Pilsen and Nuremberg

So it was only been a month and I already failed at writing every month.  To all of my faithful followers, I apologize and I will try my best to do better!  We have been busy the past 2 weeks trying to get our apartment together.  I feel like the boxes just keep multiplying and will never stop.  We have been able to make a pretty good dent in it all though.

Our biggest success was buying our furniture!  We bought an "L shaped" sofa that will take approximately 8 weeks to arrive.  Unfortunately everything takes forever here.  The other 2 pieces we bought the floor models.  We bought a low table to put our new TV on and a tall bookshelf-type fixture.  It has square cut outs in it so we can pretty much put anything in it.  I loved the wood of both of those pieces, its a grayish brown color that makes it look a bit rustic.  The wood is VERY thick, making it extremely heavy.  We could have taken those 2 pieces with us that day but due to the fact that I am extremely weak and I would be no help carrying it up the 3 flights of stairs to our apartment we decided to have it delivered with the sofa.  Hopefully all 3 pieces will be arriving in early November.

For Labor Day weekend we had hoped to go to Prague, unfortunately things did not work out as planned but we were able to make some quick other plans.  We ended up going to the Asian Markets in the Czech Republic first on Saturday.  Accompanied by our friends AJ and Christina, we were prepared to do some major bartering.  It was advertised that there were 600 booths.  Upon arriving we were a bit disappointing that most of the booths had the same things!  Lots of Adidas sweatshirts and Monster t-shirts.  We were able to find a few unique things thought.  My first purchase was more of a warm up for me.  The woman wanted 5 euro for a cashmere scarf.  I ended up getting it for 4 euro...not a bad price but not the best bartering I could have done.

We then moved on to shoes.  I found a pair of boots I really liked that were similar to a pair that had been destroyed in the middle of the night by a mysterious leather chewer (known fondly as Rocco).  The woman wanted 29 euro for them.  This bartering was a bit difficult because she did not know numbers in English so we were outlining numbers using our fingers in the palms of our hands.  I ended up getting them for 19 euro.  I do have to say that I was very impressed with how many languages the people there were able to speak.  Most people try to speak to us in German and I felt rude most of the day because I was pretty much ignoring them because I didn't understand.  I usually just smiled and nodded and said "no danke shun"...forgetting that I was combining 2 languages.

The final purchase of the day was at the crystal store.  They had a pretty good selection of Bohemian Crystal. I was in search of a wine decanter.  We ended up finding one that we liked that was 55 euro.  Now this woman was extremely persistent.  I offered her 25 euro for it and she very quickly said no and kept flicking the decanter so we could hear how it sounded like real crystal.  I was a bit afraid that it wasn't big enough to hold a whole bottle of wine so I was considering leaving it.  As I tried to leave she kept lowering the price.  I ended up getting it for 29 euro!  Not too bad!

 

After leaving the Asian Market we headed to Pilsen, where Pilsner beer was founded.  Pilsen is a small town that we really pretty.  We toured the underground cellar system that they used to use.  Unfortunately our tour was in German so we had to use the little handsets to understand what was going on.

We also had to wear helmets because it was wet and everything was cobblestone.

I'm pretty sure we were the annoying Americans that laughed a lot because we really didn't know what was going on, but it was fun!  We even got to try some beer!  It was pretty neat.  The woman poured the beer from the tap with no carbonation.  Then you took a heated iron stick and put it in the beer as fast as you could to carmelize it!  It was pretty cool.  AJ and I both got to do it.  I was surprised that although the beer was very dark I still enjoyed it!


After the tour we walked around the city center and went into the Gothic Cathedral which was very beautiful.
        
On Monday we took a trip to Nuremberg to go to IKEA.  Although I wanted to avoid buying furniture from there we were in need of some immediate pieces for our apartment.  We ended up buying a dresser for the bedroom, a bookcase to hold our thousands of books that we have collectively, and a great rack for the kitchen.  I am proud to say that I made the dresser all by myself!  Shayne made the other two pieces.  All of these have really helped our unpacking process.
 
  

Last week was a pretty quiet week which did include a gelato date with some friends!  But it also did mark 2 full weeks with the kiddos!  The group of kids I get to work with are great!  I do have a few tough cookies to deal with but nothing compared to my class last year!  Over the course of the day I go into 3 different classrooms plus an hour in the resource room and are assigned to work with 7 kids.  Obviously, as a teacher I could never limit myself to working solely with my assigned kids.  As teachers, we all know there are always other kids in the classroom that are in need of help and for many different reasons they don't get the support they need.  A few of the kids I'm working with will be PCSing (moving to a new base) during this school year and I will be sad to see them go.  The high mobility rate of the Army is definitely not beneficial to these kids because they need more consistency.  I really enjoy working with the kids I work with each day.  The staff is much different than what I came from.  On a typically Friday afternoon we were planning a happy hour some where (and YES I did see that you all went out last Friday and I was very jealous that I could not be there with you!).  My new school goes out for coffee Friday afternoons...a bit different crowd.

