Embracing the Warm Weather

Lately it has been super sunny and warm here ("warm" by our standards is now about 55 degrees, haha) so we've been taking full advantage of the sunshine. Eric had a three-day weekend off work so we wanted to do something fun in the sun, and found just the ticket:

Kristall Palm Beach Resort!! (check it out at http://www.palm-beach.de/)

Eric had heard that the Army Rec Center was offering a trip to Kristall Palm on this past Sunday, but the trip was canceled because so few people signed up, and so we decided to go by ourselves. Eric drove the hour on the Autobahn (our first time!) and it was well worth the trip. It pretty much was just an indoor water park, complete with wave pool, indoor & outdoor hot-tubs, water slides, restaurants, saunas, etc etc. It was sooo much fun! I'm pretty sure we just laughed the whole day.

We were a little overwhelmed at first: not knowing they had co-ed locker rooms, not knowing where to change, not knowing how to lock the changing room door, not knowing how to leave the changing room, not knowing how to use lockers, not knowing how to get out of locker room. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. We ended up just finding other people wearing bathing suits and following them to the right doors, haha.

The place had so much to offer, and I'm certain we didn't even experience everything that was there. At least 3,000 people were swarming the place; sleeping under heat lamps, floating on inner tubes, and lounging in all sorts of different mineral pools. We saw our fair share of men wearing speedos (Eric, sporting board shorts, was the minority), almost all of which had nowhere near the body type necessary to pull off that small of attire.

Eric and I started off in the wave pool, and I don't think I've seen Eric that excited in quite a like time. He was jumping up and down along with all of the other kids. And kids were everywhere. Besides parents of toddlers, we were definitely the oldest patrons there. We then wandered into different pools and waded around outside and inside. The ceiling of the main area was a big glass dome, making the whole place heat up like a greenhouse. It felt so good!

Soon we found a group of kids (haha we sound so creepy) carrying inner tubes and followed them up a few flights of metal stairs to the top of a ride. We thought we were in for a "lazy river" type of situation, but were verryyyy wrong. No lifeguards, or anyone for that matter, were monitoring the ride, so groups of kids were all going at once. And not everybody had tubes. And it was anything but "lazy". It was by far the craziest tube ride I've ever been on. I felt pretty bad however, because around every turn I was taking out handfuls of little children at a time. I guess I couldn't feel too bad though, because seconds later a 200lb man (E Clark) would come tumbling down and cause such big tidal waves that I was certain kids were drowning under my feet. At one point, after my tube and I crashed into the wall/a child, one boy turned to me and yelled (surprisingly in English) "LOOK OUT!!!!! HE'S COMING!!!!". That "he", my husband, then came down the slide, yelling like a gorilla, while the tiny children and I could only watch in horror and try to get out of the way. Needless to say we only went down twice before we felt too guilty to go down again. I was just exhausted from laughing so hard, and we were both all banged up (I think our bodies were too long for the little tubes and narrow slide).

We only stayed another hour or so after that, after eating some cheese pizza poolside. Eric cruised back onto the Autobahn and we laughed back on our silly day. Upon entering Eschenbach, we realized the Eis Cafe (ice cream shop) was open for the season, and had no choice but to order a treat to cool down with in our little Bavarian town.

Below: Eric with his banana split and me with my chocolate-hazelnut soda! Sooo good!

Our (Empty & Undecorated) Home

I promise to post some decorated and colorful photos soon! It was in the weeee hours of the morning when I took these, so the outdoor shots look a little darker than usual.
Also, keep in mind that you kind of walk in a spiral as you head up each flight of stairs, each story has about 1-2 rooms...therefore, it was kind of hard to take photos that really show what our house is like. I did my best!! So for now, here is what our little Bavarian home looks like!

Above: Our very necessary Welcome-Gnome! Below: Eric bringing our suitcases to our front door.

Our entryway. The front door is behind us, the spare bathroom to our right, the kitchen to our left. The door you see is for a large storage closet, and the stairs are leading up to the living & dining rooms.

A peak into the kitchen, there is a large window to the left that looks out onto our front door area.

Further into the entryway, heading into the living room.

Our living room! It's actually pretty big.

View out our back door. We have a little porch and a small dirt/grass area. The back field is where our photos were taken in my last post.

Looking into the dining area of our living room (backdoor behind us).

The view out of our dining room window (more of that back field).

Looking back down the stairs from the living room. The entry way is allllll the way down there. The stairs on the left lead to the office.

Going up the stairs to the office. The laundry room is to the right, before the next flight of stairs.

A peak into our office. Actually the landlord called it the "baby's room"...uhhh, not quite yet.

Our office door. There are a few doors like this throughout our place, and I totally love them!

At the top of the first flight, office behind us, looking back down into the living room. The room you see at the top of the next flight is our master bedroom.

Our laundry room. It's so big and I love having it in a fairly central area of the house. Our last place had the washer and drier next to our dining room table...not very convenient.

Up the next flight of stairs looking down at the office (left) and laundry room (right). Our bedroom and bathroom are behind us.

The back wall of our bedroom. The wall to the right has closets, to the left will have our bed. Behind us is the door and to our left is our big bathroom.

Here's a better look at the closets. They are more like built-in armours and are in each bedroom.

We have such a pretty view from our bedroom. It looks out over the fields and forests from my previous post. See that big house back there? That's our landlord. Pretty huh?

Going up the next flight of stairs. You can see our bedroom at the bottom. The 1st spare room is behind us, and the 2nd spare room & bathroom is at the top of the next flight. Are you lost yet? Dizzy? Legs tired?

Our 1st spare room. I love the slanted ceilings! There is also a big closet like in our room.

Here's the view out of those windows. You can see almost all of Eschenbach. It was so exciting looking out of these windows for the first time.

