Wilkommen in Deutschland

Well the name of my blog is finally true!  Now it's time to detail the last couple days of travel and running around base like crazy setting things up.

This time around the trip over was SO different than the first time.  I'll save re-telling the entire AirIndia saga, but this trip did NOT include tickets getting lost behind counter panels, mean guards in customs, people sleeping at our feet, 7 hours worth of train rides and lost bags that went to India.

This time, I left KC on Tuesday at 10:20 to fly the first leg of the trip to Philly.  We flew into some storms and it was probably one of the rockiest landings I've ever experienced.  I felt like Jack Shephard on the plane crash episode of LOST.  But we landed safely and I had plenty of time to make my connecting flight around 5 (east coast time).   The flight wasn;t crowded at all and had a I had the whole aisle to spread out.  I wish I could have slept a little on the flight, but by the time I was finally getting tired the plane was about it land. I did however get to watch The Lincoln Lawyer, some Big Bang Theory and Glee, so I think that's a pretty fair trade off for not sleeping :)  It was a about a 7 hour flight so I pretty much landed sometime between 11 and 12 my time, but it was 6 in the morning in Germany.

After another 2 hour layer, and a short 30 minute flight I was in Nuremberg!  Mel, another special ed teacher came to pick me up, drove me back to base, helped me get checked into the hotel, and I know he drove me to Graf for some errand that I can't for the life of me remember.   I guess I was that tired.

The highlight of the evening was having dinner with Paula (my old mentor when I student taught) and her German boyfriend Wolfgang, who is adorable and goes by Wolfie :)

My first German beer! It was some sort of wheat beer with fox in it's name and it was delicious!

I also had a delicious dinner full of traditional German food!  Deer- which was super tender, spaetzle (a type of German egg noodle in cheese), and a pear with cranberry sauce!

I slept SO well last night, a full 8 hours just to be woken up by soldiers out in PT marching in front of my hotel.  Hard to forget you're on an army base with that happening.  But today was another busy day.  Paula was super helpful and drove me all over again doing errands on base.  I now have an ID card, which is apparently like gold around here and now I can start setting up accounts and have library and fitness center privileges.

Tonight I decided to walk out to Kodritz, where we lived last time we were here.  It was a beautiful evening and felt really great to be outside.

The walking path heading up to Kodritz looking back down towards base, which is behind the trees.

Still on the walking path looking down into Sorghof, a little town to the left of base.

Made it to Kodritz! 

  
The sun was setting so the lighting wasn't the best, but the entrance to our old apartment is what looks like a white framed window but is actually a door.

Tomorrow will be another busy day of errands around base.  Hopefully I'll have more to update on soon!