Gosh, over a week has passed and I haven’t shared an update! Es tut mir leid – I’m sorry!!

Ty had his first German orthodontist appointment last week. The office is half a block away. :) He said it seemed pretty similar to the US ortho, except they do teeth cleaning at the ortho office so he won’t need to see a regular dentist while he has his braces on.

Lily joined the backstage/tech crew of the school play, so she had her first rehearsal on Tuesday. I think she has more dramatic flair in her pinky finger than most people have in their whole body, but the dang anxiety is keeping her from wanting to be on stage. She can share her joy behind the scenes, though!

Wednesday I went to a “Day in the Life of a Middle Schooler” meeting at the school, which was organized to help 5th grade parents mentally prepare for the changes going into 6th grade. I don’t know if this was a good idea or not, but before the meeting I told some of the PTG (Parent Teacher Group) parents that I would be willing to help out with decorating for the winter formal at the end of February. The theme is “Winter Garden” so ever since I have been obsessing over how to turn a school gym into a beautiful space with a teensy tiny little budget and basically no time. I really wish I had my Cricut….

Speaking of my Cricut. And EVERYTHING ELSE THAT WE SENT IN THE AIR SHIPMENT. It missed the plane last week. It was rebooked to fly out of Chicago today. So help me lord baby jesus if it doesn’t get on the plane. Mama always said “patience is a virtue” but this girl’s patience is running on fumes.

Back to normal life. Thursday I drove into Mannheim and Jay worked at home. It was nice to go to an office and be around people for the day. I’m going to try to do that once a week.

We swapped the VW TRoc out for a car that I felt more comfortable driving – an Audi Q5. I have decided that wagons are not for me. I am short, so I like to be sitting up tall in an SUV. And hallelujah – it has backup cameras!! It’s a little bigger than the VW, but turns pretty well. So far, I like it. 

One day while I was stewing about the air shipment, I was walking by the adorable retail shop attached to our house and I decided to treat myself to a little retail therapy. I love my Lulu fanny pack, but I am over it. All of my purses are in the air shipment. So I bought a new one. 

On Saturday morning Jay and I took Kaycee for an early morning walk before the kids got up. We spotted this sign along the way. I sent the photo to my German professor and he thought it was pretty special but didn’t know the history on it. 

We hiked North up the hill to Falkenstein. We saw another castle (from a distance, didn’t walk up to it) and so many adorable buildings and homes. The architecture here is *sigh.

At the top of the hill we discovered an amazing hotel, the Falkenstein Grand – https://brhhh.com/falkenstein-grand/. It just so happened to have a spa attached, and they just so happened to have a massage appointment available that evening, so I just so happened to sign up. 

On the way back to Königstein, we took the scenic route through the woods. The views were incredible, and there was literally nobody on the path. Kaycee loved being able to go off leash for a bit. And my “winter garden” mind was searching for materials to use for the dance. :)

On Sunday we drove just over an hour South to Heidelberg. There is a large castle that is a popular tourist destination. The city was beautiful, along the Neckar River. There is a massive pedestrian mall, but since it was Sunday the shops were all closed. Mwa mwa….. There were so many people out wandering around, despite the cold temperature. Jay and I both agreed that while it was a nice place to visit, we are happy we chose to live North in our quiet little village and not in the bigger city. 

I am excited to share the awesome news that Ty decided he wants to play basketball again!!!!! He was able to join the school team and start practice on Monday. We have been watching a lot of basketball on TV and I think he was kind of missing it. Also, at school they usually play soccer, which Ty is not great at, so being able to show some athletic ability in a different sport is good for his self confidence. Now if only I could convince Lily to play…..

Jay and I booked our Canary Islands March Spring Break trip! I’m going to have to dust off my Spanish skills. We will be spending a week on the island of Tenerife. According to Google, Tenerife is a “striking, volcanic island and the biggest of the Canaries known for its beaches, resorts, and nightlife.” Bring on the sunshine and ocean views.

We don’t have plans yet for this weekend. Looking for a day trip idea. Send over your suggestions!