The door to the room is another glass one...I love it! The stairs are leading to the next room & bathroom.

The 2nd spare bedroom. And Eric, talking to one of his brothers on the phone. He was trying to get away from me as I was photographing the house, but he got cornered when I caught up with him here. This bedroom is actually pretty big...and has that ceiling I love!

Another great view! This room has a spacious view of the field and woods behind our place. We feel so secluded--in a good way.

This is the closet in this bedroom, and a good look at how much storage space we will have.

A look at the tipity-top room down to the 1st spare room. The 3rd bathroom is to our right, directly outside the door to the 2nd spare room.

Looking down some of the stairs. 6 staircases in all!

Well, I hope you all love it...because we definitely do. I am anxious to post some photos now that our place is set up. It's super cozy and we feel really comfortable here. We can't wait to show it off to visitors!

We're Alive and Well

Well our Internet is FINALLY working...such a long & aggravating story on how/why it took forever. But it's up, which means I can finally continue bragging! Haha. So so much has happened since I last posted so I'll try to remember all the important parts.

We moved in on the 12th, just us and our suitcases until the Army brought us some loaner furniture. The Miranda's (remember how they've been helping us out?) really out-did themselves and brought us one of their TV's to use, sheets, pillows, blankets, and a microwave--even their car for a day! So nice! The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying our lovely town. We went to a pizzeria for dinner one night, and the döner place a couple more times too. Downtown is only about a 1o minute walk from our front door. We drank some great beer, and explored some of the local shops. We walked around the field behind our house (our backyard opens up to pure countryside with amazing views of the town) and played in the snow all by ourselves...so fun! This first photo is the side of our house!

From the field we can see the whole town of Eschenbach. There are 2 churches (can you find the steeple of one?) whose bells we can hear from our house! Our home is out of frame in the right-hand corner of the photo.

Above: Eric looking into the woods that are behind our house. There were animal prints everywhere and a little frozen stream. We can't wait to see this area once all the snow is gone! Below: Me trying to walk through the knee-deep snow. Our house is the last one on the right (we are one of the furthest houses out on that side of town.)

Here's a quick video I took on our walk (not super) but I like how Eric looks like a sasquatch..

Since we were together-in our empty home-on Valentine's day, we had to celebrate a little unconventionally. We went to the PX on the 13th, both sneakily picked out cards, and then bought each other a pair of shoes. On the 14th we opened our cards (surprise!!!!) and then walked into downtown, bought some delicious pastries and then to a flower shop where Eric bought me some lovely flowers. We then walked home and had a great day saying how lucky we were. Although it might not have been the most romantic V-day in the world, it was definitely our favorite so far. (Below: Downtown Eschenbach Valentine's morning)

Don't these pastries look great? Omigosh they were delicious!
Here we are! Thrilled to be in our Bavarian hometown!

On Monday, the 15th, Eric had the day off work and we got all of our household good delivered. It was nice having them move in all of our furniture-so hard to do with all of our stairs! The only problem was our 2 shipments got mixed up. We had sent a 1st (and smaller shipment) to get here early: our clothes, half our dishes, silverware, bedding, coffee maker etc. And then a 2nd (and bigggggg shipment) to get here a week later: all of our furniture, decorations, etc. But for some reason they came in opposite order so now our house is totally set up, but we have no extra clothes, and only about 4 plates (and all plastic silverware). So it's a little strange right now but our other boxes should be here sooner than later. (I'll post photos of our empty place in my next blog.)

I spent the rest of the week decorating, and redecorating. Luckily, the Miranda's helped us out even more: driving Eric to and from work every single day, and taking me grocery shopping more than once. So very generous! I plan on bringing them a thank-you note, flowers and cookies this week. I also had a lot of help from my new friend Christalin. She took the bus here from her base a couple times last week to help me hang things, clean, etc. It's been nice having another girl's opinion around here.

Eric and I also got a lot of information about school and financial assistance. He is starting his online classes very soon and has decided on Criminal Justice. He gets this all paid for, and the classes he's taken through the military count as college credits for him. He plans on finishing his BA while in the Army, then he can use his GI Bill to get his Master's when he is out. There are a lot of job opportunities for him with those degrees plus his military background: FBI, police, DEA, Homeland Security, etc etc. We also got information for my schooling, and found out I get quite a bit paid for as well. And there are countless more scholarships/grants I can apply for as a military spouse. I am super excited to get going on that. What's really nice is there is an option to actually take face-to-face classes here on base, as well as online courses.

Above & Below: Us enjoying some great beer at our new favorite restaurant!

All in all, our first week here went really well (except not having Internet!!) which brings us to this past weekend. Friday was a birthday party for a guy Eric works with, which was really fun, and then Eric and I went out for a little German dinner here in town. On Saturday the Miranda's picked us up at about 10am and drove us to the nearby town of Weiden. It was a 20 minute drive there and they showed us nearly everything that place had to offer. They brought us into furniture stores, clothing stores, hardware stores, restaurants, ice cream shops, grocery stores, everywhere! It was such a fun day, and we didn't get back til about 4pm that evening. Once we get our car we plan on visiting Weiden again soon. It was so nice to get a tour of the place-there were a lot of things we wouldn't have known about without the Miranda's help. Again, we owe them!

The past couple days haven't been too exciting. We have finally gotten to Skype a couple times, check our emails, etc. I took my driver's test yesterday, and passed--so now we are both ready to drive the roads of Bavaria! We get our car this week and are excited for the upcoming weekend! We are still having a great time here and feeling really at home in our new place.

Below: A few more photos of our new town.

Aren't the colors beautiful? They really love pastels here in Germany! The middle photo is the church closest to our house, and across the street from the little döner kebab shop.