Well, nothing as exciting as falling into a canal in Venice has happened in the last few days, but I do have some more pictures to put up from that trip. You can find them here.
House & Associates
I found out a few days ago that our second shipment of stuff is going to arrive on June 20th, a lot later than we thought. We sent it April 21st and two months was the absolute longest it was going to take. Such good luck!
But, we have some good news, just with some awkward timing. Our house is going to be available this coming Saturday or Sunday. We cannot move in yet because we haven't scheduled a time for the movers to move our stuff from storage to our house, but we might be moving in sometime this next week. We won't have a bedroom set for us, but we will have at least a mattress, and some other random items. It will almost feel like a house. I'm still missing pots and pans, silverware, and the normal stuff, but we can borrow those items from the lending closet until I buy them and until our registry items get here.
We are getting the key from Burger today to go check things out just to make sure everything is in order. I am getting really excited and can't wait to move everything in and start setting up our home!
Visitors!
Four (sets of) people have already told me that they are going to come visit me, and I am terribly excited. My mom is going to come just after Matt leaves in early July, a family from Nashville that I love is coming late July, and my brother is coming for the first half of August. Then both my parents are going to be coming again in mid-September because they will already be in Prague, which is just a couple of hours away. That said, I love visitors, and would definitely enjoy you coming. If you come, you can fly into Frankfurt, Nurnberg, or Prague. So be checking out those ticket prices and let me know when you're coming!
I know that I mentioned that Matt and I don't have a bedroom set, but we do have a bedroom set for the guest room, so don't think you'll have to sleep on the sofa or an air mattress. You'll probably have the most put-together room in the house!
Vilseck Rose Barracks Organization
Vilseck is the name of the town just south of the military installation. The name of the actual installation is the Rose Barracks, but it is everywhere referred to as Vilseck. Inside of Vilseck is the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. There are six squadrons that are associated with the Regiment. Matt is in 1st squadron, so when people around post ask me who my husband works for (instead of saying "the Army" like I would to normal civilians), I say 1-2 SCR, or just first squadron.
The regiment is traditionally for armor soldiers because they're dealing with strykers (like tanks, but smaller and more mobile), but recently they have realized that high-speed infantry-men work very well with strykers. For this reason, Matt and a lot of other of his lieutenant friends, all infantry-men, have been recruited for this regiment.
Because there are six squadrons on post, each squadron has its own personality. I'm not quite sure what the other squadrons' personalities are, but 1st squadron has a reputation for being the most intense. I would usually say this is a bad thing, but while Matt is being productive (as much as possible with the regiment down-range), his buddies in other squadrons are sitting alone in their hotel rooms watching military television. His CO (commanding officer) is a very cool guy and is all about giving the new lieutenants and the current NCO's as much experience as possible.
Around Post
We had a town hall meeting yesterday with the first squadron where people got to ask a lot of questions and air a lot of rumors to the squadron's leader who is back for a couple of weeks from Iraq for R&R (rest and relaxation, though I hope you already knew that one). One thing that was very valuable to me to hear was the history of the squadron over this past deployment. Like I said before, the 1st squadron has a reputation for being, um, awesome, they are the squadron that is being used for tactical missions in Iraq. They were actually separated from the rest of the regiment and were involved in some of the toughest firefights since the war started.
I'm sure that because my husband is in 1st squadron I hear a lot of biased opinions, but they have indeed been in some of the hardest places at the hardest time, and keep getting put back there because they have proved themselves. I felt very proud of our squadron, though a bit nervous to be sending my husband there. Praise God it will just be for a few months.
Post has a movie theater that shows one movie a day on Thursdays-Sundays. I think we get two movies on Saturdays. Because of that, and because we're all the way over in Europe, we don't get new releases, and when the movie is playing that you want to see, you have only one option. Matt and I have been wanting to see Prince Caspian for a while now, and it is playing tonight, and only tonight, so we cleared our schedules to have a date.
I think that's about it for now. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but that will leave something to blog later.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Unbelievable, at least in part
After doing a play-by-play of our first few days, I got a little bored with the format, so I'm just going to give you general updates on life. We'll try putting headings to them, because these are the general items people are interested in. If you're not interested in that topic, you don't have to read! Easy as pie. Or schnitzel.
The House
My last entry introduced you to the house that we are planning on getting. I know it's been about a week since I last wrote about it, so you would think that more would have developed, but apparently not. For some reason, there has been a large influx of lieutenants to Vilseck, and the name of our realtor (who could forget a name like Burger?) got around to pretty much everyone. Because of this, he has been very busy and has recently taken to not returning phone calls, emails, or getting the contracts ready. Luckily for us, he's still answering our phone calls because we were one of the first couples to contact him.
Matt just got the contract from Burger into the housing office today, so we should be able to start moving forward on things shortly. We don't really need to go anywhere soon because not all of our stuff has arrived yet. We shipped the furniture that my parents very generously gave us a couple of months ago, and that arrived yesterday. All of the wedding presents and day-to-day items were shipped just over a month ago, and will be arriving in about a week and a half.