This past weekend we were again joined by our friends AJ and Christina and we traveled again to Nuremberg.  When we first got there the boys took us on a detour which turned out to be really cool.  We went to the building where Hitler gave his speeches.
   


  It was really neat because that is exactly where he stood and you could walk right up on it.  I wish I was more of a history buff like my husband, but I think it will come being in Europe where everything is so historical.

Then we went to do some shopping!  I was on a mission to find a heavy winter jacket.  I am so unprepared for the winter ahead.  I loved Virginia winters because they were fairly mild (with the exception of the Snowpocalyps and Snowmaggedon).  It is going to be quite different here so I really need to stock up on my heavy sweaters!  I was able to find my jacket so I considered the shopping trip a success.  After we shopped in the city center for a while we continued on to the Herbstvolksfest.  Volksfest are the summer festivals that happen pretty much every weekend in the summer in different areas.  Now I'm pretty sure that this was one of the last ones considering summer is pretty much over.  I really wanted to go because I missed most of the other ones in our immediate area.  This was a pretty big one from what I was told.  It was a lot like a carnival or a state fair (for those of you that I have been to one, apparently I am in the minority that has not).  There were lots rides and tons of great food!  We started out by going to a food tent and enjoying a beer.  Shayne and I shared half a duck that was cooked on a spit.  It was pretty good!  After that we played some games and wasted tons of money.  I was more interested in trying the food.  We had some chocolate covered raspberries, which were delicious, and a chocolate covered chili, which was VERY hot.  We had a slush, which was nothing new and special.  My last food experience of the day was what I had been looking forward to since I got there!  I had a crepe with Nutella, which was delicious!  I have found a new love of Nutella, but I won't allow myself to buy it due to the fact that it really isn't too good for you, so I enjoy it whenever I can.  The boys enjoyed going on a ride that Christina and I chose to watch from the safety of the ground.
                    Shayne and I did have fun on the giant slide...although I obviously lost the race.
  AJ and Christina
All in all it was a great day!  Sunday we spent most of the day cleaning and ended the weekend with a BBQ with friends!

Next weekend is Oktoberfest so I will promise to update after that!  Which also means that dirdl and lederhosen are being purchased this week!

Tschüss!

Settling In

This past week was definitely a bit slower for us.  No hail and farewell dinners (where they welcome new people to the squadron and say goodbye to people who are leaving), no FRG coffees (where all the officer wives get together once a month), only work.  For me, a person who is used to being insanely busy all the time, it is difficult getting used to life like this.  It's hard not knowing a lot of people yet, but even harder being in such a small farming community since there is nothing to do and everything closes at 1800 (aka 6:00pm).  But I am adapting slowly but surely!

I did start my new job this week.  That was also a big change of pace for me.  I was always used to teacher work week being the craziest week ever where I was constantly running around getting ready and making my classroom look perfect.  And, never fail, on the day of Open House my principal would come into my room around noon and ask if I was going to be ready when the families came because my classroom pretty much looked like a disaster.  For those of you that know me well, you know that I work best under pressure so obviously my classroom was always ready when the parents and students came through.  This week, however, was quite different.  Since I'm am not a classroom teacher this year I had no classroom to get ready, except the resource room that my lead teacher will teach out of.  It took some adjusting at first because I am always so used to how I like to work and what I would need to feel ready for the year that I had to keep my mouth shut a lot as not to sound like I was trying to take over.  Luckily I really like the people I'm going to be working closely with.  We all clicked really well, which was nice since 4 of the 6 of us in the special ed room are new!  Tomorrow is the first day with the kiddos and I'm really excited to get to meet them.  I just need to keep reminding myself to introduce myself to them as Mrs. Martin instead of Ms. Odachowski!

This weekend Shayne and I did a lot of busy work around the apartment.  There are still walls of boxes in all around but we seem to have regained control of a few of the rooms.  We went shopping at OBI, whose mascot is the beaver , (which ended up being the theme of the weekend since we also watched the movie The Beaver).  Shopping in German stores is still very difficult for me since my German is very limited.  So far I know the following words/phrases:
I can count from 1-3 and I know number 7- Pretty much because whenever I order something I'm never ordering more than 1 or 2 and 3 is our apartment building and 7 is our apartment number. (All important things)
I learned the word schoko (chocolate) VERY early on :)
Tschüss!- is the informal way to say bye...you hear it all the time.  No one says Auf Wiedersehen EVER!  And I thought Heidi Klum was preparing me for Germany :(
One of the most important phrases I learned was- Ich bin allergisch gegan Sesam...which means I am allergic to sesame!
I also know how to order water....stilles wasser bitte
Obviously I am polite and say thank you all the time...danke!
And the all important...Sprechen sie englisch?  Do you speak English?

Its very difficult when I go into German stores and someone says something to me...usually asking if I need help because obviously I look like a deer in the headlights, and I usually just smile and nod, which becomes quite obvious to them that I don't speak German.  I will learn though!!

