Back to the Old 'Hood

A new friend and I made the trip up to Ramstein yesterday. Ramstein is where I lived in '97-'98, when I lived here before. It is about two hours north of here. We left around 9am Saturday and spent the day shopping, eating, and driving around the base to see how much it had changed in 12 years. They have a big mall on base now, with a Food Court, complete with several American fast food chains. (Taco Bell, Subway, plus a ton of AAFES favorites like Anthony's Pizza and Frank's Franks.) They also have a Macaroni Grill and multiplex movie theater upstairs. Quite different from back in the day when we had to "rough it." :) There's a Chili's on base now, although it isn't in the mall. We went to Chili's for lunch and I enjoyed a Buffalo Chicken Salad, just like at home! Yay! It was lovely! It was neat to drive around the base and go by the high school. I look forward to going back on a school day to see the teachers who are still there. The next trip, I plan to spend some time off-base, in some of the villages in the area that used to be our old stomping grounds. Fun!

Germans and shoveling

It's German law that you shovel the snow out of your walkway. They take it very seriously. If someone slips on your sidewalk, they can sue you. I have been unable to find a snow shovel, so I've been counting on the generosity of my neighbors to shovel my bit of the sidewalk in front of our row. I'm sure it's starting to get on their nerves, but they haven't said anything yet. So when it snows, you see the Germans out shoveling like mad. Yesterday when I was driving home, I saw several small children all bundled up, shoveling along with a toy shovel with Mom and Dad. They start them pretty young, so it is totally part of being German. Shovel, shovel, shovel! I got some salt to throw down. It just keeps snowing! Seems like a losing battle to me! :)

Let it snow, let it snow, eh... enough with the snow already!

So it started to snow a few days ago and has been going non-stop. The roads were atrocious today and people were very unhappy that school wasn't at least delayed. I suspect a delay for tomorrow morning, if not an outright cancellation. I was planning to go to Ramstein on Saturday, but may not, depending on the road conditions. All of my driving today was sloooooow and steady. The tires on my car could use replacing, but I don't have the cash for it right now. I am still waiting for my allowances to kick in and rent is due Monday. Ugh! I will be glad when they get my allowances sorted out and I can start having a little disposable cash again.

This past weekend, I met up with my brother's girlfriend's mom, Susan, who is married to a German and lives about an hour north of me. We went on a five hour, 18 km (11 miles) hike around Stuttgart. It was cold and muddy, but it was lovely. I was pretty sore afterwards and am still nursing some cranky muscles in the bottom of my left foot. I look forward to joining them again for another walk. It was predominately older Germans, but don't let that fool you. They are very fit and were in better shape for the walk than I was! We ended the hike at a restaurant and had some yummy food, well-deserved!

I was trying to go on a trip Saturday, but it sold out. I have plans to go to a Rosenmontag parade on Monday, but not much else planned for this lovely, freezing, snowy three day weekend. (Maybe four day, if school gets cancelled tomorrow!)

We had auditions for the spring musical this past week and I have the show cast. Planning on posting the cast list tomorrow, assuming we have school. Rehearsals will start Monday and the show will be in late April/early May. The kids seem super excited and I think it is going to be a great show.

Off to whip up some homemade pizza for dinner...

And that's that!

They came to pick up the empty boxes today. Nice to have them out of the house. They were taking up a lot of space in the living room and I was tired of looking at them and stepping over them.

Almost all they way done with unpacking. Still need to move the Christmas stuff and some other random things up to the attic to get them out of the way. Still haven't hooked up the TV or my desktop. Maybe this weekend. Not a huge priority, since I don't watch a lot of TV and the laptop has pretty much eliminated my need for the desktop.

Still waiting for SEVEN of the ten boxes I mailed myself. Packages take FOREVER to get here, apparently. (The guy at the post office said three to six weeks. UGH!)

We had a two hour snow delay this morning. The alarm went off at 5am and I hit snooze. The phone rang a few minutes later, which totally confused me, since the ringer is different from the alarm. It was our school secretary, telling me about the delay. So I went back to sleep. Got up, did the morning routine, packed my lunch, and schlepped all of the empty cardboard boxes out to the garage for pick-up. Sucked! It was cold and there were a ton of them. Glad that chore is done! I was annoyed with them in the house, but wasn't excited about having to carry them all out of the house. Oh well. It's done now. WHEW!

I need to get serious about picking up some furniture for the guest room. At this point, I am looking to get a full bed and at least one nightstand. Maybe a small dresser and a bookshelf. I am also planning to get a futon for the computer room, so I can have two guest rooms at the same time, without having to put anyone on a couch or air mattress. I'm keeping an eye out for a gently used set, but will go to IKEA if I haven't found anything by the time guests start rolling in.

The drive in was pretty this morning. It's normally dark when I drive to school, so I really appreciated the sunlight on the snowy trees, particularly since there's not a whole lot of actual sunlight. Most days are pretty gray and blah.