So, since the house we're moving into is not completely renovated yet, and all of our household goods have yet to arrive, we have tried not to pester Burger too much. Not to mention that since we have no kitchen in our little hotel room, we are getting paid a very nice sum every day we stay here.
Cars
We are still driving around in our little Smart car, and we've really begun to love it. We drove it all the way to Italy this past weekend on our way to Venice (will talk about that later), and you can see from the picture just how fast it goes, and just how fast I drove it on the Autobahn (155kph = 96 mph).
Matt's car should arrive in a few weeks, and we'll have the rental car for a few days after that. Two cars will be nice. Because Matt is scheduled to leave in early/mid-July for 5 months, we're just going to keep one car until he gets back. When the men get back, a lot of them will be PCSing (Permanent Change of Station, i.e. moving to another post, likely back in the states), and therefore trying to sell their cars. At that point, we'll look at buying a cheap car for me to have while we save up for a new car (BMW??).
Rachel's Job Search
I don't know what I want to do. I haven't heard of a single other spouse who works for an engineering firm, and the employment office gave me the number for the military unit of engineers...not very helpful to me. I've thought about teaching, but that doesn't start until school starts in August, or about going back to school to get my master's, but they don't have the degree I want here. Just the other day I was with some girls to the craft store to get a picture framed, and the guy there offered me a job simply because I knew how to use a computer. Very nice of you, but no thanks.
I'm looking up the information for the Army Corps of Engineers, and I'm just going to have to send a cold email. I think this is anything but standard, and I'm not even certain if they would have a job for me, but it is definitely worth the try. Two incomes and no children is a very sweet deal indeed.
Culture Experiences & Friends
Matt's CO (Commanding Officer) took us and a few other lieutenants and their spouses out to a tapas (Spanish hors d'oeuvres) place, and then out salsa dancing. The food and the dancing was amazing, and not at all what we expected to find in Germany. As the evening of dancing wore on, they did the electric slide, and then another line dance I wasn't familiar with. Of course, because I love dancing, I was out on the floor trying to learn it, and I had the instructor yelling at me over the music to tell me the steps...all in German. Very interesting! Oh, and the menu items had the titles in Spanish, and the description in German. Language overload!
One evening last week I found a little restaurant online that was in a little town of no more than 20 acres and the same number of houses, so Matt and I decided to try it. We drove there, missed it by driving past it, drove back to it, parked and went in. No cars were parked outside, but there were a couple of other tables taken. The odd part here? Everyone was American. VERY disappointing! I don't know how a little German restaurant in the middle of a very German village could contain all Americans, but apparently it happens. Next time I'll look for a restaurant that is further away from post.
Because Matt and I are living out of a hotel room, we are getting very bored of frozen meals, Subway (on post), and eating incredibly rich German dinners at German restaurants every lunch/dinner. When I mentioned this to one of my friends here, Veronica, she just solved all my problems by giving me a couple of plates, some silverware, a few glass mixing bowls, and her crock pot. Then she even took me to the grocery store and helped me buy the right food for making meals in the crock pot. Man, I can't believe the generosity of the people here. She and Krista specifically have gone out of their ways to make me as at home here as possible. And they're really cool too.
Matt is getting to know the guys in his squadron pretty well and is enjoying interacting with the NCO's (Non-Commissioned Officers, enlisted guys who have been given authority; sergeant is an example), since prior to Germany, he had interacted mostly with officers. Almost every morning the squadron does PT (physical training), but Matt's squadron likes to change things up a bit. On Thursday morning they got to play football, which Matt found to be an awesome exercise. Then yesterday morning they played paintball (so cool), which he also found to be great tactical training and practice. Basically, he's really enjoying it here, and we're loving all the time we get to spend together.
Vacation in Venice
Just off the train, walking through the city to our hotel
The hotel we stayed in was just two "blocks" from the Plaza San Marco, which is the big tourist attraction in Venice. Sadly, the quality of the hotel was as bad as the location was good. I'll just say that you could hardly stand at the sink without sitting on the bed, and our full private bathroom was across the hall. BUT, the breakfasts were great and we had a fantastic time nevertheless.
Everything was beautiful, a very common thing in Venice
Every street looked like this, and better
then a gondola ride. I had heard how expensive gondola rides were, but I couldn't believe my ears when we actually walked up to a gondolier and asked how much it was. Matt was set on going on a gondola ride, but I was more than hesitant to spend so much on a 20 minute outing. In the end, Matt won the debate, because "who goes to Venice and doesn't ride a gondola?"
The token gondola ride. We saw the house from Casino Royale
The ride ended up being pretty cool, even though it was short. Those boats are so ridiculously long, I don't know how they manage to steer them around the tiny canals, sharp turns, and low arched bridges. I was amazed. Oh, and another thing about gondolas: they're all unique, not a single one is the same.
