Three Months Ago...

Three months ago tomorrow, we arrived in Germany. In some ways, I can’t believe it’s already been three months, in other ways, it’s been a long three months!

James came home (late) from work last night and announced that, “Well, I think I can do this job”. I commented that three months must be the magic number…it was last week that I thought to myself that I can “do this” also.

James’ job is very demanding, much more so than we were expecting. The traveling part we were aware of. It was “the rest” that has been a surprise. Like, the fact that when he returns from a trip it is expected of him to go in on the weekend and work which stinks because usually he leaves the weekend before. Or, that he’ll be working late often, especially when he’s recently been on a trip or is gearing up to go on one soon. And, of course, sometimes he has to work late just to catch up. Getting a lot of time off at once is tricky because there are so few people that do what he does. Our hopes of touring Europe have been diminished to “maybe we’ll get to see some of Germany”. But, maybe that will change as well.

We are very thankful that we have base privileges. Our commissary, the grocery store, is quite nice, it's like a decent-sized Giant or Smith's. The PX (similar to a Kmart) has quite a bit. I recently tried to purchase something cute and unique “on the economy” for a good friend that just had a baby, only to decide that their clothes are UGLY and went back to the PX! Our PX has a good selection of drugstore makeup as well as department store makeup (such as Clinique). They also have a limited selection of Victoria Secret and Bath & Body Works lotions and scented products!

We’re thankful that we can buy our gas on base and get the US price. We do not know how the Germans afford their gas, it’s almost double what we pay!

The nicest surprise that I have found is how friendly the Americans are on the bases. Everyone smiles and seems to be looking out for one another even if we are strangers. Like the other night, I was there and discovered that I had left my diaper bag on the ground outside of my car, instead of hanging it on my stroller. We were heading out of the food court, to retrieve it, when a woman approached me and asked me if I had a brown and blue diaper bag and if so I had left it outside. I got out there and another man was guarding it. And, you get and give those “this is hard living over here” glances all of the time. We’re all going through it. And, I have to remind myself that a lot of these people will do it over and over again or that their spouse is currently “down range”.

The German people that I have come in contact have been very friendly. Some of my American friends have not had the same experience… but my experience with them has been great. In fact, I have found that they go “above and beyond” what they need to. An example I can give is the plumber that came over yesterday morning. He was here 20 minutes and I thought that was the end of it. Five hours later, I heard a knock on my door only to find the plumber again with a bunch of bathroom gear in his arms. He then told me that “when I was in your bathroom, I noticed some other things that needed to be fixed”. So now I have a new toilet seat and new hoses for the shower heads in the tub and shower. These were things that I thought were “fine” but obviously not up to his standard. So, he called the woman that had arranged the original visit, she called the landlord, and they got it all worked out before I even knew it was an issue.

Until later,

Emily