Testing Faux Pas

Day 14

July 26, 2010

Well today was the day of my drivers license test. I woke up early so that I could cram for a few more hours before the test. It was schedule for 12:15. My sweet husband had set it up for me 2 weeks ago and I had been studying since. I studied all last week and was trying my hardest to cram in a few more signs and rules of the road before my test began.

For those that don't know, Germany has at least 100 signs that you are expected to know in order to safely operate on the road. There are general rules such as: the right-of-way in round abouts and speed limits can be mandatory on the autobahn or they can be suggestions. There are different signs to indicate which is which.

It is very confusing at times. Especially, when there are random signs in German. This weekend, for example, my husband and I ventured into Homburg, Germany. We were in search of a DVD store so we could buy a movie. The closest store was Media Mart. Luckily, it is only 5 minutes away from where our house will be. We typed in the stores address into our GPS. We easily found the store. The problem arose when it came time to park. We couldn't figure out if it was legal or illegal. The signs are so similar and well...foreign. We decided to wing it. We drove underneath the store into a parking garage. We knew that certain spaces were for certain people. They have specific spaces for elderly people, cars with children, and pregnant women. We ended up parking in the back end of the parking garage all the while hoping we were legally there. Luckily, we were and we safely made it out of the parking garage and back to our hotel.

These sort of things happen all the time. It is very stressful when you don't understand the language on the signs. Nevertheless, I had been cramming for at least an hour when Adam came into the room. He had gone to visit our soon-to-be home to get the appliances signed over to us. We decided to go to lunch before my test. We ran to the car and got ready to leave. Just then Adam pulled out my test appointment sheet. He had made my test appointment for 7:15 am. Unfortunately, I had missed the test. We raced to the testing center and were informed that I would have to wait another week and a half to take my test....testing faux pas, indeed. On a positive note, it gives me an extra week to study and look for a car.

Getting Settled (A Strenuous Task)

Day 8

I did it! I made it a week, all alone (well not technically all alone...but you get my point). No mother to cook for me, no sister to play Yahtzee! with and no niece to chase up and down the stairs. It wasn't an easy week but I'm proud of myself, nevertheless.

I believe the last time I wrote we were in the midst of a house hunting crisis, car-less and irritated, to say the least. Well, I'm proud to report our situation has changed immensely.

On Friday, Adam and I frantically called all of the houses within 30 minutes of his job. I was determined to get some appointments lined up so that we could at least see a house or two. We set up an appoint for a little townhouse. This one we had already called a few times but could never reach the landlord and never got any return calls. We were just happy to get to look at the house. We got a ride to Kaiserslaturen to check out the house.Upon arriving to the little neighborhood, I noticed that all the townhouses were really well kept. They were all painted light pastel colors; blue, green and yellow. Their flower beds were full of bright flowers and each house had its own garage (This is a huge perk in Germany and is often times the exception rather than the rule).

When we entered the house we were shocked, not so much by the interior but more so, by the huge group of people waiting to see the house. This is a real problem right now. There is a huge shortage of rental properties in Germany so every property generally has more than one interested renter. It is the job of the landlord to choose who gets the place.

As we went further into the house, I realized I loved it. It was three stories with hardwood floors throughout. It had 4 bedrooms and 2.75 baths. The kitchen was newly renovated and the living room was open to the backyard. Unfortunately, I was not the only person that loved the house. As we ended our tour, the landlord told us there were 6 families interested in the location. He said he would choose who got it and let us know.

Our 1/6 odds were a little disheartening but Adam and I prayed and decided to let the Big Man take it from there. We enlist the prayers from a few family members and close friends and waited to hear the verdict.

In the meantime, we decided to call and set up appointments for Saturday. We had to keep our options open just in case our dream house became another families dream house! We called about 50 people, which lead to 2 appointments. Obviously, Germans our not great about returning phone calls.

I also decided to call a realtor, Gudrun. She'd been referred to me by a Sergent Adam and I had met. He said she didn't charge too much and she could get us into a good house, quickly. I was at the point that I'd have spent as much money as I had to alleviate some of the stress of this move. She returned my call that day and sat us up an appointment to see 2 houses on Sunday.

It looked like we had a full weekend of house hunting.

Friday we decided to rent a car to get around until we could find something more permanent. We went and bought a Garmin, GPS, to help us navigate. This little thing is nothing short of amazing. It is my new....er...only German friend to date.

The next morning we got up bright and early. We went and got some food and while we were eating we found out that we did not get our dream house. I was pretty bummed about it but decided not to let it get me down. We had an entire weekend full of houses to see. I was hopeful that there would be the perfect one for us.


