One week to go. My house is full of piles. Air shipment piles. Jay’s apartment piles. Checked baggage piles. Sell piles. Donate piles. Leave for new tenants piles. And my nerves? Also a pile.

To avoid some in-between-stage anxiety, I took the advice of Jay and my super-fan friend Liz, and booked a quick trip to spend some time with my team in Madrid, Spain. It was just what I needed. The team is awesome – they even showed up on a Friday to share some of their time with me.

Last week I shared a post about things that I will miss about Germany. This week I am starting to think more about what is waiting for us on the other side of the pond. In no particular order, here are things I am looking forward to.

Never having to pay for using a public toilet ever again. Ask Lily about my raging over not having coins, card machine not working, and I have to PEE!!! God bless America’s abundance of free public toilets.

Mexican food. A proper margarita is more than tequila and lime juice. A proper taco is made with no hint of curry.

Jimmy John’s. Mouth watering delicious sandwiches delivered to your doorstep. Freaky fast.

Salads with ranch dressing and shredded cheese. No more yogurt dressing. Wait. I have a choice of 10 different types of dressing?! Extra cheese please.

Ice everywhere. Thankfully our German home has a giant refrigerator and a freezer that makes 2 sizes of ice. But everywhere else, no such luck. It’s cute to ask for ice in my soda – and I get one little cube. 🙂 Looking forward to my crunchy ice maker, gas station fountain pop that I can fill with ice, and paying for more ice than beverage at restaurants.

Big cars. We have managed with some decent sized vehicles in Germany. I wasn’t sure if we would survive any road trips with Ty, Lily, and Kaycee crammed into the back seat. While the kids adapted and stopped fighting about touching each other, we are all excited to have to shout to be heard between the back seat and the front seat.

US Baseball and Softball. We are forever thankful for the Redwings, but I am excited to be surrounded by dozens of amazing ball fields. And TBK walking tacos. And not fighting with annoying soccer fans who think noisemakers at baseball games is appropriate.

Brian’s hair salon. I have tried finding hair stylists on 3 different continents and Brian is still my favorite.

Unflavored iced tea. Who knew that it would be so hard to find. No shortage of iced tea – but it’s all peach or lemon or mint. Simple black tea. Yum.

$1 bills. Although I get a pretty good workout carrying my purse full of EUR coins around. Because god forbid you don’t have any on you and you find yourself standing outside a public bathroom, legs crossed, and no 1 EUR coins. (Can you tell this is a hot button for me?)

Water bottle lids that come off the bottle. I say that I am looking forward to this, but maybe it’s not so bad.

Walking and not inhaling tons of smoke. I hear that the number of German smokers has decreased, but every time I walk by the bus stop, I don’t believe it.

Shivers Farms beef. Farm fresh, high quality beef stocked in my deep freeze. My mouth is watering.

Charmin. Go ahead, laugh. Sure, you can deal with the discomfort of German toilet paper if you are a casual tourist. In fact, you probably won’t even notice it. But once you settle in and realize that this is what you have to live with for multiple years, you do things you never would think about doing. You beg your military and government friends to pick up Charmin Ultra Soft for you every time they go to the Base Commissary. Shameless.

ORA and Urgent Care. The medical care is different here. I tried for months to get Ty into a physical therapist (unsuccessful). There is. I such thing (at least that I found) as Urgent Care. Thankfully the virtual doctor option is pretty easy. But finding an open pharmacy in the evening or in a Sunday is not easy.

Gigantic washers and dryers that complete a load of laundry in less than 3 hours. I hate laundry. If I win the lottery I am hiring someone to wash, fold, hang, and put away my laundry. In the absence of the winning lottery ticket, I am looking forward to being able to do the equivalent of 4 German loads of laundry at one time in less than half the total time.

English. Sigh. I hate to admit this. I TRIED to learn German. I have an 800+ day Duo Lingo streak going. I took 1 hour lessons 1-2 times/week. I am surrounded by German signage, menus, etc. After all of that effort, I am probably at an A2/B1 level. Ugh. And yet I still have to use Google Translate all the time. It is subtly exhausting. It’s not all that difficult to get along fine in a foreign country with all of the technology available. But being surrounded by English is going to be a mental holiday.

Pay at the pump and gas nozzles that you don’t have to stand and hold. I will never take for granted that little silver clip on the back of a gas pump handle. You know, the one that you have never ever paid attention to before because it is one of life’s conveniences that we have all come to rely on. Guess what. Germans don’t have that little clip on their gas pumps. I have no idea why. Maybe there is a safety reason. Or maybe it is some type of penance for using precious fuel. Who knows. All I know is that I am going to say thank you to the gas-pump-clip-inventor every time I fill up. And then I will say thank you to the person who decided that it makes people really happy to NOT have to go inside the gas station to pay for fuel.

Reynolds Wrap. I don’t know what their secret ingredient is, but it is way more effective than German aluminum foil.

US TV. For 2 years I have not figured out how to work our German TV. Swap routers, use the Switch remote, or the TV remote, or who knows????

Service mentality. Not having to beg and plead to get service at a restaurant. Sometimes I think that even if I stood on the table and danced around, the staff would avoid eye contact. I’m looking forward to getting the bill without asking for it.

And last but actually first, family and friends. We will arrive just before Christmas, just in time to make up for lost time and catch up on all the things we have missed out on back home. I am looking forward to lounging at Memaw and Papa’s in my Christmas PJs, seeing the Christmas decorations that Kirk & Sherry put up for us, finally meeting my future niece-in-law, the chaos of Lingren family Christmas, hugging my parents and siblings, and laughing with my girlfriends whenever I want. At the end of the day, this is what really matters. I am forever thankful for the adventures of the past 2 years, but there is no place like home.