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Funny things I saw today:

• A HUGE pile of steaming manure. No joke. It was the height, length, and width of two full-size SUVs in a field on the side of the road. I was on the phone with someone when I spotted it, so at least I have a witness to my laughter.

• More crack than I care to see. Actually it was more like a half moon from a man squatting in his yard to pick up leaves or trash or something. I don't really know what he was picking up because I looked away as quickly as I could

I left work early today so I could meet our housing guy, Vincent, for the walk-through inspection of the apartment. So I hurried home, parked at the hotel, then walked over to the apartment. Once inside, he had me sign a few things, like an understanding that if there is damage to the apartment other than normal wear and tear, it's my responsibility to pay. Then I took the sheet and started walking around the rooms, looking for any damage already there. All in all it's in good shape, because the floors are new, as are the tiles and fixtures in the bathroom. I found a few things and was overly careful, because repairs are expensive here.

No one I've spoken to has had a good experience with Vincent and honestly, the first time I met him my first week here, he was condescending and only had bad things to say about the last few new people who had arrived looking for housing. The other day, while in his office, when I asked if the landlord would be there to meet when I walked through, he again condescendingly said that I shouldn't worry, because the landlord spoke perfect English. I told him it didn't matter, because I spoke fluent German. I wish I had a camera, because the look on his face was absolutely priceless. Other people I've spoken to said that they know when walking through apartments, Vincent would say things about them in German to the potential landlords and he was recently caught, when he didn't realize that someone understood German.

So during the walk through, I'm opening cabinets, blah, blah, blah. He's telling me how to open them, as if a hinge and a handle aren't big enough clues for me. He showed me which keys went in which lock, which way the teeth to the keys went, and how to open the door. Then, in the garage, he's telling me how I should drive in and park. Apparently, he doesn't work easily with women, especially strong women, and likes to be in charge of everyone, no matter their sex (this is what I'm told and I've confirmed it during the few times I've had to meet with him). So I'm figuring it was his way of showing dominance and intelligence.

Anyway, I met the landlord, whose last name I've forgotten. He's a doctor and his practice is literally next door, but I don't know if he lives there too. He's so tall that he has to duck going through doors. He seemed nice.

So now I have a house--I walked away with keys and garage door opener in hand.

I also got a call today telling me that my air shipment is in. I called when I got home from the apartment, but he wanted me to call back on Monday so I could schedule a day and time with the movers. Tuesday I have an appointment at BMW to get my German maps installed too.


Soon I won't be homeless and I'll have direction ;)

Ever Present Past

I took this from my hotel window at sunset on Wednesday night.

Last night I went to a girls night at this woman's house in Mainz. She made this wonderful Mexican food, white and red sangria, and margaritas. I tried both white and red (I didn't want to be rude), but stuck to red the rest of the night. I pigged out on the food too. It's hard to find Mexican food over here and if you do, something is usually just a bit off. So I was thrilled when I walked in and found out there were enchilladas and fixin's for nachos. After some talking, we watched the Sex in the City movie.

Today I'm a year older and no longer on the cusp of my 20s. I had nothing planned and I almost up and left for Tongeren, Belgium this morning. It's the oldest city in Belgium, but on Sundays starting aroudn 6am or something, they have an outdoor antique market and you can apparently find some really great stuff. I saw a couple things at the house I was at last night and I've heard other people say they've bought some great stuff. Without my GPS and with no other map than the Wiesbaden and surrounding areas, I decided against it. Plus, if I bought something I didn't want to have it in my hotel room. So I've saved that for another weekend when I have GPS and a place to put stuff. Plus there were a few women last night who said they'd go back any time.

Instead, I wandered through the city today. Stopped and got a hot bread thing from the bakery topped with mozerella and tomato and kept wandering. I walked up to the street where I'm going to be living to the apartment, then down to the park directly in front of my place.

My place is the second balcony from the right on the first floor. I have a garage too. It's a shared garage for the building, but I get a space for my car. I couldn't imagine leaving Rouble (that's her name--Trouble without the T) out on the street.

I think I'm headed out to dinner soon, which you can bet will include a big birthday beer!

Better Than

Today, I arrived at the Army Housing office prepared to take the apartment I liked. They told me I needed a memo from my organization's housing office, so I went to find one of the two men who work in that office. In a very round about way, I found Steve, who has been out on leave since I got here and whom I haven't met yet. I walked in, told him what I wanted to do, and after hearing that I wanted to live in Wiesbaden, told me to trust him, because he was going to show me a place downtown that the government already has leased. With no one living in it, the government is just paying for an empty apartment. (Pretend you didn't read that when you're paying taxes.)

