An Unhappy Return...

A couple of weeks ago it was time to put out our Thanksgiving Day decorations. Since we only have a single set of Pilgrim salt and pepper shakers the process was pretty straightforward. When I went down into the basement I found my Pilgrim couple shaking in their buckle shoes. They were very unhappy to say the least to be back in Europe. Hadn’t they escaped Europe centuries ago on the Mayflower?

Mannheim...

Around here Mannheim, at least with the people I talk to, is known for one thing, Ikea. Everyone loves Ikea for their own reasons Sam for the Sweetish meatballs, Laura for the chance to ride on the flatbed for its actual merchandise, but yesterday we decided to check out Mannheim sans Ikea. Next week we will be catching the cruise bus to Italy in Mannheim and took the opportunity to scout out the parking situation as the perfect excuse to check out the city. A few of the German travel books grant Mannheim a sentence or two, but most completely skip over the city. So clues on what to expect were hard to come by. We had heard that there was a lot of great non tourist shopping in the city and were curious to see what we would discover.

In the background is the large Train station, the bus stops are off to the left. We will be parking our car under this station when we go on our cruise.

Laura at the restaurant we stopped at for a late lunch. She is sporting her new scarf a very European look!



The city also has a ton of public transportation, including a street car system.

Mannheim has a University.

These are the dorms, I thought the stair case was very cool!

Our Annual Plans...

In a week we will be leaving for our annual Thanksgiving Day Cruise, yes since this is the second year I believe I can officially call it annual. We started this tradition to get out of cooking and traveling via land or air during the busy holiday rush. Traveling by boat over Thanksgiving seemed to be the perfect solution. Last year we took a short sea excursion, this year we have amped it up a bit. On our cruise we will spend seven nights at sea and visit four different countries. Some individuals have told us they would never cruise around Europe for various reasons, we obviously feel different. For our small family the most stressful parts of a vacation can be how we will get to our destination, where we will sleep and what we will eat once checked into our hotel that probably took some extensive research to find. For us a cruise solves all these problems it gets us, in this case, from country to country while we enjoy some boat downtime with plenty of onboard choices of where to eat.

The MSC Magnifica

Our cruise starts in Venice, Italy and from there hits Bari, Italy, Olympia, Greece, Izmir and Istanbul, Turkey, and finally Dubrovnik, Croatia before returning to Venice. While the weather this time of year will probably be chillier then traditional cruise weather, the scenery should more than make up for that.

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Originally Dunbrovnik was not a city we were excited about visiting, but after reading some travel books we have changed our tune!

Past Halloween...

The day after Halloween, November 1st, is always kind of a disappointment for Laura. She is coming down off the excitement of wearing a costume and of course all the sugar from the treats. During her sugar detox Laura always reminds me of the light at the end of the tunnel, Christmas. She is always disappointed when I remind her that first comes Thanksgiving, this is hitting her especially hard this year seeing as the Germans do not celebrate our Thanksgiving and keep asking “Lor-ah” if she is ready for Christmas. This year the day after Halloween has me also in a somber mood, although I enjoy candy just as much as any kid I am more disappointed to see that we are one more year closer to Laura not dressing up in cute costumes. Since moving out of a state with only one season I have enjoyed fall, watching the leaves change and feeling the temperatures drop, but I never really appreciated Halloween until Laura graced us with her presents. Her first Halloween, I did not go all out she wore a cute little pumpkin bib and hat.

Laura’s second Halloween was when things really got interesting. I was ready to dress her up in a very girly costume, I had put together what I thought was an adorable fairy princess costume. She immediately hated it and hated me for making her try it on.

To avoid being brought up on child abuse charges, I quickly came up with plan B. A little face paint and a buccaneer’s football jersey she was transformed into a miniature football player.


When Laura was two, I figured since she was a whole year older I would try again at a costume. But since the year before was still fresh in my mind, I proceeded cautiously. There would be no wings or crown just a tutu and tights for my baby ballerina.


The next year was crazy and since we waited until the last minute to find a costume, Laura went as one of Tinkerbelle’s friends. A lesser known fairy named Rosealitta. This was also the year that Mom went overboard with the glitter.


It seemed that Laura had finally gotten the hang of Halloween. The following year I was taken ill with the dreaded morning sickness and gently nudged Laura towards an easy costume. Sam took Laura to Target and came home with a black cat.

The next year as promised we let Laura be anything that she wanted. We all know what followed!

This year I was overcome with the need to use Laura’s very realistic wand and my love for Harry Potter. It was easy to get Laura to dress up as smarty pants Hermione Granger.

Hamster Sale...

I might be reading this flyer wrong, considering I don't speak or read German to well, but is hamster meat on sale?



I don't ussually shop at SBK to Winn Dixie for me but I might have to check out this great sale on Hamster meat!! (Seriously though how much is kg?)