We planned to go to Frankfurt and explore a bit on Saturday, but Ty wasn’t feeling great, so we changed our plan and made it a shopping trip with Lily. We took her to the big mall in the city. She was super excited to spend some of her Christmas money at Sephora. She had never been there before and oh man, she loved it. She was like a kid in a candy store – a phrase that will now be replaced with “like a tween in a makeup store”. I benefit from this current interest she has in hair, makeup, and skincare products. Every night she has cleansed my face and given me a head massage with hair oil. Glorious. 

The mall has a Lego store, and natürlich of course when Jay saw the Self-Propelled Forage Harvester, which is made in one of the European factories, he had to buy it. Our Saturday nights are pretty exciting….Legos and puzzles. And assembling more Ikea furniture – this time nightstands for the master bedroom. 

Sunday morning Jay and I met up with a couple that I met at the new family introduction meeting at the school. Liz and Andy are a British couple with two boys a little younger than Lily. We sat at a café down the street and chatted with them for a couple hours. They are fun. :)

I have been telling Jay for a while that we need to figure out the buses. Public transportation is so widely available and convenient, I feel like we should take advantage of it. There is a bus stop half a block from our house. Jay wasn’t interested in the bus adventure, but Maggie, Deanna, Lily and I did a little round trip on Sunday. Deanna and Maggie rode the bus to our town and we had lunch. Then Lily and I rode the bus to their town, where we had some yummy Eis ice cream for dessert. And Lily and I hopped on the bus and came back home. Super easy, and a fun way to spend the afternoon. 

We started looking at the Canary Islands for our spring break vacation. Send over any recommendations if you have been there!

I thought I would try muesli for breakfast. I grabbed one that has berries, thinking that would be an extra healthy choice. I sent at least 2 messages to the family WhatsApp chat saying how amazingly delicious this cereal is, even used the word “love” to describe it. Look at me, being all healthy and stuff. And then I took a closer look at the box. I hadn’t noticed the words weißer shokolade, which translates to white chocolate. No WONDER it tasted so dang good. 

Guess who has curtains!!! I love how handy Jay is. I was nervous about drilling into the concrete walls. He wasn’t. No more full moons for the neighbors! You’ll also notice in the picture if you look closely that we have sort of adopted using 2 blankets on the bed. The Germans do not use top sheets, only the fitted sheet and the duvet. I have a small duvet on my side, plus the big one. I don’t even notice when Jay steals the big blanket. Kind of a fan. 

This is fun. Our neighbors had a furniture delivery. Instead of hauling it up the stairs, they delivered directly to their second floor using this nifty little elevator. 

It was time for Jay and Ty to get their first German haircuts. We stopped by a salon on a walk one evening and Jay talked, in English, to a guy and made an appointment for 4:00 the next day. Jay had to go into the office and I had meetings, so Ty had to go alone. Mistake #1. He got off the bus at 4:05 and ran to the salon. He told the stylist to only cut off 1 cm of hair – he has been growing out his luscious locks for months. The stylist did NOT speak English, so another lady translated for him. Ty came home with his hood up and went straight upstairs. He said it was terrible and he didn’t want me to see it. Enter full meltdown mode. I stood outside the bathroom for 15 minutes waiting for him to let me in, and then I hugged my baby. There was more to those tears than the missing hair. The past few weeks/months have been overwhelming and it all caught up with him. On a positive note, his hair does not look bad, it is just not at all what he was expecting. No, he will not let me take a picture. It’s just hair, it will grow back. Especially when he chugs pink milk thinking there is a direct line between the glass bottle and his hair growth cells. :) Also promising is that Jay went there the next day for his haircut, and his appointment was with the english speaking lady that had translated for Ty. She knew he had cut it too short but by the time she saw what was happening it was too late. Ty will go to her next time.