The apartment sits in a building right next to a park. It's huge! There are, I think, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living area, and a large hallway. The hardwood floors and bathroom fixtures, tubs, and sinks are brand new. There is a porch off the front and a patio with a small yard in the back. The only thing not new is the kitchen, which is kinda ugly, but not terrible. It's about a 10-15 minute walk to the pedestrian area and since it sits on the the edge of the park, you might think of it as a mini Central Park. You can view its location and the proximity to the pedistrian area. I saw another property the government has a lease on, but it wasn't nearly as nice as this one.

I decided it's what I wanted and Steve told me he could probably have it worked out so that I wouldn't have to move in until my air shipment arrives on 3 November. In it, I have an air matress, dishes, other things I'd need and comforts of home. There you go. I have a home. I asked if I earned some kind of prize for getting a house so quickly and he thought I should.

I actually went to work after that. Gasp!!! My accounts are working, the rest is boring. After work and after I dilly-dallied a bit at home, I decided to go out to dinner instead of staying home again, even though it was sprinkling and kinda gross. I had dinner at Le Petit Tartin. I started with a French onion soup, then moved on to Flammkuchen. (Tarte Flambee: a kind of 'French pizza' from Alsace made from a very thin layer of pastry topped with sour cream, chopped onions and bacon.) I chose the original, which was mushrooms, cheese, bacon, and some cream cheese sort of spread. Of course, I also had a nice Syrah is go with it. Yumm!

So there you go. In 11 days, I've accomplished a lot. Let's hope my streak continues.

Speed of Sound

Saturday, I spent my evening with some people at the Mainz Oktoberfest. I had a liter of beer and a bratwurst, while talking and watching the people walk by in their weird outfits. We were sitting right by the entrance, so we had the first look at everyone who came in. I wish I could have set up a tripod and taken a picture of the people entering the tent, just like they do when you board a cruise ship.

Sunday I was a total slug until around 5 when I headed out the door to my sponsor Chantel’s house for dinner and some football on AFN. It was a bit of a drive out there, but I had no problem driving. I found my way to the country on Google maps before I left, since I don’t have the Euro maps loaded on my BMW, and only made one slight wrong turn, but got there in plenty of time.

When I got there, as soon as I opened the door, their standard poodle Bacchus was ready to greet me (or he was just jealous and wanted to smell the new car too). The other fairly new guy Pete was already there, so we were given our choice of beer from the fridge, poured them into the appropriate glasses, and then Chantel took us on a tour of her ENORMOUS house. I almost got lost, but what really floored me was the pool in the basement. Yes, a pool, that can be heated if desired.

Her husband Ryan made this great sweet potato soup, but it didn’t taste like sweet potato for those of you thinking, “she hates sweet potatoes.” He made bread to go with it and then this great baked fish, for which I plan to get recipe. After dinner, we sat in the living room and watched some football, which included the 1989 Super Bowl runners-up, the Cincinnati Bengals. My goodness they are painful to watch. The only reason AFN had the game on was because the power in San Diego was on the fritz.

I said something to Chantel last night about going in to work on Monday, but she said that I should try to get some appointments to see some houses. This morning, I was at the housing office at 8, flipping through the book of places they have and I wrote down a few. They printed off directions for me, called the landlord, and I made some appointments. I saw three out of four places today, all in Wiesbaden in the city. The first had a wonderful view of Wiesbaden from this huge balcony and was advertised as 2 bedrooms, but technically only had 1. You could put up a curtain, the woman said, in this little area and make it a 2nd. You could, but it would make the apartment so much smaller. It also had a weird garage, which I don’t even want to attempt to explain in words.

The 2nd place I saw was on a main street, but in this huge 100+ year old building 2 minutes from the pedestrian area downtown. The apartment is the entire top floor, has 3 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a huge living area, a huge kitchen (by German standards), a nice balcony, and fake hardwood floors. I loved it! I had lunch in town, relaxed in my room and then I was off to see another place. It was nice and new, but sat on a very busy street and was a bit of a hike to the center of town for restaurants, etc. So tomorrow I’m going into the housing office first thing to tell them I think I’d like to take the place. It’s a little weird that I may have found something so quickly because everyone else seems to have trouble and has been looking for a month. So I’m apprehensive for that reason, but really like the house. Fingers crossed…

For those of you counting your tax dollars, I’m on day number 10 in country and I still haven’t been to work, save for a few hours last Wednesday. Can you itemize my time on your taxes??

