Gotta Be Startin' Something

Hello Everyone,
I have arrived in the grand country some call Deutschland last Tuesday. When I got here they were in the middle of a blizzard which I guess is not common for this part of Germany. Since then I have learned that they are experiencing the worst winter in the last 30 years. But it feels like good ole Minnesota so I am okay with that. However, I do have to be honest that since the Blistery Tuesday most of the snow has melted since the temps are now 40 to 5o degrees.

The trip here was actually pretty uneventful. I said goodbye to Tyson at the airport as he flew in cargo and I brought Elsie with me in the plane. She did fantastical as a travel companion. She only wimpered once about half way through the plane ride to Germany and I brought her into the bathroom in the plane, put down a puppy pad, she immediately emptied her bladder and went back into the bag and went back to bed. The lady next to me was so impressed with her so I was proud of her. When I got to Germany they barely looked at my papers and let the dogs through right away. I had mixed emotions about this because I had gone through so much trouble and concern about them that I wanted them to at least look at the papers more closely but I guess it is better that this happened than they "destroyed" the dogs.

Gretchen was right there to get me so that was awesome. Whenever I see her it is like we never spent any time apart. I arrived in Germany at 1015 which is 315 back home so I was quite jet lagged since I did not sleep at all on the plane so I did sleep a bit on the 2 hour drive back to Baumholder. I am still not completely over my jet lag quite yet. I currently am on a pattern of one good night of sleep followed by one bad night of sleep. Unfortunately, tonight is due to be my bad night of sleep but the Super Bowl is on here at midnight so maybe that isn't too bad since at least I will have something to watch. I have been offered Ambien by about three providers at the health clinic but I don't think that my body would do very well with it so I am trying to just get through this week.

Ummmm... besides that I have just been trying to get settled and/or comfortable. I am going to take my German driver license test on Tuesday so hopefully I will pass that and then be able to drive. My other goal for this week is to get closer to finding a house. That has been a challenge. The super nice part of my job is that they do give me something called a LQA (which stands for Living Quarter Allowance) (sidenote: I have learned many things about the Army this week and one of them is that they use acronyms like crazy... EVERYTHING has an acronym and people think you are stupid if you don't know them) so I get money to pay for my rent and because I am a high end civilian I get a fair amount of money for my housing allowance. The thing is that if you don't use it, you lose it. Therefore, it is to my benefit to live in a nice house. I know this sounds awesome (and it is) but it has been posing a problem because finding a house in my price bracket is harder because the free resources they offer are mainly for soldiers and there living allowance is a lot less. Also, they don't have rent.com here so finding places on your own is difficult to say the least. So I am contemplating hiring someone to help me find a place to rent even though they are a little spendy. The other thing is that I have read a lot about how it is in your best interest to possibly buy a place because the military will pay the mortgage. But all of this is making my head spin as evidenced by the fact that I am typing all this out and probably boring all of you guys (sorry :)) So I am going to try to be figuring all of THAT out this week...

Overall, I think I am doing fairly well. I did have one breakdown on Friday but Tyson dog is not doing so well in this new surrounding and it does stress me out a little bit. It is so funny because I often say I can't believe how different Elsie and Tyson are but this adventure has really proved it. Tyson is freaking out and his behavior is completely not the norm for him. Elsie on the other hand I think loves this adventure and thinks it is so cool that she gets to see new places and meet new dogs and people. Me I have found comfort in hanging out with Josh and Gretch and when I am not there watching "This is It"!!! It is the only movie I brought from home, so thank goodness I never get sick of it!!!

I think that is all I have now for an update. I will try to keep this up to date as much as possible and will include photos soon taken with the cool camera I was given.

I really miss everyone back home a lot!!! And would love to hear about all of your plans to come visit me soon.

Meaghan