That night we went back to the hotel, slept very soundly, and woke up the next morning with barely enough time for breakfast. We spent the whole day meandering around the city checking out "Points of Interest" on our map. My parents had just given me a new camera for graduation, (digital SLR for camera lovers, and thanks Heather for the great suggestion!), so we spent a lot of the day taking photos as well. We walked away with about 300 photos from the whole trip, which is a lot for a day and a half! Most of the rest of the trip can go without narration, and I'll just let you enjoy the photos.
Big door. Small Rachel
Clearly, they love Civil Engineers...;). We saw this nebulous "CE" all over the city
Venice- the Unbelievable Part
Where to start? It was Monday morning and Matt and I had packed everything up and were making the trek back to the train station. To mix things up a bit, we decided to go a different route back to the station than we had come (I marked where we walked both days on a map). Now, the map we had was awesome, but I had seen at least two points where it had been wrong (a bridge where there was none indicated, or no walkway where it said there was). On our trek, we came upon a canal with no bridge across it, and no walkway where it was indicated on the map. Just for kicks, I wanted to see if the supposed path was just under the water, so I took a few steps down towards the canal to have a peek around the corner.
Around step three, my foot slips on some icky mud that was stone-colored and therefore camouflaged against the steps. I promptly land on my bum, and then slip down another step. Because of the ickiness, another step goes by. After passing the next step my foot is in the water and I know all is lost. I fall full-body into the canal (save my head, thank God), holding my backpack, purse, and new oil painting we just bought. Thankfully the bag holding my purse and oil painting had landed on muddy on the steps, instead of drenched in the water with me. So yes, I have fallen into a canal in Venice.
While this happened, Matt saw that I had slipped, and being the gentleman he is, he tried to step down to save me from going fully into the water. He himself ended up slipping. Luckily for him (and for my camera that he was carrying), once I was in the water, he kinda kicked me to prevent himself from entering the water. But even though he wasn't wet, he was still muddy with the icky mud.
Picture taken for your entertainment. At least we could laugh about it :)
Well, I was able to crawl out of the canal, and after rudely being refused help by the nuns and the public restroom attendant, I ended up washing off in the middle of the street. I had one clean dress in my bag so I was able to put that on (they let me in the bathroom to do that), and Matt ended up changing on the train.
Overall, nothing got damaged, so what we're left with is an incredible story and some very interesting photos of me wet and muddy. And that was Venice!
The House
My last entry introduced you to the house that we are planning on getting. I know it's been about a week since I last wrote about it, so you would think that more would have developed, but apparently not. For some reason, there has been a large influx of lieutenants to Vilseck, and the name of our realtor (who could forget a name like Burger?) got around to pretty much everyone. Because of this, he has been very busy and has recently taken to not returning phone calls, emails, or getting the contracts ready. Luckily for us, he's still answering our phone calls because we were one of the first couples to contact him.
Matt just got the contract from Burger into the housing office today, so we should be able to start moving forward on things shortly. We don't really need to go anywhere soon because not all of our stuff has arrived yet. We shipped the furniture that my parents very generously gave us a couple of months ago, and that arrived yesterday. All of the wedding presents and day-to-day items were shipped just over a month ago, and will be arriving in about a week and a half.
So, since the house we're moving into is not completely renovated yet, and all of our household goods have yet to arrive, we have tried not to pester Burger too much. Not to mention that since we have no kitchen in our little hotel room, we are getting paid a very nice sum every day we stay here.
Cars
We are still driving around in our little Smart car, and we've really begun to love it. We drove it all the way to Italy this past weekend on our way to Venice (will talk about that later), and you can see from the picture just how fast it goes, and just how fast I drove it on the Autobahn (155kph = 96 mph).
Matt's car should arrive in a few weeks, and we'll have the rental car for a few days after that. Two cars will be nice. Because Matt is scheduled to leave in early/mid-July for 5 months, we're just going to keep one car until he gets back. When the men get back, a lot of them will be PCSing (Permanent Change of Station, i.e. moving to another post, likely back in the states), and therefore trying to sell their cars. At that point, we'll look at buying a cheap car for me to have while we save up for a new car (BMW??).
Rachel's Job Search
I don't know what I want to do. I haven't heard of a single other spouse who works for an engineering firm, and the employment office gave me the number for the military unit of engineers...not very helpful to me. I've thought about teaching, but that doesn't start until school starts in August, or about going back to school to get my master's, but they don't have the degree I want here. Just the other day I was with some girls to the craft store to get a picture framed, and the guy there offered me a job simply because I knew how to use a computer. Very nice of you, but no thanks.
I'm looking up the information for the Army Corps of Engineers, and I'm just going to have to send a cold email. I think this is anything but standard, and I'm not even certain if they would have a job for me, but it is definitely worth the try. Two incomes and no children is a very sweet deal indeed.
