Germany

Well Abby and I made it to Germany safely. The plane ride was long and I now hate the Paris airport but we got here. The weather has been really nice this past week. We had to stay in the hotel on base for a few days until we got a car to get us back and forth from our apartment to base. We ended up buying a 1992 BMW 320i... it's an older car but it runs and gets us where we need to go. Cory is putting a cd player in it right now actually. Our apartment is about 15 minutes from Vilseck base and about 20 minutes from Grafenwohr base... so we are right in the middle sort of. I got my German drivers license and I know how to get to and from the bases for now. I am not quite comfortable enough with the car to hop on the autobahn yet, the speeds are pretty high and I want to know the car a little more. Hopefully we can do some exploring of towns around us this summer. I really like our apartment, the layout is nice and we have plenty of space. The floors are all tile or hardwood so I need to get some rugs. We have government furniture for now, our furniture should be arriving toward the end of this month. Cory got Abby a princess bed spread and sheets and she was very excited to have her own bed. The apartment is out in an extremely secluded little farming community. It's very quiet at night and we have farm land on all sides of the little village. Cory's sponsor Sgt. Chris told me they farm corn and potatoes and grains. The livestock doesn't free range out here... they keep them in stalls in these big garage looking things. The farmers are fertilizing the fields right now so it smells pretty fresh when we go outside. Abby and I take a walk about everyday. There is a little playground down the street from us and a pond with some ducks. Abby and I took some bread to feed the ducks and they swam as fast as they could to get away from us, I don't think they are used to being fed bread. Out building has three levels with an apartment on each level, we are on the second floor so we are right in the middle. The apartment above us is an American couple named Marie and Michael. Michael is in the Army as well but a different unit than Cory. Below us is an older German couple, they don't speak a word of English. I believe they are the landlords parents, the old woman always smiles at Abby and speaks German to her... Abby just talks back to her in English and tells her things that she is doing that day. There is a little cement area behind the building that has a swing and looks like it will be a good place for bike riding. Across the street is a fire station that has a big cement area too that all the German kids ride their bikes on. I think this past week has been spring break because there have been a lot of German kids running around outside all day. Abby got to play with a little girl that has been staying with the older woman below us, her name is Katarina and she doesn't speak English either but they played with a bouncy ball together for a little while. Our small shipment of stuff came this week so we have our little tv now and a few more clothes, next time we move I will definitely be smarter about what I send in the fast shipment. Live and learn. I am looking forward to getting my kitchen stuff here. We don't eat out very often so I am cooking a lot and having to improvise with what I have. We have to have outlet converters for all of our stuff as well... the power is 220volt here and American stuff uses 110volt so we have a few transformers that take in 220v and convert to 110v. It was interesting setting up the small tv and Cory's xbox and playstation and the wii.... Cory was terrified he was going to get zapped or blow the xbox up. We spent the morning flipping breakers and shutting the power on and off to get it all set up. I just stood at the breaker box and flipped stuff back and forth until we got it all set. Abby keeps me pretty busy and Cory is still kind of getting situated or in processed with work. I will try and upload some pictures on here too. Hope all is well with everyone back in the states and I will try and be better about blogging.