Jay and I flew to Frankfurt overnight on Saturday/Sunday. We flew direct from Chicago, arrived plenty early. Jay and I arrived safely on German Sunday morning (7 hour time difference)….my checked bag did not.

I think it is kind of ironic that the baggage claim conveyor belt is designed as a Roulette casino game. Roll the dice and see if you are lucky enough to have your bag arrive. My dice landed on the big green zero (null).

One would think that surely Nicole would have a backup plan for this type of thing. I mean, Jay packed all of this clothes in 2 (zwei) carry ons. I’m going to blame this rookie mistake on the mental load I am carrying – I did not have a single article of clothing in either of those carry on bags.

Ok, not a big deal. It’s fine, these things happen. We are not in a 3rd world country. I can go shopping. Except it is Sunday.

German Life Lesson #1 (eins) – Stores are closed on Sundays.

Ok. Don’t panic. Let’s just get checked into the airport hotel and we will figure out what to do about my stinky clothes.

We picked up our rental car – thankfully this was a seamless process. Jay loves cars, so he gets weirdly excited to find out what the Hertz Lottery will give him. Walking through the rental parking lot was a trippy experience. My mind knows that these are cars parked in the spaces, but they are brands of cars that I have not seen before (or at least don’t recognize). I don’t know what is good, what is not. We ended up with an Alfa Romeo Stelvio. It’s cute. Jay is happy with the wheels for the week.

We booked one night at a hotel attached to the airport. We successfully transferred the rental car from the Hertz lot to the hotel parking garage. Sounds simple but it involved super tight spaces, unfamiliar road signs, roundabouts with 5 exits, and a sprinkle of Jay & Nic are jet lagged and a little anxious. But we made it.

We walked up to the checkin counter. The receptionist found our reservation. The room wasn’t quite ready but we could grab breakfast while we waited. Just needed to insert our credit card in the little machine and she could check us in. “Sir I’m sorry but the card was declined.” Hm. That’s weird. We have plenty of credit available, but we can try another one. Declined. 2 personal cards and 2 corporate card attempts later, all were declined. Obviously something was wrong with the hotel system. We decided to go eat breakfast and hope that they fixed the system by the time we are done.

Breakfast was delicious. I should have grabbed a picture. It was just the hotel buffet, but yum. Scrambled eggs (das Ei), bacon, sausage (die Wurst), cheese (der Käse), olives, mozzarella & tomatoes, espresso (der Kaffee).

Back to the checkin counter. Card still declined. She told us we would need to pay with cash. So we walked down to an ATM (der Geldautomat) and got cash. When we got back to the counter a 3rd time, someone else was having card problems, so they finally realized it was a them problem, not an us problem. The room was ready, so we got our key and headed to the room.

Jay got a quick shower and clean clothes. I washed my face, brushed my teeth with the airplane ditty bag toothbrush, and realized I need a few essentials like deodorant. Feeling as fresh as I could, we headed out. A quick stop at the airport pharmacy (die Apotheke) that was thankfully open to grab some personal care essentials, and we were off on our first adventure.

Redwings baseball. In our pre-trip research we learned about baseball and softball organizations in the area. While our US lives revolve around our kids’ sports schedules, baseball and softball are not very popular in Germany. I contacted a couple of the organizations ahead of time. Some friends play for the Redwings (based out of Hofheim), so we decided to catch a 15U game and see how it compares. We met Paul, one of the dads, and I was thrilled to see that he was doing GameChanger! He has to connect via VPN, but it works. I’m a GC and stats analysis geek, so I’m going to mark this discovery in the Win column.

The team is coached by a high energy Japanese lady named Yumi. She speaks a little English, but it seemed to be enough for the boys to understand her. Overall we were impressed with the quality of play. The pitchers were maybe not quite as fast as what the boys in the US throw, but they were accurate. We didn’t see a single passed ball or wild pitch in 3 innings. Very few errors by either team. And one home run by a Redwings player. Yumi was pumped. I was pumped. Jay said I am going to have to tone down my Fan level. He observed that most of the spectators did polite clapping (like in golf). This will be a challenge for me. :). We walked away feeling comfortable that Ty would fit in well with the team. And bonus! They were selling Redwings t-shirts and sweatshirts. Take THAT, no shopping on Sunday…. Oh, and the concession stand food was all fresh baked pretzels, pastries, desserts, fruit. Not a candy bar in sight. Lily is going to struggle.

This is also the organization that Lily will likely play softball with. More to come on that in future posts.

From Hofheim we drove to Wiesbaden to see the school that the kids were accepted at – Frankfurt International School (FIS). There are 2 campuses – a smaller one in Wiesbaden that is K-8, and a larger one in Oberursel that is K-12. Lily’s friend goes to FIS-W, so that is where we will start to make the transition as easy as possible. We will have to switch to FIS-O next year because Ty will be in 9th grade. This is an important detail to consider when we go house hunting. The FIS-W campus looked nice! It was Sunday, so very quiet, but first impression was positive.

From Wiesbaden, we drove to Bad Soden. Our friends live there, and it is an area that I have been considering for a home if one is available. The drive from FIS-W to Bad Soden took about 30 minutes. Might have been impacted by jet lag, but it was a LONG 30 minutes. I was reminded that jet lag and me are like oil and water. We stopped at a little Italian restaurant in Bad Soden to refuel our bodies and hopefully re-energize.

Next stop was Oberursel to see FIS-O. It was a much quicker drive from Bad Soden to Oberursel. But my rejuvenation plan failed and the jet lag was kicking my arse. We found the school – much bigger, also nice!

And then I begged Jay to let me give into the torturous effects of jet lag. We went back to the hotel and I crashed. While I was sleeping, Jay walked over to the airport and found a couple shops that were OPEN ON SUNDAY!! He bought me a ridiculously expensive sweatshirt and sweatpants, socks, and underwear. SUCCESS! I took a shower and put on my new clothes. Felt like a brand new woman.

We walked back over to the airport so I could get some exercise in, not fall back to sleep, and see if there was anything else I needed at the shops. I found a t-shirt and one-size-fits-no-Americans sports bra.

We grabbed dinner and a beer at the hotel lounge. The giant TV was programmed to a Snooker competition. We thought it was a funny choice at first, until we totally got sucked into watching it. We were able to figure out most of the rules. It was weirdly fascinating to watch.

Another thing I have to get used to is the 24-hour clock instead of AM/PM. Minor, but a thing. So, at 22:48 (10:48 PM), I caved to the exhaustion and hoped for a good nights’ sleep.

Auf Wiedersehen!