Culture Experiences & Friends
Matt's CO (Commanding Officer) took us and a few other lieutenants and their spouses out to a tapas (Spanish hors d'oeuvres) place, and then out salsa dancing. The food and the dancing was amazing, and not at all what we expected to find in Germany. As the evening of dancing wore on, they did the electric slide, and then another line dance I wasn't familiar with. Of course, because I love dancing, I was out on the floor trying to learn it, and I had the instructor yelling at me over the music to tell me the steps...all in German. Very interesting! Oh, and the menu items had the titles in Spanish, and the description in German. Language overload!
One evening last week I found a little restaurant online that was in a little town of no more than 20 acres and the same number of houses, so Matt and I decided to try it. We drove there, missed it by driving past it, drove back to it, parked and went in. No cars were parked outside, but there were a couple of other tables taken. The odd part here? Everyone was American. VERY disappointing! I don't know how a little German restaurant in the middle of a very German village could contain all Americans, but apparently it happens. Next time I'll look for a restaurant that is further away from post.
Because Matt and I are living out of a hotel room, we are getting very bored of frozen meals, Subway (on post), and eating incredibly rich German dinners at German restaurants every lunch/dinner. When I mentioned this to one of my friends here, Veronica, she just solved all my problems by giving me a couple of plates, some silverware, a few glass mixing bowls, and her crock pot. Then she even took me to the grocery store and helped me buy the right food for making meals in the crock pot. Man, I can't believe the generosity of the people here. She and Krista specifically have gone out of their ways to make me as at home here as possible. And they're really cool too.
Matt is getting to know the guys in his squadron pretty well and is enjoying interacting with the NCO's (Non-Commissioned Officers, enlisted guys who have been given authority; sergeant is an example), since prior to Germany, he had interacted mostly with officers. Almost every morning the squadron does PT (physical training), but Matt's squadron likes to change things up a bit. On Thursday morning they got to play football, which Matt found to be an awesome exercise. Then yesterday morning they played paintball (so cool), which he also found to be great tactical training and practice. Basically, he's really enjoying it here, and we're loving all the time we get to spend together.
Vacation in Venice
Goodness me, I've already written a lot and there's so much I could write about still. If you want to stop reading and come back later, now is probably a good time. I just promised a few people I'd get this out tonight, hence the huge brain dump all at once.
So, Memorial Day was this past Monday, which means we got a holiday! For his first trip in Europe, Matt wanted to go to Venice. Venice has always seemed ridiculously gorgeous to me and I've always wanted to go, so I spent some time the week before figuring out how we were going to get there and where we were going to stay. Trains and planes were too expensive, so we decided to drive.
We couldn't leave until Friday evening, and we didn't want to make the 7+ hour drive at night, we drove to Innsbruck, Austria, to split up the drive. We stayed at Binders Hotel, which was very nice, and comparable to the Czech Inn in Prague (for those of you who know it), except with a private bathroom.
Innsbruck, just outside Binders Hotel
Saturday morning, we got up early and started making our way to Vicenza, Italy, where a US Army post was located. Through an interesting series of events and with the help of a very nice old man, we ended up parking about 2 hours outside of Venice and taking the train in. After we got there, the first thing we did was get gelato.
Since the city is small and totally walkable, we decided to get a map and make our way to our hotel. Matt got the good map of the city from the tourist office, we sat on the steps of the train station looking out at Venice, oriented ourselves, and took off. I was the official navigator for the trip and got pretty good at reading the map. For those of you who have been to Venice, you have an idea how ridiculous the streets are, and how there is absolutely no semblance of a grid. I didn't really go by street names, my mental directions were generally as follows:
Go straight until the square with the church ("straight" being very relative)
cross to the opposite side of the square and continue until you hit the bridge
cross the bridge and make your second right
etc.
There would be about 5-10 turns within 1/10-1/4 mile. Craziness I tell you! Navigating the canals was interesting, but admiring all the bridges was definitely fun.
So, Memorial Day was this past Monday, which means we got a holiday! For his first trip in Europe, Matt wanted to go to Venice. Venice has always seemed ridiculously gorgeous to me and I've always wanted to go, so I spent some time the week before figuring out how we were going to get there and where we were going to stay. Trains and planes were too expensive, so we decided to drive.
We couldn't leave until Friday evening, and we didn't want to make the 7+ hour drive at night, we drove to Innsbruck, Austria, to split up the drive. We stayed at Binders Hotel, which was very nice, and comparable to the Czech Inn in Prague (for those of you who know it), except with a private bathroom.
Innsbruck, just outside Binders HotelSaturday morning, we got up early and started making our way to Vicenza, Italy, where a US Army post was located. Through an interesting series of events and with the help of a very nice old man, we ended up parking about 2 hours outside of Venice and taking the train in. After we got there, the first thing we did was get gelato.
