The update that you have all been waiting for. Drumroll please…..

My luggage arrived!!!!

Jay (aka my hero) walked down to baggage claim on Monday morning at 7:00, smooth talked his way into the international baggage claim area, and picked up my bag from the carousel. I have never been so happy to see my suitcase. Hooray for clean clothes!

We got checked out of our room, had another hotel breakfast (this time there were mushrooms and potatoes!!), and waited in the lobby for our fearless leader, Uli, to arrive. We noticed last night a lot of people waiting around the hotel entrance with jerseys, pens/paper, and video cameras. Today the crowd was even bigger. We figured out what all of the excitement was. The German National Football (soccer) team was staying at the hotel before they fly to Connecticut for a Friendly (which I think means soccer game). We saw a couple players, no idea who they are.

Uli arrived and we headed out to look at the first home on our list.

Some observations.

Landlords do not provide light fixtures???? We think the landlord does not want to have to provide light bulbs or something? It’s so weird.

Parking spaces are gold. Parking spaces that have enough room to fully open the car door are basically non existent. We saw one home with “1 garage” which actually means a tiny container that you can pull into but might not be able to actually exit the car.

So if you don’t want to drive your car for fear of not being able to find a parking spot, Germany is incredibly bike friendly. When people are considered too old to drive, they can still get around town on their bicycles. Have young kids? No problem! Check out these sweet bikes. There are many variations – some have seats for kids, some just have storage space for groceries/etc.

Curtain/blinds are not really “in” anymore. Privacy is provided from blinds that are OUTSIDE the windows.

Air conditioning. American friends who typically wear sweatshirts inside your 68 degree home in the middle of summer….never take that for granted again. A/C is a rarity here.

Jay hates old homes. And cities.

We only saw 2 homes today. Most will be seen on Wednesday and Friday. We would be happy with one of the two. No guarantees that we would be “approved” but I feel like there is hope we will find something suitable this week.

After a quick lunch, we drove down to Mannheim – our home base until Friday. Wait. Did I just say “we” drove down to Mannheim? That was a typo. “I” drove down to Mannheim. First time driving in Germany, first time driving on the autobahn (highway with sections that don’t have a speed limit). Success!!

Mannheim is the home of the Deere European headquarters. The green and yellow influence is strong.

We walked along the Rhine River a bit and found a nice restaurant with a great outdoor patio for dinner.

Tomorrow I am driving myself back up to Wiesbaden to tour the school. Jay gets to go into the office and meet his new team.

Auf Wiedersehen!