Deutschland

Hello again from the marvelous Deutschland.

Elizabeth and I had some firsts this week. On Thursday, I had dinner with 6 other Americans from work. My old CEO, Pierre, was in town and arranged for us all to meet at his favorite Italian restaurant. The other people already knew each other (all engineers from Michigan), so it was likely a lot more beneficial for me than it was for them. Pierre intends to plan 2 or 3 of these outings per year. It will be fun to meet the new expats in the future and be able to help them out.

Of course, everyone has heard the news about our temporary kitchen that came this week. It is better than our previous setup, so we can't complain too much. The only silly part is that they clearly brought the wrong kind - with the sink on the right instead of on the left - so the temp kitchen is very awkward. Let's hope they're smarter than this when it comes time to install our actual kitchen (in October). I'm not holding my breath.

(ignore the dirty dishes)


Friday night, Elizabeth and I ate at a restaurant called Südbahnhof. It was recommended to us back in March, but it wasn't open at the time. Elizabeth ate Käsespätzle for the very first time and I had the Gnocchi. Käsespätzle is essentially grownup mac & cheese, in case anyone was wondering. Südbahnhof has a cute little Biergarten that sits on the edge of the woods on a bike path. I can see ourselves going back... especially to try their desserts.

After dinner, we strolled to Cafe Eishorn for ice cream. I'm very pleased by the German ice cream cones that cost 1 €. As we were heading back to the apartment, an American coworker (from Thursday night) got back to us, and so we met him at Paulaner Wirsthaus for a beer. It is very comforting to hang out with Americans. It's just so easy! Certainly, it's easy to talk to many German people as well... but when all conversations are in English you feel like they are constantly doing you a favor. A room of 10 Germans all speaking in English is undeniably catering to the dumb American. They are very nice about it, but I've never enjoyed that level of attention. I'm more of a background character.

Yesterday I went for my 2nd official long run since I've been in Germany. Running is much slower this year than it was a few years ago. However, I've officially decided that, speed or not, I need to get into marathon shape! This is the most amazing running opportunity I'll ever have in my life. Over the next 2 years I'll be able to "cheaply" run in any European marathon I choose. I mean... it's not like I'll fly BACK to Europe in the future just for a marathon. Added benefit: random races will encourage Elizabeth and I to take more weekend trips!

In other news, Elizabeth and I assembled our wardrobe! We were growing very tired of hanging our clothes in the TV room. The best part is that the wardrobe has a full-length mirror, which we haven't had since we've been here.

Lastly, here's a picture of the bike room in the new parking garage at work. It's an unlocked room, and the bikes are mostly unlocked. I'm not sure anything like this could exist in America.



Alright, I think the rain has stopped for now, which means it's time for Elizabeth and I to wander the trails! She wants me to take her to an old fort today (maybe 3 miles away). Maybe she'll take a few pictures for everybody.

Unit next week!

This was a great week! On Friday, Elizabeth and I went to dinner with the Seegers. The Seegers are German and they lived in Florence KY when I started work at ZFLS. Stefan is a large reason why I've been successful at work. We spent the evening discussing the advantages and difficulties involved in living abroad. Hanging out with them makes everything normal... just for a little while.

It was the first time Elizabeth has eaten at Paulaner Wirtshaus. Paulaner serves typical Bavarian food - so lots of meats and gravies and breads. We sat outside in the Marktplatz... which means that you can see it in the Schwäbisch Gmünd website!:

http://www.schwaebisch-gmuend.de/353-Webcam_Schwaebisch_Gmuend_Marktplatz_I.html

We were at the end, in front of the 3rd building on the left. And guess what I just discovered! You can see where we live on a different webcam:

http://www.schwaebisch-gmuend.de/3601-Webcam_Schwaebisch_Gmuend_Tunnel_Ost.html

Do you see the tower with a clock on it in the middle of the picture? That's exactly where we live! Pretty neat, right? (You might need to be patient and wait for the camera to pan all of the way to the left)

Back to the story: after dinner we enjoyed some enormous bowls spaghetti ice cream (vanilla with strawberry sauce and whipped cream). It was very good, but I think I'll stick with regular ice cream. Even though I always regret my flavor decision, I like being able to pick my flavors.