Since the city is small and totally walkable, we decided to get a map and make our way to our hotel. Matt got the good map of the city from the tourist office, we sat on the steps of the train station looking out at Venice, oriented ourselves, and took off. I was the official navigator for the trip and got pretty good at reading the map. For those of you who have been to Venice, you have an idea how ridiculous the streets are, and how there is absolutely no semblance of a grid. I didn't really go by street names, my mental directions were generally as follows:
Go straight until the square with the church ("straight" being very relative)
cross to the opposite side of the square and continue until you hit the bridge
cross the bridge and make your second right
etc.
There would be about 5-10 turns within 1/10-1/4 mile. Craziness I tell you! Navigating the canals was interesting, but admiring all the bridges was definitely fun.
Just off the train, walking through the city to our hotelThe hotel we stayed in was just two "blocks" from the Plaza San Marco, which is the big tourist attraction in Venice. Sadly, the quality of the hotel was as bad as the location was good. I'll just say that you could hardly stand at the sink without sitting on the bed, and our full private bathroom was across the hall. BUT, the breakfasts were great and we had a fantastic time nevertheless.
Everything was beautiful, a very common thing in Venice
Every street looked like this, and better
Another one of my favorites
That day, we walked around a lot, took loads of pictures, had a delicious dinner, more gelato, andthen a gondola ride. I had heard how expensive gondola rides were, but I couldn't believe my ears when we actually walked up to a gondolier and asked how much it was. Matt was set on going on a gondola ride, but I was more than hesitant to spend so much on a 20 minute outing. In the end, Matt won the debate, because "who goes to Venice and doesn't ride a gondola?"
The token gondola ride. We saw the house from Casino RoyaleThe ride ended up being pretty cool, even though it was short. Those boats are so ridiculously long, I don't know how they manage to steer them around the tiny canals, sharp turns, and low arched bridges. I was amazed. Oh, and another thing about gondolas: they're all unique, not a single one is the same.
That night we went back to the hotel, slept very soundly, and woke up the next morning with barely enough time for breakfast. We spent the whole day meandering around the city checking out "Points of Interest" on our map. My parents had just given me a new camera for graduation, (digital SLR for camera lovers, and thanks Heather for the great suggestion!), so we spent a lot of the day taking photos as well. We walked away with about 300 photos from the whole trip, which is a lot for a day and a half! Most of the rest of the trip can go without narration, and I'll just let you enjoy the photos.
Big door. Small Rachel
Clearly, they love Civil Engineers...;). We saw this nebulous "CE" all over the cityVenice- the Unbelievable Part
Where to start? It was Monday morning and Matt and I had packed everything up and were making the trek back to the train station. To mix things up a bit, we decided to go a different route back to the station than we had come (I marked where we walked both days on a map). Now, the map we had was awesome, but I had seen at least two points where it had been wrong (a bridge where there was none indicated, or no walkway where it said there was). On our trek, we came upon a canal with no bridge across it, and no walkway where it was indicated on the map. Just for kicks, I wanted to see if the supposed path was just under the water, so I took a few steps down towards the canal to have a peek around the corner.
Around step three, my foot slips on some icky mud that was stone-colored and therefore camouflaged against the steps. I promptly land on my bum, and then slip down another step. Because of the ickiness, another step goes by. After passing the next step my foot is in the water and I know all is lost. I fall full-body into the canal (save my head, thank God), holding my backpack, purse, and new oil painting we just bought. Thankfully the bag holding my purse and oil painting had landed on muddy on the steps, instead of drenched in the water with me. So yes, I have fallen into a canal in Venice.
While this happened, Matt saw that I had slipped, and being the gentleman he is, he tried to step down to save me from going fully into the water. He himself ended up slipping. Luckily for him (and for my camera that he was carrying), once I was in the water, he kinda kicked me to prevent himself from entering the water. But even though he wasn't wet, he was still muddy with the icky mud.
Picture taken for your entertainment. At least we could laugh about it :)Overall, nothing got damaged, so what we're left with is an incredible story and some very interesting photos of me wet and muddy. And that was Venice!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Phones, house, and more
For the first few days at least, significant events and connections are happening every day, so for that time, I’ll try to report on each consecutive day so you can “experience” things as we’ve experienced them.
As usual, Matt woke up early to go to formation at 0630. Because we had moved into a larger room from the day before, I spent the morning unpacking…again, and then went to a class called Battlemind Training. This class consists of introducing spouses to the dynamics that go on with them and their soldiers when the soldiers are deployed (also called “down-range”). From what I heard about military courses, I didn’t expect anything amazing, but the woman who taught the course was great. The biggest benefit for me taking that class is that all the other women there have husbands that have been down-range for the last nine months (Matt is going to join the crew that has been there since August), and/or have been through 5 other deployments.