Upon arriving at our first appointment, we noticed that once again, we were not the only potential renter's. We waited at the first house for 45 minutes and the landlord never arrived. We had stacked appointments an hour a part so we ended up having to leave without even seeing the home. Apparently, its pretty common for Germans not to call and cancel appointments if the home has already been rented. They also don't answer the phone when you call to see if they are on their way...we unfortunately did not get this memo.

The landlord's failure to show at our first appointment made us a little late for our second appointment as it was 20 minutes away and we had gotten lost. We ended up knocking on the door of an elderly German lady who did not speak one bit of English. She looked frightened when she noticed us. She was gardening outside and came to a frantic halt as we approached her house. She kept repeating haus, haus....she probably thought we were burglars or something. We ended up spouting off "thank you" in terrible German and trying to find our way.


Once we finally made it to the house. There was a family that had beat us there by 2 minutes. Unfortunately, they signed their contract within that two minutes leaving us in the same exact shape that we were in the day before.


We left feeling defeated and bummed. We decided to go and have dinner and give up on house hunting for the day. We went to the Macaroni Grill to dabble in a bit of Italian cuisine. Once we finished we headed home and prepared for the last day of the weekend and hopefully a home-finding-day!


On Sunday, I decided to check out the house listings and see if we could possibly squeeze in another house tour. There was a new house listed in a town about 30 minutes away. The house was 4 bed room 1.75 bath and 1,200 square feet. Adam and I decided to check out any houses that seemed like they could work no matter how far away they were.


We drove down gorgeous country roads going up and down hills everywhere. The villages that we past were so cute. I really enjoyed the drive. We arrived at the house and were so excited from the outside. There were flowers everywhere. The front of the house was immaculate. We entered the house expecting the inside to be amazing. The view from the back balcony was great but unfortunately, the current tenants did not keep the house up. It was messy and cluttered. I could see the potential but I didn't think that it was worth an hour commute everyday.

We left the house just in time to meet up with the realtor for our first housing appointment with her. She brought us to an amazing house 15 minutes off of base. It was 1720 square feet, 4 bedroom 1.75 bath and had already been inspected per military guidelines. It had a huge living room, backyard and a wet bar. I loved the house from the first second we stepped into it. It was the best we'd seen yet. We could have this one without a doubt, which was relieving. Adam loved it and wanted to take it right that second. I wanted to wait and see the other house that Gudrun had set up for us.

The second house was pastel pink and right on the street. It was not that pretty from the outside but the rent was 300 Euro cheaper than the house before. Upon entering the house we saw an office on the right, hardwood floors, and a huge bathroom off the side of the kitchen. The living room was half the size of the house we'd seen before, but nothing we couldn't deal with. We went up stairs to a horrible layout of bedrooms, nasty carpet and no bedroom doors. I was ready to leave at first sight of the second floor.

I told Gudrun we were not interested in this house. She told me that these were the only to private listings available in our price range and that I could have the night to think about whether or not we wanted to take one of them.

Adam and I climbed in the car and started discussing the first house. We decided we did not want to risk losing it. I called Gudrun and told her we'd take the house. She was so pleased with our decision that she knocked 100 Euro off of her finders fee. We ended the weekend with a feeling of relief. We get our keys on August 4th and our furniture is being delivered on the 5th. It was definitely a successful weekend!

House hunting

Day 6

The house that we had fell through. This not only stresses me out but it just plain sucks. I can't handle being stranded and homeless. It is really disheartening. Every time we go to a house to do a walk-through there are other families there looking also. Many times we have gone to do a walk through and someone else was there signing their contract. Apparently, it's not part of the German culture to say that someone else has already rented the home before you go to the house. Instead they let you drive 100km to get to them just to be turned away. It is so frustrating.

Instead of house hunting on our own, Adam and I have decided to get a realtor. It will end up costing us about 500 euro. As much as I don't want to pay for the help, it seems like the only option right now. I'm really stressed out about finding a house. It doesn't help that we have a lot of pressure on us from the housing office. They expect you to find a house in 10 days. I can guarantee that we will need more time than that.

On a positive note, over the last few days we have ventured out of our hotel room and into the German world. We ate at a German restaurant. Adam had Pork Schnitzel and beer. He loved the beer and the food was amazing. One of the strangest things to me is the tip. It is not customary to tip in Germany. The wait-staff doesn't even expect it. It's quite nice. We also started doing the German Rosetta Stone. I'm hoping it helps.

We have been car shopping in our spare time. We are going to buy a car on Wednesday when Adam passes his German license test. I CANNOT WAIT!! It will take so much stress off of us. The plan is to wait a few weeks after we get settled and then buy me a new car. We have looked at a 2010 Ford Focus and a Jeep. I'm excited to get everything together. Everyone keeps saying that these are the worst two weeks of the entire trip. I sure hope they are right.