Afterwards, they came back to our apartment and took ALL of our cardboard for us! Over the past month, buying all new furniture, we had collected a serious amount of cardboard. We are unbelievably fortunate to have the Seegers here to take care of us.


In order to not give anyone the wrong impression, I'll spend the remainder of this blog talking about the negative experiences that we've had so far in Germany. You've already heard our complaints about not speaking the language... but it really does come up constantly. And every time you fail to communicate with someone, it makes you feel increasingly more inept.

Have we described the window situation? We talked about how there is no air conditioning here, and that opening the windows is the best that we can do to cool off the apartment. The windows are very large, but did we mention that none of them have screens? The result: the windows are constantly open and there are more flies and gnats in the apartment than I could possibly describe. For example though, yesterday morning I killed at least 30 gnats before I stopped counting. And let's not kid ourselves, it's only a matter of time before pigeons start coming in. They sit on our windowsill, eerily gazing into our TV room.

We hate not being able to see the people back home. We can schedule occasional chats... but there are so many people to consider that it's just paralyzing. This blog is the best solution I've come up with to that problem.

Every few days I go on a frustrated search, trying to find something I would swear we brought with us. I can search for it in this apartment... but of course I cannot search in the last apartment, the hotel, the apartment before that, the rented car, or our house in KY. The constant state of thinking you lost something without being able to verify anything is downright maddening.

There are countless normal things that I don't know how to do. I would really like to run here in Germany, but I don't know how to find (or get to) races. My hair is growing out of control, but I don't know where I'm supposed to go or how I'm supposed to describe what I want from them. The washers and dryers are comically tiny, and they take 2 - 4 times longer than American styles. It is light outside from 5 AM until 10 PM (it sounds kind of nice, but you never sleep). And buying beer requires me to carry a crate of 20 (0.5 Liter) bottles half a mile down the road.

That's all I have for today!
Until next week.

This week Elizabeth and I got our first taste of German summer. Our top-floor apartment is no place to be during 90+ degree heat. Now it makes perfect sense why all available apartments were top-floor apartments! Elizabeth and I are still working on a good strategy. The apartment is bearable until around noon or 1:00, but then staying inside is absolutely miserable. It's not until 6:00 or so that going back inside is an option. Even then it's not great. You can hide in a grocery store if you are desperate during the week (they have air conditioning, otherwise their chocolate would be dripping onto the floor). Unfortunately, on Sundays EVERYTHING is closed.

Long story short, life just sucks on days like today. My puddle of sweat on the floor is steadily growing, but I have an unspoken agreement that I will update this blog each week.

Not very much happened this week. Last Sunday, Elizabeth and I walked to a nearby town, Mutlangen. They were having a festival, filled with games, beer, and other goodies. We bought a few homemade muffins and enjoyed the excellent weather.

Work for me is becoming much more routine. I really like my coworkers. Everything is great except for the fact that my office is just as hot as the apartment. It is very difficult to concentrate when your pants are soaked.

Anyway, Elizabeth and I didn't take any trips this week. We didn't receive any new furniture or have any other firsts. All I can say is that we are happy, healthy, and still slowly learning the German language. I really want to be fluent. Not comfortably communicating with everyone around you can make you feel like an serious outsider. There are days when being out in public just makes you feel so stupid. It's much easier to stay inside, watching television shows that you can understand. But we'll keep at it, day after day. If we're lucky, maybe we'll speak 2nd grade German by the time we leave.

I hope everyone back home had an excellent 4th of July! We are waving our American flag high and proud from Germany.



Until next week.

Today I found my first German tick. He looked very young. He probably wasn't any bigger than the head of a needle. He was locked into my leg, but he was dead and completely empty. I have narrowed it down to 2 possible scenarios: either (1) he was so small that he couldn't reach my blood, causing him to die of starvation, or (2) my body contains potent tick poison, killing the intruder immediately on contact. In either case, I don't think I need to worry about diseases... but I'll keep an eye on it just in case.

Of course, finding one tick meant that our household experienced a full-body tick check to make sure we were clean. I'm happy to report that neither Elizabeth nor I had any other ticks sucking on us.