Some things they mentioned is to not change the house completely before your husband gets home, or else they might feel like they don’t belong there anymore. They also might not stand in doorways or feel like being around crowds, because that puts them in a vulnerable position. Another dynamic I didn’t think of was that when Matt leaves, I will be taking care of everything, and when he comes back, we’ll have to figure out our roles in the marriage again: who does the finances, who does what chores, etc.
After the class I was introduced to two other women that are around my age whose husbands are already deployed. These women, named Veronica and Krista, are so ridiculously nice. When they offered to drive me back to my hotel, I invited myself to lunch so I didn’t have to have another microwave lunch, and they gladly had me over to their houses. For the next two and a half hours we got to know each other and they gave me an incredible introduction to Army life in general and Vilseck specifically. It was really great that they liked talking because I learned so much. At the end of lunch they offered to take me to Grafenwoehr (Graf for short), the neighboring training post, and to arrange everything, Krista lent me her cell phone…whoah!
They took me back to my room so I could meet Matt and they could do errands, and when I got back, I heard some very good news. Matt had gone to take the infamously hard driver’s exam that morning, and he only got one question wrong! Meaning, he now has a USAREUR (military) license. He had also already gone to Sixt Car Rental and gotten a Smart car for us to use. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Smart cars, the picture is below. It’s basically an enclosed golf cart that can go 100 mph.
So instead of the girls just taking me to Graf, we drove behind the girls so we could see how to get there. At Graf they have a larger PX and Commissary than they do in Vilseck, so it was fun seeing what was available. After grabbing a few items, we went back to the hotel, put some work-out clothes on, went to the gym, and then had Mexican food at the on-post Mexican restaurant. Such a great day!
Day 3- Friday 18MAY08
For the last few days we had been talking to people about how to find housing. We’ve talked to about 15 different people, and gotten about 10 different opinions and experiences. Most people say go with non-government private rental. Matt’s CO (Commanding Officer) said they live in an awesome government rental about 30-45 minutes away and that a place just opened up, the same place that the housing office wanted to set us up with. Much discussion had ensued about this location because it was where all the officers lived, and therefore where their wives lived (so I’m not alone when Matt gets deployed).
So, this morning, when Matt got off work early, we took our car and decided to drive by the government rental. Just for posterity’s sake, I got on the internet to try to find any other towns of significance in the area, and wrote down the name of Edelsfeld so we could check it out on the way back from the government rental.
We drove to the rental, loved the area as we were driving into the town, and then got back to these small unkempt-looking townhouses all on one street. To try and be fair, Matt and I got out of the car and walked around to see if we were missing something. What little yards people had were not very well mowed, and had bad patio furniture. In a few cases, there were even pink flamingos in the yard. Matt and I totally don’t understand that. Apparently everyone who lives in these houses loves them, and they ARE 3-story 4-bedroom houses, but we just didn’t really like the area.
Matt gave me the number of a realtor that his friend had given him and we called to ask for an appointment to try and get a better feel of what was available in the area. We decided to meet Saturday morning just outside of post.
After Edelsfeld, we went to Graf again, and after some long conversations and some painful interactions, we finally got cell phones! So now, we both have phones. I don’t understand the phone numbers, because they are nothing alike. Matt’s number has 12 digits and mine has 11, yet we have the exact same phone and both go through Vodafone as our provider.
We both had a few other appointments that day, and we are learning so much as we just walk around and talk to people. I finally met my sponsor yesterday! Apparently, every soldier and every spouse is supposed to have someone around their rank and age to guide them through this learning time. Her name is
That night we went to the Vilseck Volksfest (Vilseck the town is separate from Vilseck the military community, I’ll try to distinguish between the two as best I can), which is basically a carnival with some rides, lots of food, and lots of beer. The carnival itself was very cool, but to Matt’s surprise, his CO prohibited him from drinking beer, which clearly put him in a very bad mood, since he hadn’t yet had German beer. Needless to say, we left there before the party got started and just went back home for a good night’s sleep.
Day 4- Saturday 17MAY08
This morning we woke up nice and late, had breakfast, and went to our appointment with the realtor, whose last name is Burger :). He was five minutes late, which is strange for Germans, so we gave him a call. Apparently, he had forgotten about us. Nice. He told us that the place was in Edelsfeld, which got me excited, so he instructed us to drive to the main hotel and wait for either the hotel owner or his wife to come meet us…a little odd, but okay. On our way there, he called us back and said he’d meet us in ten minutes.
He met us at the hotel, and took us to the house. And let me tell you, wow! If I could just to stream of consciousness right now, I’d give you a better idea of how it looked, but perhaps pictures would be better.
We'd have the top two stories, and the basement of this place.
This is the large living room. There's also an area to the left that could be made into a reading nook/library.
A view from the upstairs window
A small part of the upstairs room.
We played it a little hardball with the guy, but we’d basically have three rooms, a bathroom, a large living room, a kitchen, a basement, and perhaps even our own garage and car port. The whole place has been entirely redone with hard wood floors, slate floors in the bathroom, large windows, and just beautifully clean everything. The owner came out as we were about to leave, and we communicated with him using sign language, but overall he seemed quite amiable, and that he liked to keep his place clean.
