Snippets of Germany

Oh, Germany. It's been about 10 days now. 3 of which have been jet lag-less. Hallelujah! It feels like a miracle when I wake up in the morning and realize I just slept all night without my body waking up and without my child waking up (and staying up for 5 hours). It's almost like the relief you feel when you realize your newborn just slept for 6 hours straight. SO now I have 6 weeks more to appreciate the lack of jet lag until a new little one comes into my world and uninterrupted sleep, once again, will be a miracle. That's ok, it's what I signed up for when I decided to be a mom!

Anyways, it has been quite interesting here so far. Here is the run down.

+ We are staying in a TINY hotel room. No fridge, microwave, or kitchen...mostly a bed, a small couch thing, and a shower. And a toilet that flushes weird. As do all german toilets. :) And we have no idea how long we will be here. Basically until the army offers us a place to live. Yeah, they get to pick where we live. And when we will live there. We also have no car. And no stuff. We won't for a couple more months. But one thing we do have is a baby very close to arriving. Oh and there is no American hospital here. German hospital for this baby. Isn't it all so grand? ;) The culmination of all these things makes me want to smile and cry all at the same time!

+ For the most part, we have managed to thoroughly enjoy ourselves in this cute little country. We go on long walks as a family everyday and just explore. Jeff and I are equally giddy about so many small things - the flowers, the old buildings, the cobblestone, the secret little paths we find, etc. But mainly just that we are together again. Still on cloud nine about that. But being together in a totally new place that we get to learn about and explore together is so romantic and fulfilling and exciting. Anywhere within a mile and a half radius from our hotel, we have probably been there. Jane has also made some dear friends at the park near our house. They mostly just quack and eat her bread- but she doesn't seem to mind! :)

+ We cant wait to travel. We have tried planning trips and each time we sit down to plan a trip we end up planning nothing because there are just so many options that it's overwhelming! We don't have a car yet though so basically planning trips would just salt our very immobile wounds. But in the meantime, if anyone has traveled places in Europe that they've loved- tell me about it!

+ The people here are wonderful. I've never clicked with so many people so effortlessly. Probably because most of the families we have met have pretty much EVERYTHING in common with us- it's quite easy to find things to talk about. "oh, your hotel sucks too?"...boom. 10 minute conversation. "oh your kid was up for 5 hours because of jet lag too?" boom. another 10 minutes. "oh you want to go to Ireland soon via a 20 euro plane ticket? samesies" :)

+ PB&J. Like, this should be the first and longest paragraph of this entire post because of how often we eat them. There is not a lot of room for creativity when you don't have a fridge or a microwave or a kitchen. Of course we have gone out to eat, although german food doesn't really float my boat. And it is superrr expensive. I spent the equivalent of $25 on the grossest steak I've ever eaten. So now I'm scarred, and even more dependent upon my PB&Js than ever before. The other night I bought 1/4 of a watermelon and cut it into slices with a plastic butter knife. So classy. It was so yummy to us. Jeff took one piece and said "Is this dinner?" and before I could answer he replied to himself in a quite depressed tone "....oh, this is dinner isn't it?" then he said "Well, better eat up" as he took one more piece. It is quite the glamorous life right now. We are very anxious to have a kitchen and start cooking real food every day for every meal.

Ok I am going to try to post more often to avoid these long posts. But there are some things that just need to be documented. Like eating a dinner of PB&J on the floor, using a napkin as a plate. Obviously.