As you might have seen on Facebook, yesterday Elizabeth and I tried our first Pizza Opa - which is pizza with cheesburger helper on top. Despite the fact that noodles kept rolling away, it was spectacular. Assuming my body can handle more, I'm certain I'll order it again in the future.

We went to a real soccer game on Wednesday! I'm using the word "real" somewhat loosely, but it was a lot of fun. At work. there is a yearly scrimmage between the Corporate Controlling employees and the Business Field Controlling employees. Apparently I only narrowly missed being coerced into participating. Next year, they say, it will be unavoidable. It looks like I'll need to buy a soccer ball and cleats, and study the rules of the game. On the plus side, they apparently don't ever have any practices, so the performance expertations are low.

We also received our dining room chairs on Wednesday! We missed the original delivery, so we had to pick them up from a key shop a half mile down the road. Believe me, Elizabeth and I were a sight to be seen that day... literally dragging two big boxes all of the way back to our apartment. People crossed the road to stay out of our way. It was loads of fun.

Anyway, today is a slow day. We are taking care of some chores (scrubbing the floor that is sticky for reasons unknown, laundry, etc). There's a refreshing rain drizzling down, keeping out apartment the most wonderful temperature. And I think we're going to walk over to the grocery soon (a new one!) just for kicks.

After long weeks at work, I greatly appreciate laid-back weekends. However, I know that's not why we're here. We'll have plenty of time for relaxation in 2018 when we get back to Kentucky. We'll work on integrating spontaneous travel into every spare second we have!

Wish us luck! And, if you haven't heard me say it before: tell us about your lives! I'm dying to hear about everything you think is too broing to talk about.

After a week offline, we're happy to announce our return to civilization. Being without internet for 7 days wasn't difficult exactly... it was simply inconvenient. We couldn't practice German with Duolingo. We couldn't follow up on Amazon orders (that REFUSE to successfully process the first time around). We couldn't settle arguments about which state grows the most corn or where to find the world's largest ball of twine. But, most importantly, we couldn't communicate with any of you. I'm glad I'm back to officially say: Happy Father's Day to a very magnificent father!



As promised, we kept this past week uneventful and free from shenanigans. The time was primarily spent assembling furniture, unpacking, and cleaning. The floor still needs a good scrubbing, but everything else is well on it's way to normalcy. We even found ways to rid ourselves of our styrofoam and cardboard (heartfelt thanks to Nadja and Susanne for their seemingly endless support).

In case you were wondering, our German-speaking abilities are still terrible. Learning a new language requires focus and time - neither of which we've been giving it. There are so many things for me to concentrate on when I get home from work, and language is low on my priority list... underneath unpacking, grocery shopping, paper signing, furniture assembling, and occasionally relaxing. This has to change soon. Work is growing less and less patient with my handicap. Perhaps the company policy should be that an employee reaches a certain level of fluency before they are officially transferred, because there are simply too many balls in the air as it is without throwing intensive learning into the mix.

On the plus side, we ate some fantastic pizza last night! Having a "pizza night" goes a long way to making this place feel like home. I think next time we will order the Pizza Opa, which is covered in cheesy noodles. We'll definitely take a picture of it for everyone. BONUS - the pizza place has a wide variety of ethnic choices: Italian, Indian, Chinese, American, Japanese... and they all come with a fortune cookie!

Lastly, I've spent the last several days exploring our town, running around the woods. It's kind of magical. I'll be going back there a lot. Unfortunately, the hill isn't nearly as steep as the hill in Bargau, but it will have to suffice.


That's all I have from my side. I promise I'll prod Elizabeth some more until she caves and writes some Blog entries of her own.

Bis nächste Woche!

Another week in Germany!

Today is the official day of our move. A large amount of furniture was delivered to the apartment yesterday while I was at work. By the time I came home, half of it was magically assembled! Elizabeth is terrific. We still have some work to do today, but it's already starting to feel like a home. It's remarkable how good it feels to sit on our own furniture. We'll post some pictures soon.

UNFORTUNATELY, internet connection is a problem. Elizabeth has spent weeks talking to Unity Media trying to get it set up. As it turns out, the internet cable isn't long enough to reach our floor of the apartment. The landlord is working with them to extend it for us, but we have no estimated completion date. Best case scenario, we'll only be internet-less for a few days...