I did a thing that I am not necessarily proud of, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I paid $60 EUR for 30 rolls of Charmin toilet paper. #happybums For anyone hopping on a plane to Germany, feel free to throw in a couple rolls. #savethebums

Also fun. Check out our little snow plow! It’s the perfect size for our cobblestone courtyard and parking lot. The salt sprayer on the back is great. Speaking of snow, yes, the kids did not have to go to school on Wednesday. However, they did have online classes, which they felt robbed them of the joys of an actual snow day. We did not get quite the accumulation that they were forecasting because it turned from snow into more of a freezing rain. Back to campus on Thursday (again, it was like the world was coming to an end). The good news is that our internet held up pretty well to having all 4 of us online at the same time. 

I found a lovely Polish lady to help keep the house clean. She speaks Polish and a little German. I speak English and a little German. We did a lot of charades and google translate, but we were able to communicate what needed to be said. She will be coming every week (glorious). She made do with the limited supplies and rental equipment, but she requested a new mop and a better vacuum. Whatever you need, Antonia, as long as it keeps you happy and coming back! Jay and I walked by a shop around the corner and saw that they had the kind of vacuum she recommended. So convenient!

We went inside a little bookstore across the street. I had been thinking for a while that it would be awesome to have a book that has English on one side and German on the other. I asked if the shop had anything like that – and they did!! The first page was a little more advanced than my DuoLingo lessons, but I’m going to take it slow. I love reading, and I like the little stories on DuoLingo, so I think I will enjoy these. 

The bookstore also had the perfect coffee mug for Jay to take to the office. 

Friday night Jay was watching the Iowa State basketball game on his phone. I asked him why he hadn’t tried to set up the VPN yet, and he said he didn’t want to get annoyed, just wanted to relax and enjoy his beer. Well Ty has become pretty good with all of the electronics stuff, so I challenged him to set up the VPN. Ty did most of the work, Jay gave moral support and did a little brainstorming with him, and wah-lah!! They got it figured out! Don’t ask me how to turn on the TV though….

On Sunday Ty played in an indoor baseball tournament. The game looks so fun to play, and we all enjoyed watching it. It is really fast paced, only 12 minutes long, drop dead. There is no inning break at all, so teams sprint on and off the field. If the batter is ready before the fielders are ready, doesn’t matter, hit away. If a kid is lucky enough to hit the backboard of the basketball hoop, it’s a home run. If a fielder catches the ball off the wall, it’s out. Ty caught one of those! If the batter doesn’t drop their bat in the bat box on the way to 1st base, they’re out. 

For the pool play games, they played on small courts, and then in the single-elimination bracket play they doubled the size of the courts. Ty’s 15U team had to play the two 18U teams, so they lost more than they would have liked, but everyone had a lot of fun. It’s a great group of players and coaches. For those coaches back home, it would be a fun game for winter indoor practices. High speed, lots of fielding practice, many reps at bat. Get some of the softer baseball/softballs and play ball!

Check out this little one-person truck! We saw a little one-person car this weekend, which is kind of like a 4-wheel moped with a cab. I don’t know the whole scoop, but Jay thought it was a vehicle that kids can get before they have their actual license. It doesn’t go very fast, and no passengers can ride with. It would be kind of a fun way to zip around town. 

Carrying on with the one-person vehicle, our little snow plow came through the courtyard this morning. I should have snapped a photo, but it was like a little riding mower with a cab and a blade that plowed the snow and put salt down. We definitely did not get as much snow as the Midwest got this week, but this is the first measurable snow we have had. It’s so pretty! We have to walk down to the store today and get some ice scrapers for the cars. They are talking about maybe getting 8″ on Wednesday. Ty is really hoping for a snow day. 

Observation. German radio stations do NOT filter bad language from English songs. This particular one was dropping F-bombs left and right. Thankfully my kids are old enough to know better than to repeat them, but I can’t help but picture little German kids singing along, not knowing what they are saying. 

We had dinner with Kovar’s on Sunday night and met their neighbors. They were great. It’s been so nice to meet new people. I remember when we were in Australia it took us quite a bit longer to make new friends. I think having the kids at an older age and more involved in activities helps a lot. 

I hope everyone has a great week! Auf wiedersehen!

