still snowing

No, not snowing again, but still snowing. It never stopped! Before I could leave the house this morning, I had to scrape a good 2 inches worth of snow off of the car... It's kind of crazy: I was looking at the pictures that I took when I first got over here, and everything looks so green. But, when I first got over here, I was thinking that everything looked red and yellow. It's amazing the change in perspective. At first, I was comparing everything to how green it is in Florida. Now, that everything is brown and white, I'm comparing it to what it looked like when I first arrived. And I'm still enjoying the change, even if I did nearly lose my fingers to hypothermia in the process of clearing the car this morning. :)

After posting yesterday, I realized what a pathetic little post it was and decided that I needed to correct the oversight as soon as possible. So, consider the following what I should have included in yesterday's post:

It was nice to have Bran home for the weekend. When I picked him up from the unit on Friday afternoon, I had actually been on my way to the commissary to stock up. But, he got back before I expected him to and that meant that he got stuck going with me to the store. I offered to take him back to the house, because he definitely didn't want to go, but he told me to just go to the store. I told him that I really didn't mind, that I could take him home and go back, but he was like, "It's not just that I want to go home. I don't want to go to the store, but I don't want to go home either if you're not going to be there." (I'm not sure that I got that verbatim, but you get the idea.) He was being rather surly, and kind of sulky, but how could I be frustrated with him when he was sulking that he couldn't be home and be with me at the same time? And he would rather go to the store with me than be home by himself? So cute. :) I just hope that I never have to leave town without him.

Saturday afternoon, I decided to tackle trying to make some apple pies. I'd promised one to Herr Dreher anyway, for taking down the wall paper in the master bedroom, and I just thought it would be fun. I made the whole thing from scratch, which was...interesting. I didn't have a pastry cutter, so I had to use a potato masher to blend the flour and the shortening. and I didn't have a rolling pin, so I had to use the salt container to roll out the dough for the crust. It worked rather well, actually, but by the time I was done the container was ruined (it was only card board) and I had to transfer the salt into a Tupperware container. And what do you know, but the crust came out perfect! Not like a patchwork quilt, like my first crust, but whole and beautiful and even! I was so excited... When I got the crusts prepped, I started on the apples, but there were so many of them! Bran ended up coming downstairs to peel them for me, while I sliced them. I'm so glad that he did...I would have been there all night otherwise. After that, the rest was easy. I just had to mix the apples with the sugar and stuff, roll out the top crusts, and top them. I have to tell you, I am quite pleased with the results. The first one went to the Drehers, but Bran got into the second one before it was anywhere near to being cool, and proclaimed it to be a total success. I even really liked it, and I'm not a huge fan of apple pie. So maybe I'm bragging here, but I'm proud of myself. :)

Sunday, Sarah came over and we made devil dogs, which are oh-so-sinfully good. :) She made the cream filling while I did the cookie/cake batter, and it worked out perfectly. And, right as we were finishing up with the cookies, it was time to start the Mexican pizza for dinner. Yum! Of course, by the time that the pizza was done, I was pretty much full from the devil dogs, but that's ok. One of Bran's friends from the unit came over too, which was cool. It was the first time that Bran had had a friend over to the house, so I thought it was a good thing. Christian Gill, or just Gill, is one of the guys that went to Vilseck with him, and I guess they bonded. When Gill showed up, he had a house warming present for us, or more specifically, for Brandon. The guy got us a huge flippin' bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label scotch whiskey! According to Bran, that's a $120 bottle of scotch. The silly thing came nestled in a bed of silk, along with an official bottle number and a booklet, for crying out loud. I don't know what happened in Vilseck, but they must have really bonded. Anyway, expensive liquors aside, dinner was awesome. The company was great, the food was great, everything was great.