Today, while at Obi, which is like a Lowe's, we bought paint to paint our living room.  We decided on a goldish color and bought 5 liters of paint.  We used every last drop of paint and were scraping it out of the sides at the end!  Our walls took so much paint to cover it was crazy.  But we did a pretty good job!  Check out our before and after pics!

BEFORE

AFTER

We decided that we will decorate the living room with things we buy in our travels!

I can't wait to finally have people over to our house so I'm really motivated to get it all clean and unpacked.  The kitchen is all unpacked and organized but we haven't decided what color to paint it yet.  I'm really pulling for a light greenish color. :)  We are also planning to paint the bedroom eventually too, but one project at a time now!  We will hopefully be buying furniture this week.  In German it takes 6-8 weeks for the furniture to be delivered!  Right now we have Army furniture (so please ignore that in the photos!) but I would really like to have our furniture by Christmas.  Unfortunately most German stores do not take credit or debit cards so you must pay with euros.

We're hoping to take a little trip for Labor Day so hopefully I'll have some travel news next week!  Until then I hope you all have a great long weekend and that you all survived Hurricane Irene!

Tschüss!

Welcome to Bavaria!

So I've officially been in Germany for 2 weeks now!  Its crazy how much has happened in the short amount of time we've been here.  We just finally got internet today so I'll try to catch up on the past 2 weeks of goings on.  My goal is to be able to post weekly to keep you all updated on what we are doing and where we are going.

So we arrived August 10th at 6:00am.  The 7 hour flight from Boston wasn't that bad but then we had to wait 4 hours for the bus to leave to take us from Frankfurt to our post.  By the time we left it was about 11 and we began what was supposed to be about a 4 hour drive.  Unfortunately there was a STAU (traffic jam...one of the first German words I learned) on the autobahn.  So we didn't end up getting home until around 5pm, which made for a pretty long day of traveling for both us and our puppy Rocco, who did incredible with the whole trip.  Adjusting to the time difference and German life was actually pretty easy.  I was able to rent a car using my American license for a week so I could drive around which helped A LOT for my driving test.  The test here is very difficult.  Its a 100 question test.  75 questions cover the right of way and basic rules of the road which some of are very different from the US.  They have this "right before left" rule here.  Where if you come to an intersection with other cars and there are no signs the car the furthest to the right goes first and then proceeds clockwise.  Its somewhat confusing.  The other 25 questions are road signs, some of which are in German.  Now as a teacher I came up with different mnemonic devices to help me remember :).  I luckily passed the test on the first try so I'm officially a German driver!!

Last week I also had 2 job interviews for special ed aide positions.  Unfortunately I found out that there was a problem with my teaching application that I was just able to fix today so I wasn't getting any calls for classroom teacher jobs.  I was really lucky and got offered BOTH aide positions, but that made for a tough decision.  The jobs were very different.  One was a mild to moderate position where I would be pushing into the classrooms and the other was a moderate to severe self contained classroom.  I was able to confide in some great friends and my amazing husband who were able to help me sort through my decision.  I ended up going with the mild to moderate position because it was more of an inclusion model.  Hopefully this will lead into a classroom teacher position next year.

This past weekend was Shayne's first 4 day weekend since I've been here so obviously it was time for a trip!  We decided to go to Garmisch which is very close to the Austrian border but still in Bavaria.  The purpose of this trip was to go hiking in the German Alps and hike the highest mountain in Germany, the Zugspitze.  We went with another couple, Charles and Danielle, and had a great time.  The boys were in charge of the research and told us it would take about 8 hours to hike to the top and would be about 11 miles.  The plan was then to take the cable car down from the peak.  We started by going through the gorge which was incredible!  After hiking for about 2.5 hours and going about 6 miles we came across an interesting sign that said it would be 8 hours from there to the Zugspitze.  We checked with some other people and they said it would probably only be 6 hours, which still didn't put us in a great position since the last cable car went down the mountain at 5pm.  We then decided it was time to turn around and go see a king's house that was on a different path on the mountain and take the cable car up to the Zugspitze and back down.  Again, the boys did their research and said the house was only 1 mile from the the main trail so on we went.  We soon realized that this trail was much more difficult and much more steep than what we had been doing before.  After hiking 1.5 miles that took us over an hour we found out that the house was still much further away and we needed to turn back in order to get out before the gate was locked at the gorge.  Over the course of the day we hiked about 18 miles, so needless to say I had a pretty good sized blister and was limping a bit when we reached the bottom.  It's been 3 days since the hike and my legs STILL hurt!  The next day we decided to take the cable car up to the Zugspitze and see the view which was amazing!  Shayne and Charles decided to climb to the very top while Danielle and I took pictures from the observation deck.  We were even able to cross into the Austrian border!  We then got to take the cable car to the glacier and check that out.  The trip was wonderful and we all had a great time together!

Sorry for such a long first post!  Now that we have internet I promise to update more regularly and make them a bit shorter :)

Tschüss!