A Pocket Full...

The weather in Gemany has gotten a bit nippy this week. We had to break out jackets, sweaters and gloves that had not been worn since our Colorado days.

I found out today that reaching into the pockets of a jacket for the first time that season can go a few different ways. If you were organized and on top of things your jacket pockets are probably cleaned out and emptied at the end of winter and the next fall no surprises await you, when you slip your hand inside all you encounter is a fresh clean pocket. Of course we have all heard the tales from the less organized people who button up their jackets and slide their cold hands into the warm pockets only to come across money, usually to make these stories worth telling there is always at least a ten dollar bill hiding inside the pocket. Today when I tucked my hands inside my jacket, which has been packet up since our Colorado days, I bump into the opposite of money. Inside my pocket I found a 3 year old cold complete with dirty tissue and cough drop wrapper.

A Sneak Peak at Halloween...

"Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said 'Never take candy from strangers.' And then they dressed me up and said 'Go beg for it.'I didn't know what to do. I'd knock on people's doors and go 'Trick or treat.' 'No, thank you.'" ~Rita Rudner

Planning a kid's Party?

In the last couple of months I have found many interesting things in Germany, but I believe this picture speaks for its self.



Yes, that is an Erotic Megastore next to something called a kids land, I guess that way you can have an adult party and a kids party in the same strip mall.

Satellite Sam...

Sam’s resume boast that he is a satellite engineer, but his home experience says otherwise. Last week Sam decided that he could no longer live without football; therefore we would be getting AFN, Armed Forces Network, that weekend. We went down to the base to buy the decoder box, after some severe sticker price shock, we walked out of the BX with the AFN box and a web address with instructions on how to hook it up. We were very confident that the satellite dish on top of our 3 story house would be facing the right way and we would be watching T.V. in no time, after all our neighbors had all informed us that an American family had lived here prior to us. We soon found out that the dish was in fact positioned wrong; Sam assured me that this was no big deal for a satellite expert like himself. He used some sort of sliding chart that I am certain has never had a use before despite the fact that we have been moving it around the country for years, then climbed out of Laura’s window and scrambled up to the peak of the roof. After about an hour of me relaying the signal strength via cell phone to Sam on the roof we finally achieved a lock on a signal. Already just a few minutes after Sam had clambered back inside the window the seven AFN channels started coming in, along with our new channels came a knock at the door. The German neighbors eighteen year old son was at the door, when Sam answered he asked “Do you know about satellites?” Sam was excited, maybe he was spotted up on the roof fixing our satellite and now the neighbors needed some advice, Sam could finally apply his work to home life. The boy next door then asked in broken English if Sam was up on the roof, apparently Sam had moved a shared satellite dish away from the German T.V. satellite. After it was confirmed that the dish, that is anchored to our roof was indeed a shared dish, Sam climbed back out the window and pointed it back toward the German satellite. As you can imagine this put Sam in a sour mood come Sunday. Our next move needed to be decided we could return the expensive decoder box and go without T.V. including Sam’s precious football, I did not think that this option would stick considering Sam’s need for a football fix had gotten so bad he was willing to attend a pee wee game. The next choice was buy a new dish and find a way to anchor it on the house or roof without messing up the German’s T.V. reception, I was not a fan of this second option. Later after some investigation a satellite dish on a tripod stand was spotted in the American neighbor’s lawn. Sam rush the two steps next door and rang the bell after explaining it was decided Sam would rig two hook ups from the dish and use his acquired experience to point the dish in the proper direction, therefore both house could enjoy AFN.

Lost in Translation...

I recently took a class through the Air Force about shopping on the Germany economy. They basically brought us to a large grocery store chain gave us a tour and a ton of samples. The differences between here and the U.S. were showcased and explained to us, for example at a German grocery store your purchases are not loaded into bags, after they are scanned you place them back into your cart and then into some sort of basket you keep in your trunk. So the next afternoon I felt confident enough to try some food shopping off base. Globus, the large family owned German grocery store chain that I had already toured, has a cheese counter with over 400 types of cheese. I saw on my tour they had goat cheese, or at least I saw a picture of a goat next to some cheese, I love goat cheese. I had gotten out my recipe for Bryan Chicken that is made with yummy goat cheese and I had looked up how to say goat cheese in German on the internet. The German instructor made shopping and communicating seem so easy I was ready. When I got to the kase counter they had cheese with a picture of a goat on it but the name did not match the one I got on the internet, but surprisingly this happens a lot. I was very excited because even with the exchange to Euros it was pretty cheap for goat cheese. After some internal debate about exactly how much is 100 grams, my recipe being American called for 8oz, I asked for 100g. The girl behind the counter, who I can only assume is a trained cheese lady,took my cheese to the slicer. I thought this was extremely odd, I have never seen goat cheese sliced but, she is the one who works with cheese all day so I went with it. A few days later, I went to make my Bryan Chicken the chicken was on the grill the sauce was ready so I unwrapped my goat cheese, and being the dedicated wife and mother I am decided to sample the cheese before feeding it to my family. It was provolone! Laura and Sam laughed while eating what was labeled butterkase, which I assume is what the Germans call provolone cheese. That explains why it was sliced.