Monday we didn't do much of anything. Bran and I went to the gym, but on the way there, the called and told him that he'd be leaving again this week, so when we got back to the house I got started on laundry. Fun, fun. Since he left, I've been mostly working on my arts'n'crafts projects. Not just the ctoss-stitch, but I've started crocheting a large throw for Sarah. Apparently, she's always wanted a handmade blanket, so she's commissioned me to make one for her. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy crocheting. :)

And...yup, that's about it. Now I feel that I've redeemed my sorry excuse for a post, from yesterday.

hot diggity-dog, it's cold

It's snowing again. :) It's been snowing off and on for days now, but todays it's more than just a few flurries. I've been watching it pile up outside, and it's pretty cool. (no pun intended.) It's still novel, but I have to say that I'm not liking the slush on the sidewalks.

It seems like I'm living here at the USO. Bran is gone again, this time up north doing some SEALs support something or other. So, once again, I'm at the house by myself for the week. On the bright side, though, I did discover that there is an awesome "multi-crafts center" on Patch with an equally awesome selection of crafting supplies, for everything from quilting to cross stitch to scrap booking, and everything in between. Yay! And, they're hiring. I just have to print out the application, and drop it off at the MWR hq on Kelly (another of the many bases around here). This would definitely be more fun than working at the bank...

it's hard to believe...

...that my neice, Veronica, is a little over 4 months old.

...that I have been in Germany for more than a month.

...that Christmas is less than 2 months away.

*sigh* time just flies, doesn't it? But I am having an awesome time here, and I'm incredibly busy, so I suppose that it makes sense. I was talking to mom about it last night, actually. I've been doing so many new things, and meeting so many new people, that it's been kind of a non-stop roller coaster ride for me. It's been amazing, I just wish that I had everyone from home, or at least someone else from home, here to share it with me.

Not that Brandon doesn't count. He does. But he's currently in Vilseck learning how to deal with hazardous materials, so I've been doing the solo thing for a week or two now. It hasn't been bad, though. Sarah and Peguy have been keeping me company, I've interacted with the landlords (who are awesome, btw) almost everyday, and Bran got to come home over the weekend.

It's amazing how quickly a place can become home. We've only lived there for about a week, and it already feels like home. I've been working my arse off, though, to make it that way. I've unpacked most of the boxes, and I've gotten the entire downstairs pretty much settled. I've painted our bedroom, my craft room, and I'm almost through painting the Mannex (Bran's computer room, which he's dubbed "the Man Annex", or simply, "the Mannex). When I get that done, then I'll move on to getting all of my craft supplied organized in the craft room, and try to bring some sort of order to the Mannex. Currently, both are a mess of half-filled boxes, but the Mannex also contains a confused jumble of wiring, tools, computer hardware, and other such...stuff. So.

But all the work has been worth it, because the house looks great and feels like home. Han has certainly settled right in. He's already begun his campaign to spread cat litter throughout the whole of the house, and if I didn't sweep every other day, he would have by now succeeded. All of the flooring is either hard wood or tile, and he's discovered that not only do his toys go farther over the smooth surface than they did over the carpet, but he slides easily over it as well. It's quite entertaining to watch him zooming around the living room,chasing after little felt mice and trying to make sure that his hind quarters don't slide out from under him when he tries to turn. (Incidentally, he doesn't often succeed in that last one.) He's definitely another of the elements that makes the great big apartment feel like home.

It's looking like I'm going to get a job at one of the banks on base. Not the base where Bran works, unfortunately, but that's ok. They're less then 10 minutes apart, so who can complain? It's not a done deal, by any stretch of the imagination, but they definitely need people, the supervisor seemed very pleased to receive my application, and something tells me that I am fully qualified for the position of bank teller. It's what I want, because even though it doesn't use my degree at all, the hours are good (part time banking hours) and the pay is decent ($10.50 p/h, starting). So, keep your fingers crossed for me!

moving day

Tonight is our last night at the hotel. We'll be leaving early in the morning to meet the movers at our new place, and working to get settled in there. I'm not exactly sure how the weekend will go... I need to get to the laundromat either tomorrow or Saturday to make sure that Bran has clean clothes to take with him for school, I need to supervise the movers to make sure that everything goes where I want it to go, we want to get a computer desk, I need to get to Obi to buy paint for the first room I want to tackle (still not sure which one that will be), and I want to get at least one room done this weekend. Oh, and I have to drop Bran off on base at like 8 in the morning on Sunday.

