so different for those of you use to military time.) 1pm is 1300; 2pm is 1400…etc.

I’m sure I’ll think of more, but for now, that’s enough. =)

Wednesday August 8th, 2007

Monday we went to the doctor to get my Zofran prescription refilled. Of course it was a huge pain. They don’t have a hospital or OB ward here, only a small health clinic. We have to get that type of medical attention at Landstuhl (about 30-40 mins from here.) So anyway, I got an appointment with a doctor here because we were told we couldn’t refill our prescriptions until we saw a doctor. Knowing the past trouble we’ve had with getting Zofran, we knew we needed to get right in. The doctor I saw was not an OB doctor and not aware of Zofran and didn’t seem very happy that I was there. I tried to explain the whole situation to her. She finally agreed to give me 40 pills with 2 refills until I can go to Landstuhl and see an OB doctor. So we traipse down to the pharmacy. Of course they don’t have it nor can they fill it without special permission. So off to the doctor we go again, this time with a special form that needs to be signed by her and the head doctor of the clinic. All the while everyone is asking me if I’ve tried this and that for my morning sickness. I don’t think they understood how severe things get if I don’t have the medicine. I can’t eat or take pills or vitamins if I don’t have the Zofran because I’ll be throwing up every other minute. I don’t want to have to take medication, but I need it. So I try to explain this concept to everyone there. Finally the paper work went through for the 40 pills and 2 refills…which really won’t carry me very long. I take 4 pills a-day. They told me I’d ruin their whole budget for the year if they had to get it in for my whole pregnancy. I understand this is a small health clinic. I hope that Landstuhl will offer it a little more freely. I am currently working on getting my first appointment at Landstuhl. I have to get referred there, so a nurse is working with me to get everything ready for that. I am rather anxious to be seen. I haven’t been seen since I left Georgia…I think I was 10 weeks along then. I am now 17 weeks. I’m hoping we’ll be able to find out the sex of the baby in September or October.

We are currently looking for a car to purchase. I’m glad we didn’t ship our vehicles over…the roads are incredibly narrow and our smallest vehicle (the LaSabre) isn’t really that small at all. =) Some of the streets here are as narrow as one lane roads back in the states…and here it’s considered a two lane road! People drive and park on the sidewalks all the time. It’s the norm I guess. =) Anyway, we visited three VERY VERY small dealerships (two of them had maybe 6-8 cars and one of them had maybe 15-20.) Needless to say, we weren’t able to find anything here, so this weekend we’re going to try to head out of town to look in surrounding areas. That could be a really big adventure!

Friday August 10, 2007

We just moved out of our little hotel room to the wonderful on-post hotel. In comparison to the small room, twin beds, moldy refrigerator and dinky stinky bathroom - here we have a kitchenette, a living room, a large bathroom and a bedroom (with a full bed.) It’s like being in a mansion! They have a stove and microwave, a full sink and dishes and pots and pans in the cabinets. They also have American channels on the TV. I wanted to cry with happiness when we walked in. AND we can hook the laptop up to the Internet here!

In other news, our housing was offered earlier than expected. When we checked into the hotel today, we had a message to go to housing. When we got there, we were able to sign for our apartment. We meet with the inspector on Monday and then we can move in! We were able to go look at it today and I think it will work fine for us. The living room is huge! I’ll post pictures soon. In other good news, housing lends you furniture until your household goods come in. We have a bed, a couch and chair, a desk and a kitchen table. This is VERY good news since our household goods won’t be in until mid-September.

We were also able to sign up for Internet service. It won’t be activated for a week (next Friday), but we’ll keep trying to get to the computer room every few days to check e-mail until that gets activated.

Tomorrow we are going to head out of town (pray we don’t get lost!) to look for a car. Chris got his license yesterday (Great Job Honey!!) which is a real accomplishment. The test is hard and he did great! We were able to rent a car since he now has a European license. That has helped a lot.

I think I’ll go ahead and post this since it’s the longest blog ever! I’ll try to blog one more time before we check out on Monday.

I hope all is going well for each of you. We miss you all so much!!!