Unplanned tidbit...

Lucky for us Laura has offered us another “unplanned tidbit”. While walking home from the train station on Sunday in the rain, Laura ran out in front of a car after a big rumble of thunder. This triggered Sam to give the lecture of how dangerous cars are and how getting run over by a car can be deadly. Laura responded by asking “Do they use cars in war to run people over?”

Bad again...

Speaking of bad, this week the award for the worst parents ever goes to Sam and I. Laura lost her other front tooth. That night she actually went to bed on time without her usual complaints of “It’s still light out” and Sam’s favorite “can we play hide-n-go seek instead”. The next morning when her alarm, she insist on having one, went off at 6:45 she actually got out of bed before I had to go upstairs and be the mean Mom. She came into our room and miserably announced that the tooth fairy had not come in the night to take the tooth and leave money, her tooth was still under her pillow. We assured her that this happens all the time, although I am not too sure about that, that this time of year must be the tooth fairies busy time, and the rain must have delayed her, or as Laura pointed out him. Lucky for her when Laura got home from school that afternoon the tooth was gone and in its place were some Euro and a note apologizing for being late.


Sam likes to call this picture "Shark week!"

Bad Durkheim…

This weekend in Germany Europe’s largest wine festival took place in Bad Durkheim, we decided we had better go and check it out. Because we have never had great luck with parking, we decided we should embrace a European life style and take the train. Apparently so did half of the American’s stationed here, because when we showed up at the train station the ticket machine lines were long and not moving, turns out on weekend the German who runs the ticket window, who we had been assured would help us purchase the best tickets for us, was off. My husband, whose award shelves boast all the great things he can do with satellites, does not know how to use a bahn (train) ticket machine. We decided to postpone our train departure until we were certain we could purchase tickets for our return trip, if (and this was becoming a big if) we ever did get to the Bad Durkheim station. We loaded back into the car and left the bigger station and its crowds for our small local train station, which is not so much a station as it is just a ticket machine and bench. There at the Obermohr stop after we had spent as much time as we needed reading and starting over on the machine, I was able to purchase tickets to Bad Durkheim for the next day and I was confident we could use the machine to purchase ticket to home when the time came.

The festival was less festival and more carnival. It was almost exactly what you would expect at a state fair, there was no wine tasting and buying bottles like we expected. Instead there was heavy drinking of wine and purchasing it by the HUGE glass, these were more like beer steins and less like dinky wine glasses. But like a state fair the food section was good, Sam got to enjoy a ½ meter long bratwurst. There were only a few differences in the way Germany does their “festivals” and the way we do our “State fairs”, here in Germany I didn’t see any livestock. No tent to see the baby calves or arena to watch the pigs run in circle, giving the audience the impression that they are actually racing. Besides the lack of live animals at the wine festival when you buy a drink, coke, beer, wine or the popular Fanta, it comes in a glass. An actually glass cup! When you purchase your drink you pay a deposit and receive a chip with your full actual glass cup of refreshing liquid, then when you have finished enjoying your drink you return the actually glass cup to the counter with the plastic chip and you receive your deposit back. Turned out having glass cups was not the best idea after people had enjoyed a tumbler full of wine and the cup tumbled off the table. Ooops!

A New School Year...

Next week Laura starts first grade and this year I am having the opposite response then I had last year. Despite the changes that a full day of school brings for Laura, I am very ready for the school year to start. All day first grade is different from our half day kindergarten experience, and in addition Laura is starting at a new school. Laura will be attending Ramstein Elementary on Ramstein Air Base and although we have attended the new student “tour” we are still not sure what to expect at the new school. We have learned that kindergarten through 12th grade all ride the bus together, therefore a total of 54 German city buses drop off and pick up every day. (OH MY) After the last couple of weeks with Laura in a new house and new country I am over ready for her to go to school and meet some new friends. I love having Laura around, but every evening when Sam returns home from work and Laura is on her 9th straight hour of talking, my nerves feel very frayed. Fortunately for her and her new teacher, Laura already knows everything there is to learn in first grade, I know this because whenever we sit down to work on her summer homework packet Laura corrects me. I constantly hear “That is not a sentence” and my all-time favorite “Did you even go to the high school mom?” So on Monday at 8 am, with brand new lunch box in hand, Laura will start a new school year at a new school.

Romantic Heidelberg...