Mine All Mine

I'm now the proud owner of a BMW 328i.

Don't we make a nice couple?

I was awake this morning early because it was warm in my room, but also probably because I was excited and had 1,000 things running through my head. So at 5 I got up, made coffee, and generally putzted around until after 9. My appointment wasn't until 10:45, but I wanted to run a couple errands on the base next to the dealership first.

I got there at 10:30 and another woman was there picking up her car too--a Mini Cooper. We both went with separate BMW salesmen. I rode with Nate to the Mainz BMW dealership. It was HUGE and all the cars were shiny and pretty and sparkly. All the cars to be picked up were on the ground level inside. We started walking around and I spotted mine right away--a mother knows her own child, right? (Okay that was a weird statement.) Another mechancial guy got the key and drove it outside under the overhang. It was kind of a tight squeeze, so I'm thinking, "please don't scratch it."

Nate showed me the fancy key and how it worked, he showed me the trunk, the engine, then sat inside to see how all the gadgets work. I'm really going to have to study up on this stuff. The only bad thing is that my GPS isn't loaded with the European roads, just the American ones. So we checked to see if that could be done today. Unfortunately, it can't be loaded without deleting the American ones, but there is a code to prevent that from happening and Munich has approved that to happen starting next week. Bummer. I was hoping to have the GPS, so I could go drive around this weekend and not get lost.

For whatever reason, BMW only gave me about 1/8 of a tank of gas. You'd think that after paying that much money for a car, the least they could do would be to spring for a tank. Whatever. So afterwards, I was trying to get gas on base, but needed a gas card, which can only be registered certain places on base. Not the base I was on of course and they wouldn't make an exception at all, even though I had my ID, my registration, and the funds with which to pay. I found my way back to the other base close to my hotel, got what I needed, had lunch, filled the tank, and came back home.

Unfortunately, it's been raining all day and right now it's terribly windy and raining. I'm worried about the car, so I think I'm gonna go sit in it, read up on the iDrive system, and get to know each other. I'll make sure to post some more pictures once I smear the license number from the picture and maybe, if the sun ever decides to come out, you can see how purdy she truly is.

The Long Day is Over

Up and at 'em this morning to catch a ride to base at 7 to be at the driver's class and to take my test for my license. I could have fallen asleep I was so tired during the class, but knew he was giving us information that was on the test, so I made sure I paid attention. The test was 100 questions and there were a few I guessed on. I didn't want to be that person who failed the test, so I made sure I went over it twice. I was watching when he checked my answers, but I don't know how many I got wrong. The bottom line is that I PASSED!! Whew, what a relief! My official license should be mailed to me within 30 days.

Next order of business was to register and tag the car I have yet to see or smell for that matter. I went right next door, gave them my paperwork. The only thing missing was the horsepower of my car. Seriously?? The horsepower?? And she wouldn't finish the registration without it. So I call my BMW agent--no answer. (Insert swearing here.) Next, I called my sponsor's husband Ryan, who was going to pick me up afterward. He got on the internet and guessed it at 230. I know you guys are saying, "why the hell wouldn't she know the horsepower?" Honestly, the color matters to me more than the horsepower. Well, that and that I look good driving it. Duh! I mean, when you consider I was driving an 8 year old Saturn running on gerbils, ANYTHING is going to feel like it has more horsepower than my trusty Saturn.

Got my plates, Ryan picked me up, and we went over to the other base. Right outside is where my BMW dealer is located, so I stopped in to talk to him. Unfortunately, my car wasn't there yet. I guess it's sitting at a Mainz BMW dealer, but I can pick it up TOMORROW!! I'm supposed to be there at 10:45 and you can bet I'll be early. So what if I have to sit waiting amongst new, shiny, BMWs in the showroom sipping coffee and inhaling the sweet smell of new cars and leather?

I also got a cellphone today. Now I don't feel so naked or helpless. If you would like to have my number, just let me know.

So I got lots of stuuuffff accomplished today, including my load of laundry I currently have going in the basement. The weights are slowly being lifted...now maybe I should try lifting some of my own and get back into shape.

Ain't No Sunshine

I took this Monday evening around 6 pm. I was moderating (badly), so if you care to listen to me babble, make sure your sound is up. It wasn't actually "clear" as I say in the video, but clearer than it had been all day or the days before it. The only sunny day was Friday, the day I arrived.