Week Ending Sunday 11/9/08

My very first blog here, so bear with me...

I was hoping to get some pictures up of our first week here but too busy to take any! We keep saying we are here for at least 3 years and will find the time. Of course, we won't have any pictures of our arrival, now will we?

It's 7am Monday and Lew has boarded his shuttle to work. He works for the IT Division of DoDDS-Europe (Dept of Defense Dependant's School System).

Here's a brief summary of Week 1, here:

Departed Sunday 5pm out of Dulles to Frankfurt. Cats survived the trip extremely well. Not a single peep out of either through the security check (had to hand carry them through the gate) and then being stuffed under plane seats for 7.5 hours. It seems that all our preparations to get them through German immigration were all for naught as they didn't ask for any of the paperwork nor care to see that we had cats at all!

Our sponsor and Lew's new boss, Stephen, met us with a litterbox at the Frankfurt airport. He then got us to the hotel so we could get the cats settled and then start our tour of the area. Much of the rest of last Monday is a blur. We were encouraged to stay awake until at least 8:30 and they were right. I took an afternoon nap and didn't get any sleep at all that night.

Tuesday: Lew's first day on the job. Oh btw, we are carless right now and have to take public transp. everywhere. Along those lines we need to study for the German driving test which I am NOT looking forward to. Our hotel (American Arms) is right in the heart of downtown Wiesbaden with many local attractions, restaurants and stores within walking distance.

Wednesday: I took the shuttle to join Lewis for lunch where he works at Mainz Kastel Station. Then we all shuttled back to the hotel for meetings with HR. Had a wonderful dinner with Lew's coworker from the States, Carol and her son, Daniel who attends high school on base.

Thursday: Cats need to be in their kennels in order to have maid service. Scheduled this for early afternoon while I ran errands.

Friday: Long day going to base Job Fair, etc. Many good job leads for ME at the Job Fair and all in education.

Saturday: Went to PX to set up bank account. Shuttled back to hotel and walked down to Wiesbaden. Great fish restaurant for lunch. Shopped in the afternoon with the plan of dinner at Sushi World. They have a Japanese-Chinese buffet which is a little overpriced and under-quality on the Chinese side. The sushi was marvelous.

Sunday: Visited the Commissary and then hotel restaurant for lunch. Laundry all afternoon. Would have gone out to dinner but Lew discovered a Vikings game on TV! Ordered a pizza instead while I finished laundry.

That just about wraps it up for this week. Till next time..

Tchuss!

Jaime