Lily had her first indoor softball practice on Wednesday evening. Most of the focus was on pitching, she didn’t do any hitting. The coach, Frank, is great. He has 3 older daughters that play (13-18). There were 5 younger girls at practice, and it sounds like there will be 12 players in a 15U age group this summer, so that should be better than always playing in 18U. Everyone was really nice and welcoming. I think Lily’s going to fit in just fine. When we were driving to practice, we passed a Pizza Hut, so we stopped and grabbed a pizza on our way home. Tasted pretty good!

Speaking of food. These little cherry pastries are sehr lecker so delicious! I’m going to have to walk extra steps every day because it is way too convenient having these at the Brot Haus, our local bakery, half a block away.

I had my first German lesson with my local teacher this week. His name is Heinz and he is a professor in Frankfurt. He’s a very interesting man and his approach to learning the language is very different from the teacher we had while in the US. He is less focused on having perfect grammar and more focused on being able to have a conversation. He sends me a voice recording on WhatsApp 1-2 times/day, and asks me to translate and send a voice recording back. His advice was, “When you learn a foreign language, you cannot fail, you can only succeed.” I like it. I don’t have to be perfect, but every day I am getting better. He thinks that I will be able to take the A1 test at the end of January, and the A2 test at the end of February. Goals.

On Thursday I caught a ride with Deanna and went to Luxembourg for the day. It was great to be able to see my team in person! It’s about a 2.5 hour drive, so I won’t often go there and back by myself in one day, but it’s so nice to be so close! The drive between Königstein and Luxembourg was schön beautiful.

While I was in Luxembourg, Ikea fixed the delivery debacle and Lily got her mattress!! Now we just need my Cricut so I can decorate. :) 

Did you know that the different bills for Euro currency are different colors and sizes? I haven’t decided if I like that or not. The color, yes, it is helpful to quickly choose the right bill. Jury is still out on the size difference.

Friday night we went to dinner to celebrate a new friend, Paul’s, birthday at The Lodge steakhouse. It was dark out so we couldn’t see anything, but the restaurant is on the zoo property and apparently during the day you can look out and see zebras, giraffes, and elephants. We will definitely be going back in the daylight. We met lots of new people and had a great time!

Saturday morning I booked a 1-hour massage at a place down the street from our house. It was pretty good, but I’m going to keep searching for a great masseuse. There are several options in town. 

Jay, Lily, Kaycee and I went for a walk up to the castle and this time we paid 7.50 EUR and explored inside it. We walked through some tunnels, enjoyed the amazing view, and climbed to the top of the tower, which is 1,525 ft above sea level. 

Jay and I have booked almost everything we need for our Ski Break trip to Italy in February. We are going to visit Rome, Florence, and Venice. The one thing we have not yet done is made dining reservations, so we are open to suggestions from anyone who has a favorite place to eat in those cities.

Ty has baseball practice this afternoon. We are meeting with a potential dogsitter. And tomorrow is the indoor baseball tournament. Have a great weekend!

You likely don’t have to be fluent in German to be able to translate the title of this blog. We have INTERNET!!!! Y’all. It has been a process. First was the bank account, then we could order the internet, then they mailed the modem, but even though we physically had the modem, the service provider wouldn’t turn on the service until our scheduled appointment time, which was on Tuesday at 1:30 PM. Of course we had tried to plug in the modem several times over the past few days just to see if MAYBE it would magically work early, but wah wah, it didn’t. When I saw the modem updating firmware I was happier than a kid at Christmas. I had been using my phone hotspot, which glitched about every 7-10 minutes. Seeing the words Magenta Connected is AWESOME! I fell asleep last night to the sounds of Fortnight coming from Ty’s loft. All is right in the world.

Thankfully we got the internet working just in time for Ty’s first online baseball practice. They do yoga and talk about baseball strategy for an hour once a week. Also, have I mentioned how awesome Ty’s room is? We are looking forward to having the kids’ beds exchanged so Ty doesn’t have to sleep on the futon anymore. 

I think the excitement of the past couple of weeks finally caught up to Miss Lily. I went upstairs to tell her dinner was ready last night and she was sound asleep. Her brain has had to process so much recently. 