As Matt and I got in the car, we looked at each other, and just smiled. We totally want it! We drove around the area, fell in love with it even more, and then called the realtor to let him know that we wanted it. He said he get back with us on Monday. Woot! Man, we are just so extremely excited, already planning what rooms will serve as what, where we’ll put our furniture, and planning parties for when our friends come to visit. I want everyone to see it!
Tonight we’re going to go to Graf, have some dinner, and then come back to the room and watch a movie. So a productive day!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Germany: The Beginning
Germany- Day 0, 13MAY08
I wake up at 0400 Central Europe time on a plane with people on either side of me, and my husband sitting in the seat behind me. I can't go back to sleep so I decide to just watch a movie. Breakfast is delicious at 0600. When we land, and Matt steps onto European soil for the first time in his life. I'm so glad to be a part of that moment! Sadly, no stamps in the passport because he's traveling on orders, and my new No-Fee passport already has the visa stamped inside.
Outside immigration we meet up with an enlisted guy, get our bags, are hustled about the airport to different rooms, fill out paperwork, and finally get on a bus to begin the four and a half hour trek to Vilseck. Matt, I, and two other officers are the only four passengers on this large tour bus, and as we are Americans, the driver decides to give us a real treat for lunch: Burger King. Apparently at Burger King, McDonald's, and who knows where else, you can pay with American dollars no matter what country you're in. But watch out, with the exchange rate, your innocent burger, fries, salad and a drink might cost you $16.
From the tour bus, we switch over to a 7-passenger van and make our way on the smaller roads through the most idyllic villages to the military post of Vilseck. We get to post and meet our "sponsor," the captain (two ranks above Matt's rank of 2nd Lieutenant), who takes us around the whole post--considering the circumference is about six miles, it didn't take long. We stopped at the commissary to get some groceries, and the PX to see what kind of furniture, cell phones, bikes, etc. they have available.
After sponging up all of this information, we go to dinner at the DFAC (Dining Facility and Containment...nobody can tell me what "containment" means. Oh the acronyms are going to be the end of me!). Luckily for me, that evening there is an FRG (Family Readiness Group) meeting. This is one venue for the wives to gather and see what's going on around post. There were about 8 of us there, so I got introduced to come cool women and got my first way to get connected here on post.
From there, Matt and I went back to our hotel, the Kristall Inn, unpack a little--we could be here for up to four months--and hit the hay. We made it through day zero!
Vilseck, Day 1- 14MAY08, first full day on Post
Matt wakes up at 0610 for his 0630 formation (what they do at these formations, I don't know, they just gather and...do important stuff), and comes back around 0700 to have breakfast with me, and than is off to his 0800 class. While he's gone, I unpack some more, and then head over to the ACS (Army Community Service) building. This is apparently the place for the spouses to go. They have all sorts of classes that they offer, outings, gatherings, etc., and I was able to get the schedule for the rest of the summer. My schedule is now filling up with useful things.
I do some other random errands--get my ID card activated, make sure I'm on healthcare here, make a dental appointment, drop by the automobile testing site--and then head to my one appointment of the day: Fuel Card Rationing seminar. We get a pretty sweet deal abroad in that we get to pay American prices for gas instead of European prices, saving us around $6.00/gallon (yes, they pay $9-11/gallon over here), and we can get these prices at select gas stations all around the country. The hitch is that the fuel is rationed, with each car getting around 100 gallons/month. For the last 49 years the method of keeping track of this ration was inadequate, so people were getting away with not adhering to the rules. Of course, the day we arrive, they start being strict about everything, hence the seminar telling everyone how to switch from using coupons to a ration credit card. The whole thing was unnecessarily long for what I deemed a simple explanation, but I guess if you're use to a system then you need a lot of training to get untrained from it.
From there Matt and I went to check out cell phones and nearly cried when we saw how expensive it would be. They charge 30 euros for 50 minutes a month. BLEH! We couldn't make a decision because our sticker shock was so extensive, so we're going to check on that tomorrow or the next day. Oh, and if you want to talk to Matt and me, get skype. My username is rachel.melone.
As for news about housing, we think we might have found a place that we like. Someone at the FRG meeting told us about a government rental that is off-post and that is going to be completely renovated and ready in about 2-3 weeks. When Matt went to the housing office today they told him there was a place that just came available and will be ready in 2-3 weeks. The really really sucky part was when they told us that if they gave us the keys to go look at the place, we had 48 hours to decide if we liked it. And if we refused to take it, then our housing allowance (the money that is keeping us in this hotel while we search for a place) will be revoked. Entirely. So basically, even to go and check out a place, we're saying that we're going to take it, or pay with our own money to stay in this hotel. Crappy? Yes, but we're trying to work with it. We think we know which place it is, so we're going to go check out the area first (Auerbach in der Oberpfalz). Hopefully the area is good, and hopefully this is the rental the housing office was talking about.