You might not hear from us for a week while we wait for Unity Media.

Living in the center of Schwäbisch Gmünd will be a huge improvement for us. We love the idea of being able to walk everywhere. But the little town of Bargau has been good to us, too. Obviously we will sorely miss having internet and a kitchen, but I'm also going to miss the Bargauer Horn. I've been running up that hill 2 or 3 times per week! From now on if I want to run it again, I'll need to bike 10 kilometers first to get there!

Now it's time to build the furniture! And time to figure out how to dispose of all of the packaging!! Chances are, we won't. We'll just dedicate a room to keeping the garbage in. Come visit us and we'll let you sleep in our garbage room! Yay!

Hallo zusammen!

Today ends my 4-day holiday. Quality time with Elizabeth has been excellent, but holy hell it has been hot outside. The majority of the holiday was spent laying motionless and dripping with sweat. Air conditioning is by no means a necessity in life, but that's one American luxury I will miss every so often.


DONNERSTAG
On our first day of holiday, Elizabeth came to me and said, "I want to hike up to Bargauer Horn again" (Bargauer Horn is a 5-mile hike that goes up - and back down - over 1000 ft in elevation). I was stunned! Never had I expected her to suggest that gruesome hike. I'm typically the only person making ludicrous suggestions disguised as "fun".

Long story short, we made it to the top of the hill in record time. It's very rewarding how much easier these things become the more often you do them.

That was pretty much the entire day. It's not like there was anything else to do... every store is closed on holidays (and on Sundays). It's more extreme than Thanksgiving in America.


FREITAG
Our first piece of furniture arrived today! It is a 2-piece futon-ish couch for our guest room. We immediately assembled it, and then we tried sleeping on it that night. As far as futons go, it is very comfortable.

Our apartment is beginning to look more and more like a home. And in exactly one week the rest of our furniture will arrive! It will most likely require a week or more of work to assemble everything, so if anyone would like to come visit next week, we'd welcome the extra hands. If only our kitchen could come at the same time... and not a month or two later! It will be interesting washing all of our dirty dishes in the bathtub (but at least we have a bathtub).

It was incredibly hot in the apartment. We experimented with strategically opening different windows, but nothing seemed to help. I even opened the attic windows (which Elizabeth captured in a photo and posted on Facebook), which is easier said than done. We might need to purchase a ladder. All in all, I think we simply need to become more comfortable with feeling hot and sticky. It's not like it's the end of the world.


SAMSTAG
Our landlord came to visit us today in the new apartment. He helped us take steps towards setting up our internet connection. Fingers crossed that we will have internet by next weekend when we move in (not likely!). We will keep everyone up-to-date on that progression. At worst, we might be unreachable the week of the 15th.

The landlord, Jürgen, is a good guy. He always makes time for us. Thank the stars he speaks English. Apparently he's also a police officer?! Pretty cool.

To finish off our exciting day, we got some ugly pictures taken in a photo booth (no smiling allowed). We need them for things like Visas and drivers licenses. It appears that Germans bring their own pictures everywhere, as opposed to America where services take your picture for you. Maybe it's because it minimizes the cost of the service?


SONNTAG
That brings us to today. Apart from some more running and biking, it has been largely uneventful. Elizabeth and are I catching up on TV series like Coach and Suits while enjoying some Laugenbrötchen mit Butter. We have less than a week left in this temporary apartment. It's extraordinarily small, but I think we are going to miss it.


This is just a little taste of our experiences here in Germany. Please write us any time to let us know what's happening back home in all of your lives! We miss you!

Bis später


Here are some pictures of the 2nd temporary apartment. I would post more... but these pretty much cover everything. Look for pictures of our final apartment in a week or two!

Bedroom


Living Room

More news!

Elizabeth agreed to hike up to the Bargauer Horn with me today. This is no regular hike. It is a painful 4 km hike up a 1000 foot incline (and then, of course, another 4 km hike back down).

Over the past 2 weeks, I have been exploring this area on my own. I was so excited when she agreed to go with me. We brought some snacks and her phone and made an afternoon out of it. She's my Wonder Woman.

The sky was cloudy today, but the view from Bargauer Horn was still delightful. I hope she'll agree to do it again with me some time!