Update on the air shipment. We rushed to do the town hall registration the day that we arrived in Germany so that the shipment could be released from the US warehouse. Somehow the ball got dropped and as of this morning, it was still sitting in the US. #annoyed 

Tonight is the first day of softball practice for Lily. Tomorrow I am going to visit my team in Luxembourg for the day. 

Auf wiedersehen!

The kids started at their new school, Frankfurt International School – Wiesbaden, on Monday. There was a mixture of emotions by everyone, some excitement, lots of nerves, and a little bit of dread about the thought of not being able to sleep in late every day. We left our house at 7:40 and told the school bus (it’s actually a big van) driver that Ty and Lily wouldn’t be riding in the morning but would ride the bus home after school. Normally it should take about 25 minutes to drive to school – a beautiful drive through the Taunus mountains, but we got caught behind some slow moving vehicles. Apparently there was a farmers strike, and the farmers in the state of Hesse were all meeting in Wiesbaden to protest. It took us about 45 minutes to get to school, but the kids heard that some kids took 2 hours!

We got the car parked, grabbed a visitor badge, and made our way into the school. The kids got checked into the office and were whisked away, with barely enough time to say goodbye. For those of you who don’t know about Lily’s anxiety, she has a pretty severe case that often can cause her to vomit. It’s terrible, it sucks, but she has learned ways to cope and deal with it over the years. Often times if she is already nervous, a weird smell will send her reaching for her puke bags. The school chef was baking fresh bread when we walked in. I thought it smelled delicious, but it was a little strong for Lily’s nervous belly. She just had one little episode, then was completely fine the rest of the school day. 

I stuck around after sending them on their way for the Back to School coffee with other parents at the Bistro. Parents are able to hang out in a little room off the cafeteria until around 10:30 and can come early for pickup around 2:00 to meet with other parents. There is usually a group of Parent Teacher Group parents that are there working on something. I met several parents, all of whom seemed great! The principal had the new parents go to another room for a Welcome to FIS meeting. We started off with introductions. I apologized to everyone for the tractors and reiterated that they are manufactured for feeding the world and not for blocking traffic. I learned some good nuggets of information. One very important fact is that there is no such thing as an “excused absence” from school. So unless they are sick, they MUST be in school. They cannot leave school early for holidays, for example. It is actually illegal, and police have been known to inquire why kids are not at school. The principal said that some families have been stopped in the airport and given a fine for having their kids out of school. 

I didn’t hear from the school or the kids all day, which I took as a positive sign. I was just putting Kaycee’s harness on to walk down to the bus stop around the time I thought they would be getting home, and Ty was walking up to the door. He was all smiles. I asked where Lily was and he said, “She walked down to the bakery.” Kaycee and I walked the short distance to the bakery and she was in there buying two pieces of cake – one for Ty and one for herself – to celebrate their awesome first day. I love how independent she is becoming. She was also all smiles. 

Lily’s favorite part of the day was PE, and maybe being able to microwave ramen noodles for lunch. She was happy to be able to copy Maggie’s German work because she doesn’t know much. :) Ty made a few new friends, and said he is WAY behind the rest of the class in French. Since I forgot to take a picture before school, I made them stand at the door and give me thumbs up/down for how they felt about their first day of school. Looks like it was a success!! 

Lily, Jay and Kaycee walked down to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. They used the granny cart because they had to return some of the bottles for recycling/deposit. Jay had to stay outside with Kaycee so he told Lily to go inside and figure out how to return the bottles, then pick up as much on the shopping list as she could find. Whatever she couldn’t find, they would swap and he would go in and finish. She walked in the store and shouted “Hi Aria!!!!” One of her classmates was there. :) That little smarty pants figured out the bottle return, also. Jay and I were both super impressed. 

So the verdict is in. First day of school was a success!!!