Actually, I don't think I've mentioned anything about this school that Bran is going to... It's a 2 week course on HazMat (hazardous materials) procedures. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the city that he's going to, but I know it's about 4 hours away, out towards Munich. He's going with 4 other guys from the unit, and they're headed out on Sunday, to be there when the class starts Monday morning. Which means that I'll be on my own for the next 2 weeks... I'll have the car, which is good, and I'm planning to get a lot done in his absence. Plus, I'll hopefully start working soon (still waiting to hear back on the application I put in at the bank, I'm gonna call to follow up tomorrow) so I want to get as much painting done as I can before that happens. So...starting tomorrow, my life is going to be a flurry of activity.

Which also means that I probably won't be posting again for a while. Even though Bran plans to get the computer all set up before he goes, it isn't likely that we'll have internet right away, or that I'd have time to use it if we did. I'll post again when I can...

snow

It snowed yesterday morning. :)
I felt like a little kid, staring with wonder at the little bits of frozen fluff falling from the sky, and trying to catch them on my tongue. It didn't snow for very long; only enough to dust the trees with white. It was so pretty! Of course, I know that the novelty will wear off soon, but until then I think it's wonderful.

*shifts mental gears*
Bran and I have definitely found a place to live. It's an awesome 4 bedroom apartment in Hildrizhausen, about 15 min from the base where Bran works. The place is huge! It's going to be absolutely perfect for having people over to visit, so everyone has to come.
They're letting me paint it however I want, and they're not going to make me paint it all white again, which is cool. This means that I will be a bnusy beaver for the next couple of weeks...I'm planning to paint almost every room in the house! But it'll be worth it. My mental picture of how the place is going to look is great. And yes, I got batteries for the camera, so I will be posting before and after pics.
The whole process starts this Friday, so I am off to Obi (the local Home Depot equivalent) to look at paint samples and such. Wish me luck!

I can Has Volksfest? No, you can't has Volksfest.

Yesterday was fun... I met up with Sarah and Peguy at breakfast, and then we decided to go into Stuttgart to catch the last day of Volksfest. (by the by, the Stuttgart Volksfest, pronounced "folk's fest", is second only to the Munich Oktoberfest as far as German beer-fests go.) There were five of us: Sarah, Peguy, Peguy's boyfriend Niel, and Brandon and me. We met up in the lobby, rode to the train station together, and then took the S-Bahn into downtown Stuttgart. And that was an experience in itself... You have to get tickets at an automated machine, then validate said tickets at another automated machine, and have them available should someone come by to check your ticket. That doesn't happen very often, so you can get away with not buying a ticket sometimes, but there's a 40 euro fine if you get caught. Personally, I'd rather just buy the ticket, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, using the train system was far less complicated than it could have been because Bran had done it before and he schooled the rest of us. He also knew just where to get off, and where to go once out of the train. Yay Brandon! (I suppose there is something to be said for sending someone ahead to do recon...) Brandon steered us successfully out of the train station and through the Stuttgart Stadmitte (downtown) to where the Volksfest was held. Unfortunately, we were missing one Volksfest. In the square where there should have been a maze of tents, tables and booths, there were only a few strolling people and precisely one fat pigeon. It was quite a disappointment, but since we were there, we decided to make the bast of it and have a good time anyway. We strolled around, goofing off and taking pictures until we found an open restaurant (it is mandatory that stores be closed for business on Sundays, and there aren't many restaurants open on Sundays either). There were 2 or 3 in a row on this one little side street, so we chose one that looked promising and sat at one of their outdoor tables. The waiter was prompt, but spoke a grand total of only 6 words in English, so ordering was interesting. And the menu...! There was an English translation, but there were things like crocodile, ostrich and zebra on the menu. How weird is that? None of us was terribly courageous; Sarah and I both got kase spatzle (think mac & cheese, but much, much better), Peguy got spaghetti, Neil got a chicken salad and Bran chose faloffel. I can't speak for anyone else, but the food was delicious (all of us were drinking hefeweizen). It was a blast! There were none of the awkward silences or groping for conversation that often mark the interactions between people that don't know each other well. Rather, the conversation flowed easily and all of us were laughing more than anything else. The best part, though, is that Brandon seems to like these people just as much as I do, which means that I'm not the only one with new friends. :)

