Live From Germany

We're Here
Hello to Everyone, and I'm sorry we've been out of touch for so long! Cody and I are doing well here in Germany - we are settling in and getting acclimated to the weather, the food and the people here. This update will mostly contain pictures, but they say those are worth a thousand words anyhow, right?

Landstuhl, Germany
The first pictures are of Landstuhl, the town we stayed in when we first got here. We stayed in a little hotel called the Green Lantern for the first 16 days and found that a situation comprising of no stove, no microwave, no laundry, no English television channels, no free phone calls and internet at 18 cents/minute makes for an unhappy Megan. At least Landstuhl is a very pretty little town and offered me plenty of sightseeing.

The picture above wasn't our hotel - we just liked the staircase in front.

There are a ton of churches and chapels everywhere you look - above is the chapel that was closest to our hotel. It had a little graveyard in the back and was in between two larger churches.

Home Sweet Home

During our search for houses off base, we encountered several very strange layouts (including a kitchen you could only access through the guest bedroom), and several really awful ideas - you know the Wal-Mart smiley face? Imagine a HOUSE - an entire house - painted that color.

In the end (in my opinion), we found the most perfect little house in all of Germany. We ended up in the quaint, but close-to-everything little town of Kindsbach.

Above is our front door - to the right is the Master bedroom.

Here you see the living room, the dining room and the balcony.

I love my kitchen - the pictures don't do it justice - it's so bright and cheery!

Above is the Master Bedroom - below is the view from our window.

Above is the Guest Bedroom (With a closet!! Very Rare!) and below is the view, including the town's church in the background.

I think the bathroom is my favorite room in the house. Again, the photos do not do justice to the amount of sunshine that pours into this room - and just look at that marvelous bath! P.S. The floors are heated and there is a towel warmer so you'll be nice and toasty at all times!

And now to the room that is completely open to suggestions - below is a picture of the attic/loft - this is what the stairs lead to in the second picture. All I know so far is that this is where we plan to put all the musical instruments. Any other ideas are welcome.

Of course it wouldn't be a full tour without showing everyone my German Washer and Dryer. The washer is a small version of an American front loader, except of course that all the options are in German. The dryers here are very weird - instead of using heat to dry, they literally "suck" all the water out of the clothes! We have to empty a little compartment of the dryer where the water is drained at the end of each cycle!

And last, but not least, our super fantastic view from the kitchen and balcony!

Even though we're still adjusting to Germany in so many ways, we are happy here. Hopefully within the next week or two, I'll have some more detailed pictures up of the town, Cody's work, etc. so stay tuned.

Much love to everyone at home - we miss you all more than you can imagine!

Girls' Getaway in San Francisco!

Because of our impending move to Germany, my Mom and I decided we needed one last mad dash together to get in some much-needed girl time. We spent 5 days in San Francisco, our favorite city and had a wonderful time and some great adventures. Below are just a few of the highlights of the trip!

Here are some shots of the city:

Here we are in Sausalito, CA across the bay.

The next few photos were taken in Muir Woods a National Park full of Giant Redwoods.

Here is a picture of the hotel room we reserved.

Now it wouldn't be a trip without a story to tell - here it is. We had a fabulous first day, walking for miles around to all of our favorite places. Above is a picture of the hotel we reserved. It was a great little hotel right off of Union Square - admittedly not five-star, but just what we needed.

We arrived back to the room after a late dinner and were really ready to crash after vigorously sightseeing for nearly 18 hours. One hour of sleep had been granted to us (this would make it 11:30 am) when a car alarm went off right below our window. It wouldn't have been bad if the owner of the car knew how to turn it off.... but he didn't. After five minutes of trying to sleep through the sirens and honking horn sound effects, we called down to the front desk to find out what was going on. The car was a rental, he said, and the guest who had rented it couldn't figure out how to turn the alarm off. We resigned ourselves to waiting it out... the alarm blared intermittently for the next ten minutes and then finally gave out.

By 12:00 am, we had settled back into a sound sleep, but a half hour later we woke to the sound of a garbage truck. In a city as busy as San Francisco, it's necessary to perform garbage pickup at night in the absence of traffic. We waited patiently until the sound of the truck faded away into the distance and thought we would have no more trouble. We were wrong. Perhaps because the city is so compact - perhaps because it was late and they wanted to reduce the noise - perhaps just because they have a weird system there - the full garbage bins (we're talking the industrial metal ones used by businesses) are taken to a garage to be emptied all at once and are then taken one by one to be replaced. You'll never guess where that garage was in relation to our hotel. Of course it was across the street. We called down to the front desk once again to find out if garbage pickup happened every night - at least we were in luck there - it only occured once a week. The front desk agent then told us reluctantly that the street sweepers were expected for the following night...

At 2:00 am when there was no garbage left in the city... we were exhausted. We thought at last our chance for sleep had come. It just so happens that 2:00 am is last call for bars in California. I'm sure not everyone who left the bar five blocks away was drunk, but one one man definitely was - very much so. He apparently felt very strongly about something and felt the need to share those feelings with the quiet that surrounded him. By this time, all we could do was laugh. It just wasn't our night to sleep. We called down to the front desk a thrid time, and calmly explained to the front desk agent that if we could not sleep, we could not stay in their hotel. He was very understanding and more than happy to move us to one of the hotel's sister properties, the Kinsington Park hotel.

If it sounds ritzy, it is. This wasn't just any sister property - this was the rich-sister-from-the-East-Coast-who-married-well-and-had-a-trust-fund property. It was gorgeous. And because we had been inconvinienced, the manager at the Kensington Park upgraded us to one of their premium rooms. My mom and I thought it was well worth the first night's inconvinience to have had the opportunity to stay here the rest of the week!!

It just goes to show that there is a silver lining to every cloud! Here I am, getting some much-needed rest in a verrry comfortable bed.

The day we arrived, we couldn't help but notice enormous lines outside of all the major department stores - the line above was wrapped around Macy's. It turned out that Estee Lauder, as a part of a class-action lawsuit, had to give away free products to any customers who had purchased their merchandise at any point during the previous three years. Because there was no way of verifying who had purchased anything, everyone who saw the line got into it. My mom and I found a much shorter line at Saks Fifth Avenue and got some free Chanel perfume.

We happened to be there at the same time as Chinese New Year - we missed the Grand Parade by a couple of days, but here is the dragon. It takes an incredible number of people to animate a dragon of this size.

We saw some of the most beautiful and peaceful beaches while we were there. The ones below range from Stinson Beach to views from the 17-mile drive outside of Monterey.

One thing about this city that constantly amazes me is it's ingenuity. Check out some of the ways people make their living:

The next few pictures are especially for the benefit of Auntie Gail to take her mind off of her poor broken foot! Here is Schroeder's - a former favorite stomping ground! Is it anything like you remembered?

Although we didn't eat at Schroeder's, we experienced some incredible little restaurants - here are some pictures of just a few!

It's safe to say that we ate very well on our trip!

We had such a wonderful time!

On the homefront - all of our furniture has now been packed up and shipped in crates over to Germany (we are told it will take between 45 and 60 days for it to get there). We are currently living out of four suitcases, and were lucky enough to have my mom invite us to stay with her until we leave.