Saturday started out a little frustrating, but was nothing we couldn’t handle. We were all excited for Lily’s new bed and my chair & ottoman to arrive. I was getting a little nervous because when I ordered the furniture from Ikea, the Customer Service representative did not speak English. I was able to give her the order numbers, and I wrote down my address, email address, and phone number. Since I don’t have a German phone number, a colleague told me in basic English that the only way I would know when the delivery was coming was from an email – during a window from 7:00 AM – 2:00 PM.

Saturday morning arrived, and I got out of bed at 6:30, worried that the delivery would show up right away and catch me in my pajamas. I checked my email – nothing from Ikea. I started to get nervous, so I pulled out my order paperwork and noticed that they had the wrong email address…… I decided I better try calling. German Ikea answered quickly, but the transfer to English-speaking Ikea had me on hold for 50 minutes before I gave up and decided that if the stuff didn’t show, I would have to go to the store.

I was relieved when the doorbell rang around noon, only to find a very unhappy non-English speaking delivery guy. Sometimes the delivery trucks can drive up to our door – but the local politicians had booths set up on the Haupstraße, preventing him from getting close. And of course it was regnet – raining. He started chucking the boxes onto a little dolly, that he then had to haul over the cobblestones to get to our door. He wasn’t impressed, and I was not getting warm, happy vibes from him. Of course the language barrier probably frustrated him immensely, and I felt terrible that I couldn’t communicate in his language. I tried to say a few words, but I felt like my broken German was just pissing him off even more. In any case, he delivered as many boxes as I had on my order, so I signed and off he went.

First thing we unpacked was my chair. I have super short legs, that are rarely able to touch the floor in most chairs, so I need footstools. The couch we purchased from an expat is not very tall, but it’s deep and doesn’t have a high back. I am pretty excited to have a chair that was “juuuuuuuuust riiiiiiiiiiiiight”.

Jay and Lily got to work on her bed. We got her a double bed (will be the guest bed for all of you who book your flights and head over here). They started building the box frames. There are two of them. I only heard minor swearing coming from Lily’s room. And then we realized that the remaining big box was not the mattress for Lily’s bed. Ugh. The delivery guys brought me two chairs (I only ordered one), and zero mattresses. As much as I love the chair, I don’t need two. And Lily can’t really sleep on the wooden box frame. Back on English-Ikea hold I went, this time I talked to a real person in about 30 minutes. He was quite confused but we eventually got everything sorted. Next delivery date is on Thursday. One driver will drop off her mattress. Another driver will pick up the second chair. 

One of my favorite Amazon purchases (that Jay and the kids say is completely unnecessary) is my new puzzle table. Yes, I know. I am a nerd, and I’m also essentially an 80 year old woman. This is not news for most of you. Puzzles are a stress reliever for me. When I feel like things are out of control in my life, a good puzzle allows me to know that all the pieces are there and if I work hard enough I can put it in order. I did the unthinkable and left a half-finished puzzle at home in Iowa. As hard as I tried, I ran out of time and couldn’t finish it before we left. This new puzzle board has 4 trays that stow away inside the table, and it spins on a lazy Susan. And, I can move it on/off the dining table as needed. 

Fun fact. Hot dogs in Germany are served in glass jars of water. Actual fact. I will not be eating them.

One of my favorite luxuries in our German home are the towel drying racks. I’m trying to figure out where I can install one at home in Iowa. The racks also help heat up the bathroom, so before we get in the shower, we crank the towel heater up to high to make it toasty warm. This is the only source of electric heat in the home. The primary heat source is through floor heating, which makes the home feel cozy. And added bonus, hot water is constantly running through the house, so it only takes about 15 seconds for the shower to get to the right temperature. 

Update on the curtain situation. It is still a work in progress, but I have a plan. We received the first round of supplies on Saturday. Thanks to Hannah for the suggestion. It’s a wee bit redneck, but it works! We are using these plastic blackout blinds, cut to size, and velcroed onto the window. ”Oh look honey, when you remove a corner of the trash bag curtain, you can see a castle.”