After lunch (we must have sat there for at least 2 hours) we headed back through downtown toward the train station, but when we got there, Brandon took us to an elevator instead of to the trains. He'd mentioned something about going up in a tower, but we all thought he was joking until he hit the elevator button. So up we went, to the top of this tower that turned out to be an observation point for the city. It was awesome! You could see all of Stuttgart from there, and there were little signs on each wall with a key to identify each of the buildings visible from that side. We took a few more pictures (I didn't have my camera, unfortunately I'm out of charged batteries, but Sarah promised to make sure that I have copies of all of hers), then headed for home.

It's strange, that my home is currently a room at the Sindelfingen Marriott... But home it is, for now anyway, and that's where we went. Poor Sarah had a killer headache that had come on at the end of lunch, so she went on up to her room, but the rest of us stayed downstairs at the bar and the merriment continued for another couple of hours. :) I tell you, I am going to miss the bar regulars and the bar staff when we have to leave, though I will certainly be glad to have my own place again.

And speaking of which, Bran and I have another appointment with the housing office on Wednesday, so cross your fingers for us. Hopefully, they won't still be mad about the appointment that we missed last week, and hopefully we will soon be able to get on with the business of moving into our own place.

PS: If you think that I had a momentary lapse in my grasp of English grammar when writing my title for this post, then you obviously haven't been introduced to ICHC. Oh, and I would suggest that you start at page one. :) (warning: there are some mature captions....)

A Night of Firsts

Before I get into the meat of the post, I have to back up a bit. Anytime Bran orders a new kind of beer, I always try a sip, for the sake of trying new things and on the off chance that I might actually find one that I like. When we were at the bar the night before last, Bran ordered the hefeweizen on tap. It's a German wheat beer, light colored and kind of opaque. I reached to take a sip, and Bran pushed it at me, saying, "you're not going to like it". But I tried it anyway, and it wasn't immediately unpleasant. So I pondered the taste a bit, then reached for another sip. It was good! But I was already well into a vodka and cranberry, so the discovery got pushed to the back burner. Then, when we ventured down to the bar for dinner last night (we had already decided to spend the bulk of the evening elsewhere) we each ordered drinks to go with dinner. I was tentative (what if I didn't like it, after all?), but I went ahead and ordered the hefeweizen. And let me tell you, it was delicious. I'm so excited to have finally found a beer, a real beer that I genuinely like! Not something that I had to acquire a taste for, but one that I just like. Yay!

So, that was my first 'first' of the evening. The second is that I saw my first rugby game, and thoroughly enjoyed that as well!

Bran and I went to O'Donovan's Irish Pub after dinner as planned. O'D's is the unofficial hang out of the NSWU2 (known more generally as "the unit", "unit 2" or "SpecWar"), and Bran had been there a time or two before. It's a cute little place, not very large at all, but with a great atmosphere. It was dead when we got there around 8, but then people started coming in and the place was packed before too long. Apparently, they usually have live entertainment on Saturday nights, but that was foregone in favor of watching the championship rugby game between England and France. I was a little put off at first, because of course, I've never been one to get excited about watching any sports game (except maybe the super bowl), but I was once again pleasantly surprised. The game is an odd mix of American football and soccer, and pretty easy to follow. Even better, it was easy to get into. It was a close game from beginning to end... I won't bore you with the details of the game, but I was pulling for England, largely because they were the underdogs in the game, and they won! It was all terribly exciting and enjoyable: the game, the yummy beer, the atmosphere...

As a side note, there were a bunch of unit 2 guys there; Bran recognized them from having played soccer or rugby with them in PT, but there weren't any that he worked with. The interesting thing is that at least 2 of them were SEALs! It's a small thing, I suppose, but I thought it was cool. :)