Regensburg etc

This Saturday JM and I went to Regensburg which touts itself as one of the oldest medieval towns in Germany. It was only an hour away and was a great way to spend an afternoon. The weather was nice, kind of chilly but perfect for walking around sight seeing. Here are a few pictures, there's a
bigger album on facebook. To your left is St Peters Cathedral. It was gorgeous inside too, high high ceilings and every window was stained glass. It was also very chilly inside, they don't heat these big old churches, ever. From the church we wandered down to find the Alte Rathouse (Old Town Hall) and then went over to the Steinere Brucke (old stone bridge, above picture). During our wanderings we stopped into a shop called Boston Coffee Company for a cup and some warming up and we grabbed a hot salty buttery pretzel from a bakery on our walk down to the bridge. I do enjoy the food here.

After we got back from Regensburg we walked down to the gasthaus near our apartment and had dinner. This particular Saturday was a special one for the gasthaus as it was the day they had in some locals (I'm assuming locals) to play (and sing) traditional German music. We're talking three accordians, a guitar and some lederhosen. It was awesome. I also saw a nun in full habit drinking a beer. We stayed a bit after dinner to listen and drink. When the men first started playing they went around asking people where they were from JM said they were probably going to ask us. They never did, but I think they probably didn't have to...

This week should be a busy one. It's Thanksgiving on Thursday (which I keep forgetting) and we are going over to a friends house for a big pot luck style dinner and on Friday we are having dinner with more friends. This Saturday, weather permitting, we are going to visit Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired Cinderella's.

Differences, but this time, ones I enjoy:
--Apfelschorle: carbonated apple juice. Delicious.
--Hot pretzels, so, so good.
--Men with accordians playing German music at the local gasthaus
--(Wo)men of the cloth boozin

Peaches and Coconuts

A good friend of mine, who spent time studying here in Germany, summed up my frustrations quite nicely "Americans are peaches and Germans are coconuts. Hard to crack but once you're in, you're in. Americans are the opposite." I'm still frustrated but it's nice to know that it's not necessarily me.

Another strange difference
-Irradiated milk. Not sure exactly what the process entails but the end result is milk you don't have to refrigerate and that keeps for months. I do know our FDA does not approve of it and that it tastes bad. Germans don't drink it alone but the do use it to make their coffee drinks which makes latte-addicted me very sad because they do not taste anywhere near right.

Big purchases and small luxuries

WE HAVE INTERNET.

In other news we also got the washing machine delivered and bought a television. It's nice to be able to do the laundry without carting it all the way on base to the laundromat. With every purchase it's more and more a home. JM and I no longer have to watch movies on one of our laptops with the subtitles on (neither of our laptops' speakers were loud enough) we can now enjoy movies with surround sound. Now our only things left to purchase are rather small (aka: cheap) in comparison to the last few weeks: coffee table and a tv stand (it is currently sitting on one of our endtables...it works). The co-leader of the FRG, G, told me there is an IKEA near Nurenburg so that may be a day trip next weekend if we can't find what we want around here. And Lord knows I love IKEA.

Speaking of Nurenburg and G, she and I went to Nurenburg last week Tuesday. It is only about an hour away and it is a really pretty city. It is pretty big (about milwaukee size I'd say) and old. G needed some new winter clothes and asked me if I wanted to tag along to get out of the house. It was really fun and I had a great time exploring the city and scoping out where the Christkindlmarkt will be. The Christkindlmarkt is this huge Christmas market full of all different kinds of vendors (food, drink, stuff) and there are tons around Germany but the biggest and most famous is in Nurenburg. JM isn't exactly estatic to go with me...but we're going anyway. =)

Let's see... I am just so happy to be writing this from my hallway floor. Yes, that's where the router is and yes it is wireless but I just sat down and got online and here we are.

Weird differences I've noticed so far:
-- German drivers are scary confident/stupid. Passing 4 cars at one time on a two lane highway with oncoming traffic (scarily) close is normal.
-- German dryers are "condenser dryers" which basically means they suck. American dryers you plug in to an outlet and then you attach that hose thing that blows out air or whatever. (I never said I knew the correct terms here). German dryers are self contained, all you do is plug 'em in (sounds great right? Wrong). You have to empty this little tank that fills with water throughout the drying process because that's how it dries your clothes and so it takes forever (about two hours). Half the people in our complex don't even own dryers.
-- German washing machines are equally inferior. To do coloreds takes 1 hour and 46 minutes. Whites: 2 hours and 32 minutes.
-- Germany is not a fan of customer service. Example: getting cell phones. It took us 4 tries and two different offices. Surprisingly the one on-base was a bigger pain than the one off base. The on base one wouldn't give us a two year contract (they don't offer one year) because we are here two months shy of two years. Even when we were like "we'll pay you for the two months we're not here" they were not about it.
-- It rains a lot here. A lot a lot.
-- German appliances in general are inferior to American ones.
-- Germans are insane about their recycling. Also, I have yet to find out where we put our trash so we've been taking it on base.
-- They really like to fine you here. Not that we've directly experienced it but, there's a lot of ways to get one. Not properly recycling. Fine. Running out of gas on the autobahn. Fine. Hitting a deer with your car. Fine. Providing any vestige of customer service. Fine. (I'm kidding, but I'm also serious)

Alright. This became very long. The posts will definitely be more regular now. Not sure what we'll be up to this coming week but I will keep you all posted!

Quick update

Hey everyone -- we're in Germany and enjoying being together. Been a busy first week trying to get appliances, phones, internet, washing machine and everything else you need to set up a house. Hopefully we'll have internet at the haus soon and then my updates will definitely be more frequent. It is absolutely wonderful to be together. News update: we bought a new Audi A4 Quattro. Check it out.

!!!!

And he's back. =) Wonderful. These past three weeks have been crazy. I thought I had 6 weeks to get everything done before I left the states and turns out I only had two. No complaints here but it was certainly a tad stressful. My mom and I had something to do (often more than one something) every night until I flew out on Monday the 26th. I flew to Germany with JM's mom, K. Neither of us knew the exact date JM would be arriving but we hoped it'd be before the 1st when K had to fly back home. We kept ourselves busy by cleaning the apartment JM and I have here. In JMs credit, the apartment wasn't actually dirty, it was just the remants of an apartment left empty for a year (one looong year) aka dusty and fly bodies. We explored the big(er) town nearby and found a Kaufland (literally: shop land, basically a German WalMart with a nice grocery store in it) and a MediaMarkt (German Best Buy/Sears Combo). We also putzed around base and got our bearings, after turning around in many, many parking lots. The other wives I've met so far are wonderful, one wife invited K and I over for dinner our first night here and fed us (jetlagged and unshowered as we were) and another wife lives really close to me and offered to pick me up one day and show me around.

Currently JM and I are spending one more night on post in the hotel. One reason being that Helga (our old, occassionally tempermental BWM) is still in storage and we can't get her out till tomorrow and another (more important reason) being that we HAVE to watch the GB/MN game, obviously. On that note, it's time to get ready for the game, chilling on the bed with my husband. =)