German Lessons

We've been in Germany for a week so far and it has been a definite adventure. We've moved into an actual hotel now with internet, and we've met so many amazing people who have been gracious enough to show us around the area (as well as drive our car-less selves around.)  Here are some fun observations from just a week of living in beautiful Bavaria

• Get off work late? Want to go for a run around the block before it gets dark?  No worries, it doesn't get dark til around 9:30.  It is truly weird for us southerners, but a nice change.
• German wine is wein-derful (haha).  We went to a Wein Fest this weekend in the neighboring city of Wurtzburg and it was an absolute blast!  We ate a ton of potatoes and Bretzels (pretzels in German) and drank a good amount of wonderful German wine (I even tried the weisswein- white wine, which is a big deal for this died in the wool red wine drinker).   

With new friends Eleanor & Memree enjoying Erdbeere Bowle  (Strawberry Punch)

• The yogurt is AMAZING here.  Same goes for the bread and the coffee.  You need less here because its so rich, but the quality is top notch.  Another plus - no preservatives, minimally processed and very fresh!

vanilla & strawberry yogurt.  So yummy

• They like pork here.  Lots and lots of pork in all forms (filet, sausage, etc)...  This may take a while to get used to, as in I never ate pork back in the states.
• EVERYTHING closes on Sunday.  New Orleans did a pretty good job of prepping us for this, but it does take some adjusting.

Theres far more to discover here, and unfortunately we're going to have to wait to get a car to really check out everything Germany  has to offer.  But we are absolutely in love with our new country!

48+ Hours Later

and we've survived!  We don't have internet from our "hotel," but I've been able to find places with internet.  It was an incredibly long journey that included:

- starting at 4am from Virginia --> Atlanta --> NOLA --> Dulles.

Then once we were in Dulles, our flight to Frankfurt was delayed 3 excruciating hours.  We were able to sleep a little on the flight, but then once we arrived (8:30am in Germany, so 6:30am in Virginia -- a whooping 26hrs, 30 mins later) we ended up waiting until 2pm for a bus.  By 5:30pm we had finally made it to our new town.  So we're here after our long adventure.  Once we get a sense of the place as well as a car (Guess who is going to be taking the German drivers test this week!) we will be able to really explore our new city!

Leaving on a Jetplane (4 to be exact)

(source)

all our bags are packed (as of May 10) and we're ready to go (whether we like it or not).  Today we lift off for our VERY unnecessarily long trek from the east coat, to Atlanta, to New Orleans (yeah... ridiculous), then back to Washington and finally off to our new home.  I feel incredibly under-prepared and slightly overwhelmed, but alas - change is a comin'.  I have no idea how much Internet service I'll have access to or if my computer will even work over there -- I'm already going to be iPhone-less over there, so lets hope things go smoothly with the flights, getting out of the US and into Europe, finding Internet access, settling into  our new home.

So auf wiedersehen America!  Here's to new adventures, a new country and a new chapter in the Bama family story!

Adventures in Life Changes

To say things have been hectic lately would be a definite understatement.  As I write this I realize that the sheer amount of things that have changed over the past 3 weeks is amazing and I'll be the first to admit that it all hasn't really hit me yet. 

Example: I am, for the first time in my life, homeless. 

Ok yes, that sounds extreme, as in-between Alabama and Virginia I will always have a home either at my parent's or my in-law's houses.  But honestly, a location that is "ours" and full of our "stuff" does not currently exist.  As we walked away May 11th from our very empty, beautiful home on the corner of State & Laurel in New Orleans an overwhelming sense of sadness and anxiety overcame me.

the tiled road markers that graced our little corner of new orleans

Just some more of the many changes occuring over the past few weeks:

• Everything that we own has been packed up (it took two whole days to wrap and pack up everything in a 950 sq ft house... me thinks we may need to do some uncluttering once we unpack) and it all is sitting in a shipping container on a slow boat to Europe either now or in the near future.  Mr. Bama and I each have 2 suitcases of clothes & shoes to choose from until July.   My daily clothing options definitely demand creativity.

I've gone from a huge closet to this.  Not an easy task.

• You're looking at Alabama's newest resident. Due to tax reasons, we both have to be residents of the same state, so alas, new license.  It was actually the most pleasant DMV experience, but it resulted in the worst license picture I've ever had.   Less than a 30 min wait at the DMV + very pleasant employees = unattractive license picture.  Oh well.

• As of tomorrow, when we fly to our new home, we will be without a vehicle.  It's amazing how you can go from 2 cars to no cars in less than a month.  Also we are leaving our bundle of fur behind for the foreseeable future, until we can figure out where we will be calling home for the next three years.  It pains me to leave him behind, but it's not fair to him to be moved oversees unless it is to a place that is established and won't change drastically over the next few years.  He's already a little shell shocked from coming home to an empty New Orleans house, I can only imagine how drastic a change it will be to him to put up with an 8 hour flight overseas, in cargo, and then be moved from hotel to apartment to house.
  

  

  you have no idea how much I'm going to miss this face

• iPhone's do not work in Germany.  This makes me very sad

• Did I also mention that Mr. Bama is leaving in July for work.  For an entire year?  So I'm going from cozy home in a city I adore with an amazing husband and a fabulous (albeit awkward) dog  to no home (hopefully temporary), an absent husband and no dog all in the course of a month.  No complaints, it is just truly crazy how change can come so quickly.

So many changes in such a small amount of time.  In all seriousness, the one constant is that my companion and best friend will be by my sida the whole time, thus making the adventure that much more exciting.  Who knew a year & 1/2 ago when we started our lives together, that it would take us on this whirlwind of a journey.  The exciting (and slightly harrowing) thing:  It's only just begun!

My Life in Boxes

Multiply the above picture by 20 and then you will have a mental picture of the state of my house.  The appliances that are of no use to us in Europe are getting picked up tomorrow by my father-in-law to be stored in Alabama and then everything else is prepped and moved onto a shipping container next Tuesday, safe and sound for its 2-3 month trek across the Atlantic.  That means Mr. Bama, Bear and I will be living out of a suitcase for 2-3 months, something that is definitely going to put me outside of my comfort zone.  That all being said, I'm probably not going to be able to post as frequently as I have been.  But I assure you I'm still here!