On Saturday we headed out to the romantic city of Heidelberg. All of our Germany travel books describe Heidelberg, along the Neckar river, as the city of romance. We explored the city for most of the afternoon we walked along the river, ate in a café along the cobbled streets and shopped in the marktplatz. Heidelberg is a busy university town, so we actually saw young people, which was a dramatic change since Sam and I were beginning to think that Germany only had very old folks living here. Although after about four hours spent sightseeing, shopping and eating I am not sure what the guide books consider romantic, the one armed man playing drums for spare change, the convert to Islam booth or the dozen or so dogs aloud in the restaurants. While I was still looking for my romantic part of the city, Laura found hers at Build a Bear! We traveled thousands of miles and we just cannot seem to get away from buying the bears new clothes, therefore one of her numerous bears now sports a fashionable “I Love Heidelberg” shirt. Maybe I should have looked harder in that chocolate shop for romance, I am sure with enough Euros spent I could have found something.


Sam and Laura beside the Neckar River.


As ussual I appear in one picture!

Sam sucked it up and paided the 1.50 Euro for him and Laura to head to the top if the old town Church.

The Kitchen Plan...

There are many differences here in Germany from our life in the U.S., space is a major one. The one closet our house has is a linen closet located on the second floor next to the bathroom. The Air Force helped solve the closet problem in the bedrooms by lending us four closet like wardrobes. Unfortunately these did not help with the kitchen storage issue. I knew that something would have to be done in the kitchen even before our stuff had arrived. So I grabbed the Ikea catalog and braved the German information desk at the store in Mannheim to ask how to find things in the warehouse, turns out this was a valuable lesson I would use again when replacing Laura’s furniture. Somehow we made it home with some shelves and to Sam’s surprise and pleasure not much else.






In the video you might notice the ONE small drawer , the multiple trash cans (trash is an ordeal here), the small frig (we have a big one downstairs),and the lack of counter space. Not to mention my kid who decided not to brush her hair yet this morning.

The Moving Plan Continues...

After what felt like a very long wait we finally received our “household goods”. The German movers who I affectionately refer to as Larry, Curley and Moe, showed up bright and early Tuesday morning, well ok maybe it was just bright Tuesday morning. They opened their truck and proudly announced that all of our 10 crates where accounted for. We expressed some concern that one of the crates had someone else’s information printed on the front; Moe ignored our fretting and opened the crate to prove our belongings were safety inside. Once the crate was opened I knew right away that the movers were wrong, these were not our belongings. My first clue was the box with “grandfather clock” written on the outside, we don’t own a grandfather clock. Once we conveyed this information to the movers they proceeded to open the box and show us the contents, clearly they were hopping that because we had not seen our belongs for an extended amount of time we had somehow forgotten we owned a grandfather clock and upon seeing it our temporary amnesia would clear, no such luck. After some phone calls, mostly conducted in German, it was reported that there was absolutely no way that the missing crate was in their warehouse. Larry, while smoking what must have been his tenth cigarette since arriving at our house, announced “this has happened before and the crate ended up in Alaska, they found it in a year though”. I felt much better. Two days of Sam incessantly calling the company later, they stated that they thought they had found it. I was less then hopeful, how could they think they found it, it was a huge crate. Later they must have decided that they did indeed find the missing crate because they made an appointment to deliver it Saturday morning. As it turns out this crate was not worth the wait. By unpacking boxes for four days we were able to conclude that most of the missing crate was the entire contents of Laura’s room, sadly this crate must have met some rough seas on the way over because almost all of Laura’s furniture was broken. Fortunately Laura was just happy to see most of her toys intact and seemed amused at the idea of Mom and Dad trying to locate matching furniture in a foreign country.



(our extra couch did not fit up or down the stairs so they brought it in through the secound floor balcony)

Obermohr…

We made it to Germany and through a very frustrating and competitive process found a house. We now live in the little village of Obermohr; I use the word live loosely because as of now we only have two air mattresses and a dining room table. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have this town home in the Ramstein Elementary School zone, which I am told is a big deal. Our new home has one closet, a large basement, multiple flights of stairs and a small backyard that Laura insisted was large enough for a trampoline. A few trips to my new favorite German store, Ikea for some shelves and we are ready for our household goods to be delivered any day now. Sam is already becoming fast friends with our Germany neighbors, he planted some flowers in the small garden area and the Germans promptly declared it schon.

Picture Perfect...

I love pictures I always have. Although I know quite a few people who are considerable more knowledgeable about photography and have tons more talent, sometimes I get lucky. My favorite subject to take pictures of is Laura. Because we have quite a few photo shoots and I have to take multiple pictures to get that great shot, Laura is well trained in posing. My house is covered in pictures of Laura on the beach, at the park, on Vacation and just every day. Picking just a few to share is excruciatingly hard.