One month down, 31 to go.

There were complications extending our stay in our original apartment. As it turns out, that apartment was already booked by someone else. So Elizabeth and I were moved to a NEW temporary apartment this week! It's in the same building, just one floor up. *BONUS* we spent 1 night in Hotel Fortuna, drinking blueberry wine.

It pleases me to report that this apartment is remarkably smaller than the first one. There still isn't an oven. We don't have a microwave. There's no balcony. The beds are separate. The arms of the couch are VELCROed on. And the entire space is basically one "big" room. This is the college experience all over again! At least we aren't sharing our bathroom with anyone.

Living in this new space is actually a lot of fun. It is a nice change of pace, and it'll make our permanent apartment feel like a palace! No lie, our permanent place is huge. Come stay with us any time!


This week we had our 4th German lesson. I swear I know less German now than when I arrived. The class is very loosely structured, consisting primarily of the teacher telling us stories, slowly, in half German/half English. I recently realized that my expectations might be a little too high. I've never learned a new language before. We will have 1 year of lessons. That's only a drop in the bucket compared to the decade+ of English lessons the Germans have taken.

It's a shame because I really enjoyed the idea of becoming fluent in another language. When you are in Europe, you gain new perspective on our American laziness. Many Americans will say, "I'm not able to learn another language." Practically everyone in Europe knows and uses multiple languages. It can make you feel slightly mentally challenged.


Elizabeth took a trip to Munich to meet with Marie and Sarah earlier this week. It was awfully rainy, but she had a blast! I'll let Elizabeth tell the story, though.

I spent that time jogging and biking around Schwäbisch Gmünd. I also picked up our MediaMarkt appliances! They arrived at the post office, so I had to go get them. The nice ladies at the post office didn't speak any English, but that wasn't a problem. They let me borrow their hand cart so I could roll the 3 boxes the half mile to our apartment. I can't imagine the US Post Office lending me anything. There's such a trusting atmosphere around here!


Well, it's lunch time now. Have a wonderful Sunday, and I'll talk to you next week!

Greetings Friends!
Our third week in Germany brought with it some challenges. However, with our wonderful support system and unfathomable good fortune, we live to fight another day.

First and foremost, spending money has been a trainwreck. Absolutely no one in Germany wants our credit card. There's nothing wrong with it, mind you. They just don't want it. When we discovered that the appliance store accepts cards online (not in person), we thought we hit the jackpot... it was 4 days and several hundred attempts before we got it to work.

BUT IT WORKED! That's the moral of that story. With moderate intelligence and mule-like stubbornness, there isn't much that can stop you.

In our desperation (after the second day of trying to purchase appliances), we reached out to my employer for sympathy. We had a "settling in allowance" scheduled for May 31st, and we wondered if it could be paid out sooner. No joke, they got the money into our bank account the very next day.


We got the keys to our apartment on Monday! We had already purchased furniture (scheduled to be delivered June 12th), so now it was time to order the KITCHEN. This was the one giant purchase that we had concerned most. Where to start? What if we can't communicate well enough?

Of course we didn't need to worry! Nadja Seeger in her infinite generosity spent all of Monday (with just Elizabeth) and several hours Friday walking us through the process. I can definitively say that it would have been impossible without her help. They even had an "expedite" option, which we gladly took. Estimated completion date: July 18th.


Our last big hurdle turned out to not be a hurdle at all. When we explained to my company that the apartment would be completely empty until June 12th, they responded "Well, then we'll need to reserve your temporary apartment until June 15th". And that was that.


INTERCULTURAL TRAINING
This week was also the week that we had our first Intercultural Training! The training is a day-long workshop for new Bosch expatriates to teach them the ways of the Germans.

Here are just a few of the things we learned:

*Eat with both hands above the table. You're not a cowboy.
*And keep a utensil in both hands.
*It is unacceptable to make noise on Sunday (mowing the lawn, vacuuming the carpet, recycling glass bottles).
*Feel free to walk down the street drinking a bottle of wine.
*Expect dinners to last 2+ hours after finishing a meal. It could be considered rude to leave earlier.
*Don't expect anything to be open on Sundays. Learn to plan ahead.
*Absolutely no sniffles.


That's all I have for today. Until next time!