Week Ending Sunday 11/16/08

Whirlwind 2nd week here, not unlike the first week. We can probably not count on settling down until mid-2009 sometime.

Today is Sunday and Lew is again watching football in the other room with me here in the bedroom on the laptop.

So picking up from last week, I'll start where we left off last Monday, 11/10:

Remember I said we were carless? Well today took the cake with relying on the base shuttle to get Lew and his colleages to and from work. They were at the stop awaiting the 6:45am pickup only to find out that the shuttle was on a weekend/holiday schedule (basically a drastically reduced schedule with the first pickup not occurring till 9:20am!). Apparently this is a common practice over here. Tuesday was Veterans Day and when a holiday occurs at the end (or close to) a weekend, businesses tend to take the other day off to give their employees an extra long holiday weekend.

So instead of my shuttling over to base to meet Lew later that morning (we had errands), I just boarded the 9:20 shuttle with him. So then came the hassle of him getting a ride home from work because the last shuttle back to the hotel left at 3:15pm! He got a ride home from his boss. Indian Dinner at the Taj Mahal was wonderful!

Tuesday, 11/11. Lew has the day off! Spent the day hoofing around town. Visited the PX in the morning and downtown Wiesbaden in the afternoon. Had to get lunch at the train station there because it's such a cool place. Then split up so he could check out the electronics store and I spent an hour obsessing over cheap jewelry at the mall. Back to the hotel for dinner.

Wednesday, 11/12. Lew works noon-9pm schedule on Wednesdays so we hit the Housing Office in the morning to check out listings. Several leads and referrals obtained so we scheduled appointments to check them out Friday afternoon.

A quick side note, seem to have a serious lack of decent coffee here in the morning. We get a free continental breakfast but the coffee is pretty bad and I have developed a strong dislike for their liquid "creamers" so keep buying cartons of whole milk, except those are a pain to carry around. This is a letdown because I always expected European coffee (anywhere in Europe) to be far better than in the US.

I spent the rest of the day walking my butt off to the different neighborhoods we planned to visit on Friday. Wasn't really thinking clearly cause 1) I didn't carry an umbrella (big mistake... rains here a lot) and 2) got temporarily lost just before dark. But made it back home via the train station for a warm bowl of soup and pretzel. I think walking is OK for an hour or so but a 3-4 hr stint is a bit much.

Thursday, 11/13: Spent the morning contacting some job leads and talking to a landlord about a house in Bierstadt. Dinner was at Italian Bolognese (or something like that) with Carol and Daniel. We headed to City Bowling first (they have GREAT food) but we arrived as this massive crowd was flooding in so opted for the other less crowded place. I dined on wonderful spaghetti marinara and Lew had a mixed seafood plate. The waiter served us (except for 16 yr old Daniel) Italian liquor for dessert called "Grappa (sp?)" The waiter brought his own glass to join us in our toast which Carol and I thought was a nice touch.

Friday, 11/14: Long chapter here. Lew works the morning and has the afternoon off to look at housing with me. He got a good deal on a rental car for the next week or two. Yahoo! We are pretty sick of the shuttle by now.

We had appointments to see 4 properties. The first one was a super posh 4 bdrm apt overlooking the Kurpark (Wiesbaden equiv of Central Park) and on Mozartstrasse! I was ready to move in based on the street name alone. This place had one major drawback - WHITE carpet throughout. We were made to put on little booties to tour the place. I'll never understand the logic of installing wall-to-wall pure white carpet in one's home.

Second place right next to train station but a huge letdown to find the inside pretty drab and dismal with extremely high ceilings and poorly furnished kitchen. Furnished kitchens in Germany, by the way, are not a given. If we weren't going through the Base Housing Office we would probably be negotiating for one.

Third property was the worst but also the most hysterical. Very modern two-level apartment right on a major highway! Very curious little guest apt OUTSIDE of the main apt with it's own entrance and laundry facility. I guess this would make a good crash pad for someone you weren't necessarily comfortable with inviting into your home or perhaps a place to send the spouse for the night after a bad argument.

Fourth property was better. A little further out and lots of nice features, including private courtyard, gated driveway, and separate office. We'd definitely need a second car if we went with this one, but decided to sleep on it.

Very disappointed when we got back to the hotel that we were just too tired to go to the Full Moon Hash in Frankfurt. Strolled over to the another part of town for Thai dinner instead.

Saturday, 11/15. Quick breakfast at the hotel and then headed off on foot to check out a huge apartment back in the Thai restaurant part of town we visited last night. We were joined by another family to check out the same place. Turned out there were 2 of these huge apartments available in a very old, historic and gothic style building. We all agreed they were beautifully appointed but difficult to feel "at home" in a huge space that resembles some sort of 19th century gallery or drawing room. And the kitchen? Well.. basically rooms the size of walk-in closets had IKEA floor plans taped to the wall with drawings for kitchen furnishings to be added later. That coupled with extremely old electric wiring meant we were outta there.

After that disappointment we cheered ourselves up by wandering back through the pedestrian malls and farmers market. Picked up two curry sausage platters with fries. We are starting to suffer the effects of "fries" with EVERY meal. In addition, most folks here enjoy them with ketchup or mayo or both. Isn't frying them in oil enough? Oh, and I can't forget the cup of dressing that automatically gets tossed on every salad unless you adamantly specify otherwise but that doesn't work too well either cause I think a lot of these salads are premade. We don't have a prayer for our waistlines here if this keeps up!

OK so Saturday ended on an upnote. We toured the house in Bierstadt I had called about on Thursday. Just the name of the town was enough spark our interest, don't you think? Anyway, I think we have found our home sweet home but a lot more details to iron out before I can say for sure. It's a pretty cool little place with rose garden, terrace, garage, sauna, balcony and lots of closet and shelf space! The American owner lives next door and knows how much closets mean to Americans. Closets pretty much don't exist here in Germany.

Potential downside of this place is that a small portion of the basement with it's own entrance is rented out to an elderly. There are compromises to made no matter where we look.

Ran into Carol and Daniel back at the hotel. Gave them a lift to do some shopping and then City Bowling for dinner.

Sunday 11/16. Downstairs in time for breakfast. Chatted with some other guests who were also out looking at places this weekend (some saw the same ones we saw). It was cool comparing notes and reactions.

Seriously planned to go hashing but it started to rain. RATS! I must say that I have only seen the sun a couple of times in the two weeks we have been here. Lew says the climate is equiv to the Pacific Northwest where it is gray and foggy most of the time there too.

Spent the rest of the day studying for our driver's test on Wednesday. This also means constantly converting miles to km's, meters, etc. and vice versa. Their right-of-way rules are a lot different from ours. Told Lewis he probably won't see me behind the wheel while we are over here.

It's about 11:15pm here so I'll close out this week's installment.

Hugs to everyone!

Jaime, Lew, Rocky and Howard