I have decided to go to college and get my masters. I am going to the education department to talk about scholarships and enrollment. I'm excited to go back! I have also been applying for jobs on base. I'm hoping that I get a call back within a month. I need to work. I'm not good a being lazy and my extended vacation is getting old.

I hope to start going to the gym this week. I am going bright and early Monday morning to get a schedule for the classes offered on base. I hope to be spinning, yoga-ing, and pilates-ing as soon as possible.

This has been a random update. There will be plenty more to come!

House Hunting

Day 3

July 14, 2010

I woke up at 7:30am this morning which was a terrible idea seeing that I went to sleep at 5:30 am. I am having the worst time getting acclimated to this time change. I guess this will all get better in time but for now I'll just have to deal.

I woke up 3 hours earlier than was planned. My husband had left when I woke up and would be coming back around 10:30 am to pick me up to go look for houses. Either my excitement to get out of the hotel for the day or my messed up sleeping schedule stopped me from returning to sleep.

I decided to go on and get ready for the day. I showered and put on make-up. After I was all ready to go, I realized I still had an hour and a half left before I could leave. So in good-housewife fashion, I decided to clean (My mother would be proud).

The hotel room was a disaster. Not only are German people meticulous about cleanliness, they also don't believe in things like taking the trash out regularly or air conditions. As a result, there was over-flowing trash and luggage thrown about everywhere. This had to be handled.

I put away all the luggage which was quite the challenge as we have seven bags to deal with. I cleaned off all the counter tops and put away all of our electronics. I organized the mounds of junk food we have been living on (We have been stranded in our hotel every night after about 3 pm with no car and no means of transportation to get out and eat or do anything else).

In the midst of my cleaning frenzy there was a knock at my door. I was elated at the thought that my husband had possibly returned early to save me from my manic cleaning spree. To my surprise it was a little German lady.

This lady was exactly what you'd picture an older German lady to look like. She had brownish-blonde hair tied up in a bun and she was wearing a dress/apron with Birkenstocks. She started speaking to me. I'm sure I looked like a dear-in-headlights. I had no idea what she was saying as she was speaking German. This was the best example of a communication barrier that I'd ever witnessed. She muttered something in German, I'd respond in English. This went on for at least five minutes. Then she promptly turned around a left. I'm assuming she was the housekeeper trying to clean the room but I guess I'll never really know.

I resumed my cleaning making all the beds and cleaning up the bathroom. This went on for a good 30 minutes. I hung up my husbands uniforms that had been thrown over different pieces of furniture and gathered our laundry. When I was all finished I looked around and was pretty impressed with the work I'd done. My husband called and said he was on his way to get me. I grabbed my purse and ran down stairs.

I called him and asked him home much longer until he would be here to get me. He said they hadn't even left base yet and would probably be here in 15 minutes. I decided to use this time wisely and go explore the little town we were in. I walked up and down the streets around our hotel. I never went too far as I didn't really trust my husbands 15 minute estimate. The town is so cute. We definitely don't have towns like this back home. There are flowers in almost every window sill. Even the old houses have a certain vintage-like appeal to them. I was impressed.

In the middle of my exploration, I heard my husband call out to me. Our house-hunting adventure was starting and I'd actually get to see more of Germany than the street we were staying on. We had to have someone come and pick us up because we are not licensed to drive in Germany and don't have a car yet. The girl that picked us up was the spouse of a guy my husband works with. She was very helpful throughout the entire day.

The first house that we drove by was in the village of Hutschenhausen. It was cute but was clustered in with multiple other little town houses. We called the landlord to get a tour. She told us she'd call us back and let us know a time (she never did). The second house we looked at was right down the street. It was the apartment we REALLY wanted. It had huge bay windows, hardwood flooring and it was perfect for our price range. My husband dialed the landlord to make an appointment to see the apartment. Unfortunately, the house had been filled the day before. I was upset but ready to press on and see what we could find.

The next village we would be looking in was Kaiserslautern. It is one of the bigger villages in our area. We called the next landlord but he didn't answer either. We drove by the property. It was also a bunch of town houses clustered together. The outside was cute but I really needed to see the house. On the way to Kaiserslaturen, my husband had made an appointment at another location and we'd actually get to go into the building.

We drove to the cutest village that we'd seen all day. There were flowers everywhere and all the houses were very well maintained. We drove down a private drive to get to our appointment. When we approached we noted that it was a huge house. It was gated and there was a Lassie-looking dog running around outside. I told my husband that I thought this was someones house and that it freaked me out to live with other people. We entered the house and went down to the bottom floor. Much to my surprise, the house was set up for three different families. Each family would get their own floor, all the doors had their own locks and doorbells, and each floor had a special amenity. Plus, the view was extraordinary.