On Saturday, Ty had a 3 hour baseball practice. Jay, Lily and I went shopping. We went to Globus first. I was wrong, it isn’t like a Sams Club, it’s more like a Walmart Supercenter. We found all sorts of random goodies – some pint glasses, wine glasses, and bowls that hold more than 5 grapes (the rental dishes are meh), and a bunch of pantry items. Lily was pumped to get some Ritz crackers. Next we went to Decathlon, which is a sporting goods store. It was an experience. They were taking the “touch and feel” shopping style to the next level. Dads were playing keep-away with their kids in the aisles, children were riding bikes and rollerblades throughout the store. Lily said “this is a very free store.” That’s about the best description for it. 

We watched the last 30 minutes or so of Ty’s baseball practice. The boys were doing yoga – Ty struggled, Lily laughed. Then they played a game. They use soft baseballs, soft-toss pitching, no catcher. The batter cannot hit the ceiling or it’s an out. Face first sliding is allowed. Balls can be caught off the walls. And there is only about 30 seconds between half innings. It was super fast paced and fun to watch. The boys have a tournament next weekend, I’m excited to see them play for real. 

On Tuesday Dienstag we met up with another expat family that is selling some items (air conditioners!!), walked down to the bakery die Bäckerei for some breakfast goodies, then Ty and I went back to Ikea. We thought of a few more things that we need, including a big bed Bett for Lily’s room/guests (the Shearer Inn is now accepting reservations). Ty is a great navigator, second opinion, voice of reason, and shopping bag carrier.

We also had to go back to the mall we went to on Saturday, and we had lunch at Chidoba, which was pretty similar to Chipotle/Qdoba. We had burritos, quesadillas, chips & guacamole, and Dr Pepper! Wasn’t bad!

Jay and Lily found another grocery store, Edeka. We will usually have to drive to that one, but the parking lot is better than the one closest to our house. Although once my granny kart arrives from Amazon, look out….I’m going to be hauling that bad boy all over. They scored on today’s hunting & gathering outing. They found taco seasoning and sour cream! They said there were a lot of international items. I am looking forward to checking that one out. Words I rarely ever say…. “I am excited to go to the grocery store.”

Speaking of Amazon, I am expecting a thank you card from Jeff Bezos, maybe even an invite to his VIP Customer party. I apologize in advance to the Amazon delivery drivers that cannot drive directly to our home (Pedestrian Mall) and have to carry a small warehouse of packages to our home over the coming days.

Lily and I walked down to Müllers, which is kind of like a Walgreens. It has a little bit of everything. It is so nice to have most of what we will need on a daily basis within a half mile from our house.

Let’s talk about the weather a bit. It has been in the 40s, which hasn’t been too bad. I could probably get by with just my vest if it weren’t for the rain. Rain rain go away. It has rained every day. Maybe not all day, every day, but every day there has been just enough precipitation to make the ground wet and muddy. A common phrase is “It is raining – Es regnet.” We wear our outer North Face jacket waterproof shells all the time. There is a saying in Germany – “There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” The rain hasn’t really stopped us from exploring outside (yet).

The sun die Sonne also rarely comes out from behind the clouds. We have seen it briefly only a few times. The sun is up against the constant clouds and the small window of time that is in the daylight window. There is currently only about 8 hours of daylight. Never fear, my sunlight lamp is on an Amazon delivery truck.

Despite the long stretch of time with no sunlight, it doesn’t seem to get super dark at night. And we don’t have bedroom curtains/blinds. This is on my shopping list but curtains have always been a scary purchase for me. Add on the fact that we have to drill into ~1900 A.D. brick walls to install curtain rods, and my blood pressure spikes. Lucky for Jay, the curtains will require another trip to…you guessed it….Ikea. This part of the story is to be continued.

Given our sketchy home internet situation (still don’t have a date for high speed to be installed), we bought a deck of cards. After Jay and Lily cooked a yummy taco dinner (with taco seasoning, sour cream, and refried beans yay!!!), we played Kings in the Corner and then taught the kids how to play Euchre. Did you know that the word Bower comes from the German word Bauer, which means farmer or peasant and is
also a word for Jack. The boys beat the girls, but Lily and I are looking forward to a redemption round tomorrow.

Good evening! Guten Abend!