Well, it is quite late here, and I am pooped from the day, my workout, and the mexican food dinner we had tonight. No promises of writing again soon, but I'll try to keep this updated! Thanks for reading!
I wake up at 0400 Central Europe time on a plane with people on either side of me, and my husband sitting in the seat behind me. I can't go back to sleep so I decide to just watch a movie. Breakfast is delicious at 0600. When we land, and Matt steps onto European soil for the first time in his life. I'm so glad to be a part of that moment! Sadly, no stamps in the passport because he's traveling on orders, and my new No-Fee passport already has the visa stamped inside.
Outside immigration we meet up with an enlisted guy, get our bags, are hustled about the airport to different rooms, fill out paperwork, and finally get on a bus to begin the four and a half hour trek to Vilseck. Matt, I, and two other officers are the only four passengers on this large tour bus, and as we are Americans, the driver decides to give us a real treat for lunch: Burger King. Apparently at Burger King, McDonald's, and who knows where else, you can pay with American dollars no matter what country you're in. But watch out, with the exchange rate, your innocent burger, fries, salad and a drink might cost you $16.
From the tour bus, we switch over to a 7-passenger van and make our way on the smaller roads through the most idyllic villages to the military post of Vilseck. We get to post and meet our "sponsor," the captain (two ranks above Matt's rank of 2nd Lieutenant), who takes us around the whole post--considering the circumference is about six miles, it didn't take long. We stopped at the commissary to get some groceries, and the PX to see what kind of furniture, cell phones, bikes, etc. they have available.
After sponging up all of this information, we go to dinner at the DFAC (Dining Facility and Containment...nobody can tell me what "containment" means. Oh the acronyms are going to be the end of me!). Luckily for me, that evening there is an FRG (Family Readiness Group) meeting. This is one venue for the wives to gather and see what's going on around post. There were about 8 of us there, so I got introduced to come cool women and got my first way to get connected here on post.
From there, Matt and I went back to our hotel, the Kristall Inn, unpack a little--we could be here for up to four months--and hit the hay. We made it through day zero!
Vilseck, Day 1- 14MAY08, first full day on Post
Matt wakes up at 0610 for his 0630 formation (what they do at these formations, I don't know, they just gather and...do important stuff), and comes back around 0700 to have breakfast with me, and than is off to his 0800 class. While he's gone, I unpack some more, and then head over to the ACS (Army Community Service) building. This is apparently the place for the spouses to go. They have all sorts of classes that they offer, outings, gatherings, etc., and I was able to get the schedule for the rest of the summer. My schedule is now filling up with useful things.
I do some other random errands--get my ID card activated, make sure I'm on healthcare here, make a dental appointment, drop by the automobile testing site--and then head to my one appointment of the day: Fuel Card Rationing seminar. We get a pretty sweet deal abroad in that we get to pay American prices for gas instead of European prices, saving us around $6.00/gallon (yes, they pay $9-11/gallon over here), and we can get these prices at select gas stations all around the country. The hitch is that the fuel is rationed, with each car getting around 100 gallons/month. For the last 49 years the method of keeping track of this ration was inadequate, so people were getting away with not adhering to the rules. Of course, the day we arrive, they start being strict about everything, hence the seminar telling everyone how to switch from using coupons to a ration credit card. The whole thing was unnecessarily long for what I deemed a simple explanation, but I guess if you're use to a system then you need a lot of training to get untrained from it.
From there Matt and I went to check out cell phones and nearly cried when we saw how expensive it would be. They charge 30 euros for 50 minutes a month. BLEH! We couldn't make a decision because our sticker shock was so extensive, so we're going to check on that tomorrow or the next day. Oh, and if you want to talk to Matt and me, get skype. My username is rachel.melone.
As for news about housing, we think we might have found a place that we like. Someone at the FRG meeting told us about a government rental that is off-post and that is going to be completely renovated and ready in about 2-3 weeks. When Matt went to the housing office today they told him there was a place that just came available and will be ready in 2-3 weeks. The really really sucky part was when they told us that if they gave us the keys to go look at the place, we had 48 hours to decide if we liked it. And if we refused to take it, then our housing allowance (the money that is keeping us in this hotel while we search for a place) will be revoked. Entirely. So basically, even to go and check out a place, we're saying that we're going to take it, or pay with our own money to stay in this hotel. Crappy? Yes, but we're trying to work with it. We think we know which place it is, so we're going to go check out the area first (Auerbach in der Oberpfalz). Hopefully the area is good, and hopefully this is the rental the housing office was talking about.
Well, it is quite late here, and I am pooped from the day, my workout, and the mexican food dinner we had tonight. No promises of writing again soon, but I'll try to keep this updated! Thanks for reading!
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