When we entered the apartment we immediately noticed the doors inside the house. They are all glass with a really cool modern feel. The first room we saw was the living room. It was huge and had two giant sliding glass doors that took us to our own personal backyard and patio (equipped with a roll out awning for shade). The dining room was magnificently large. The kitchen had been renovated and there was a little breakfast nook area inside the kitchen. The refrigerator was small per European standards but it was bigger than most we had seen. The master bedroom was double the size of my room back home. I was elated. The guest room had walk in storage space and was an average size room. The only problem was it was painted yellow and lime green.

Actually, the primary downfall of this apartment was paint color. The living room also had an unusual feel. There were big red triangles painted on the wall. I asked the landlady if she painted the rooms. She replied, "No, the previous tenant was umm.. artistic. You can paint whatever you want." I could've jumped for joy. Not only were the walls drywall so you could hang pictures, which is uncommon for Europe, but we could paint the rooms whatever color we wanted. This landlord seemed pretty mellow.

There were 1.75 bathrooms in the house. They were both a little outdated but that's nothing I can't deal with.

The house was on the bottom floor and half of it sat directly against a hill. As a result, the room felt so cool that I thought it was air conditioned. The floors were ceramic tile through out the house. In the winter, the heat goes through the floors, heating the tile. This was my favorite feature.

I could tell that my husband really liked the place. He kept asking me if I liked it and if it was what I expected. I loved it. The fact that I could redecorate a place and make it my own, was really appealing. Plus, all the utilities were included in our rent.

We decided to jump on this opportunity. We signed our lease without looking at another house. We exited the private drive with a little relief.

Upon returning to the hotel room, my husband gasped (literally). He asked me if I'd cleaned the room up. I said, "yes, before I left." He said, "man, I love you, you are too great." I smiled and thanked him. Then it hit me, the house hunt was over. One thing down, 7kajillion other things left to do

The Beginning of our European Adventure

Day 1

Our adventure began bright and early on July 11, 2010 at 8 am. It felt even earlier as I had not slept at all the night before. A day of going away parties, casino outings and slumber parties made sleeping almost impossible.

We arrived at Tulsa International Airport for our first flight of the day. We were surrounded by 7 bags, 7 family members and 2 very close friends.

We checked our luggage and waited around until the very last second. I certainly did not want to say goodbye to my family. We huddled to say a quick prayer, then with a tearful goodbye headed off. My mom took pictures until we were so far into security she couldn't see us anymore. By the time we were patted down, x-rayed and searched, I was receiving text messages from my family. I'd only been out of sight for 10 minutes :).

We hurried to grab some food and make our way to our first terminal. I prayed the entire walk from gate to gate. I was nervous about the flight, to say the least. We sat down ate our food and then it was time to board the plane.

As we approached the plane my heart began to race. Then I saw the 'plane' or at least that's what they called it. Yes, there were wings, an engine and a pilot but it was the tiniest excuse for a plane I'd ever seen. We had to check our carry on bags last minute as the plane did not have adequate spacing for our personal property. As if I wasn't scared enough, I was stuck riding in a tiny little, 57 passenger (yes, I counted) plane. I prayed for almost the whole flight but after an hour and fifty minutes we landed in Chicago, Illinois, The Windy City.

Chicago was really pretty from the plane. As we approached, we could see Lake Michigan. It was the by far the biggest lake I'd ever seen. Our layover in Chicago was short and sweet. Before we knew it, we were on the next plane in route to Baltimore.

The flight to Baltimore was the shortest of the day. We barely got into the air before we were on our way to land. We arrived and immediately had to grab our bags and re-check them. It only sounds easy. The 7 bags we had in Tulsa were now in Baltimore and it was just my husband and me. We had to rent a cart to get around. We immediately went to our airline check-in area. That's when we noticed not only did we have to wait 2 hours to check our bags (which meant staying in the public portion of the airport with 7 bags) but our flight had been delayed an extra 3 hours making our Maryland layover a whopping 8 hours.

We decided to make the most of our situation. We searched for a sit down restaurant that could house 7 bags and two very hungry travelers. We were lucky to find a cute little bistro with just enough space to wheel our cart in and sit.

After dinner, we went back to check our luggage. We waited in line for an hour and finally were able to ditch the cart and our luggage. By this time, my husband and I were both drained. We immediately went through security, grabbed a drink and sat down to watch a movie. The 8 hour layover went by relatively fast. Before we knew it, it was 1:40 am and we were in route to Germany. Two nighttime Excedrin and a few airplane meals later and we were landing in Deutschland.

We had to go to a briefing on what our next move should be. Then we went through immigration, customs and grabbed our bags. We immediately left the airport. We drove around the base for a couple hours, got some food and then headed to our hotel to check in and sleep.