Unsere neue Wohnung

Welcome to our new place.  Anybody up for small group this Wednesday?  Why don’t we go on a little tour?  You may notice that it’s a bit smaller than our last apartment.  In fact, its about 300 square feet, or about a third the size of our last apartment.  Its actually meant only for one person, but we bent the rules a little so we could move in as a couple.

First you’ll see the Badezimmer.  Nothing special here, except the toilet maybe.  In Germany all the toilets have controllable flushes.  So you can push the large button on the wall and let it do a complete flush or you can push the button again and stop the flush.  It seems smart, but what you can only learn from experience is that there is no power in the flush, so it often takes two or three complete flushes to take care of business.

Enough about the bathroom, lets move on to the Küche.  Our Küche is rather small.  As you can see there is not much cabinet space or any drawers, so we must make the most of our shelves.  One of the reasons we chose this Wohnung was because it had an oven.  Many of the  Einzimmerwohnungen (one room apartments) that we looked at did not have a full kitchen.  Often they had only a hot plate and a sink.  In fact, the majority of apartments in Germany do not come with a kitchen at all.  The previous renter will remove all of the cabinets and appliances and take them to their next apartment.  One thing that was missing was a full size fridge, which actually doesn’t exist here in Germany.  People normally visit the market every other day, so there is no need to keep large amounts of food on hand.  But, we are having trouble letting go of some of our American ways so we borrowed Tyler’s and Antje’s extra fridge.   Though not a full size by American standards it is larger than a dorm room fridge and will suit us nicely.

On to the Esszimmer.  Anyone notice something about the table and chairs?  It turns out that deals in America are the same as deals in Germany and Ikea has many of those deals.

And finally on to the best room in the place.  This room serves two purposes and is where we’ll spend most of our time.  It is our Wohnzimmer and our Schlafzimmer.  As you’ll probably notice (especially our friends who have recently relocated to Seattle) it is decorated in a style known as Ikea.  Everything in the room except for the coffee table is from there.  It is amazing how well Ikea fits a tight budget.  All the furniture and lights were purchased for just over 500 Euro.  Our couch serves double duty as a bed, which we’ve decided to cover in the traditional German Bettzeug.  You’ll notice that the pillows are HUGE and SQUARE.  They are down pillows, so they don’t hold their fluff very well.  I haven’t yet figured out why my little head needs that much real estate, but when in Rome (or Germany in our case).  I find that most nights I fold the pillow in half and use it like a good ol’ American pillow, half the area and twice the fluff.  The blankets are also interesting.  Danielle and I each have our own.  Large blankets that cover the entire bed are becoming more common but you will still find most beds for two people have two blankets.  I wonder if the Germans found a solution to the bed mate stealing all the blankets problem long ago.  We still get to share a bed, but we don’t have to deal with waking up uncovered.  Hey, this sounds like a win-win to me.

A couple extras that our apartment has are a balcony and a built in closet.  Most places around here were built without closets in the bedrooms, hence the need for wardrobes (for those Narnia fans out there).  But ours has a closet.  This wasn’t something we were looking for when we were searching for a place to live, but it has turned out to be a blessing.  Who knew that having a place to store things like clothes, shoes, and extra toilet paper would come in handy?  We also have a balcony right outside our living room.  This will surely be nice for the occasional pipe or cigar with the guys.

So that’s our place.  Let us know when you’ll be stopping by and we’ll have a meal ready for you.  Our new favorite is pasta al olio with sliced green olives.  It’s delicious and easy to make.

On another note, it is amazing to watch God at work in our lives here.  We made a short list of goals shortly after we arrived and have watched God mark things off that list.  It’s funny to be in a place where our education and experience don’t matter much, where communication is limited, and where we basically have to rely on God for everything.  We have no control here.  God is good.

First are the jobs.  Working for AAFES is bittersweet.  They are likely the worst retailer to work for, worse even than Wal-Mart.  I get laughed at when I ask for a couple days around Christmas time.  However, what they don’t compensate for in wages or flexibility, they do make up for in logistical support.  Logistical support is the only way for a tourist to make it on the German economy.  It is the base access for getting to work, it is the Sofa stamp that allows us to stay more than three months, it is the ability to register a vehicle; it is basically everything that allows Danielle and I to stay in Germany beyond our 90 tourist visa.  There are of course other ways to make it, such as finding a contract job, but that requires certain technical training and a security clearance, which I don’t have.  The other way to do it is to get a job with the federal government over here, but unless you are a military spouse or a veteran you have almost no chance.  They will place a spouse or a veteran who is not as qualified in a position long before they will place a qualified person such as myself (no equal opportunity employment here).  So AAFES really is the only way for tourists to make it.

One of our other prayer requests was to find a place of our own that fit within our budget and was within the commuting area.  Many places we found fit only one of those two criteria, but the Lord provided one that fit both.  Not only that, but its near the Biebrich Schlosspark, which is a beautiful park near the Rhein that is perfect for picknicking and walking around.

All in all it has been a great three months, especially as I look back at what has transpired.  We are looking forward to the months ahead and to see what adventures God has in store for us.

alles muss in Ordnung sein

Alles muss in Ordnung sein…

One thing that I’ve come to appreciate about Germany is order.  Now some of your may look at that and think legalism, but its not that way at all.  It is simply that, order.  Everything has its place, even socks.  When we were shopping for eine Kommode we had the option to buy collapsible bins the fit perfectly in the drawers to help keep light and dark socks separate.  On the Autobahn there are generally no speed limits.  This may seem disorderly, but there are other rules to help keep traffic flowing safely.  For instance, you are always to drive in the right most lane unless you are passing another car.  In fact, traffic is something of a wonder to me.  We live in a metro with roughly 6 million people and we are rarely stuck in Stau.  Traffic flows incredibly well, thanks to everyone knowing and following the rules of the road.  How people are addressed is ordered as well.  Until you get to know someone, you address he or she with a formal form of you.  This is the case for bosses, parents, or anyone else that is higher on the social ladder.    So, as you can see, alles muss in Ordnung sein.  It just makes sense!

…unless you are riding the bus!

There is one place that we have found a lack of this comforting order.  With Tyler and Antje on vacation, and Tyler conveniently forgetting to leave his car keys, we had a need for public transportation.  We went online to the bus website where you can plan your trip using any number of routes and bus transfers.  We decided that we would start with a relatively easy jaunt across the city.  We chose the least amount of transfers, in this case only one, and headed to the bus stop.  According to the website this well-oiled machine was timed down to the minute.  It gave us all the information we needed including which bus number, which direction, and the exact time of our arrival and departure.  We arrived at the bus stop and purchased our passes from the ticket machine.  We were there a bit early to be sure we wouldn’t miss the bus.  We waited and watched as numerous buses came and picked up fellow riders.  None of them seemed even the least bit concerned or even glanced at a watch.  This all made me feel quite confident about our looming journey.  Our pickup time came and went.  I began to nervously glance at the clock wondering if we’d somehow been late.  Who’s to say that these buses aren’t so on time that they are actually early.  Five minutes after our pickup time our bus finally arrived.  We stepped on board and watched to see how other riders handled their tickets.  None seemed to do anything except sit down.  Well of course they are locals and must be season ticket holders.  We however had only single ride passes that we stuck nervously in the unlabeled red boxes located near every door.  No one jumped up and screamed so we must have done the right thing.  The bus lumbered forward and we were off.  A few stops came and went with no problem and ours was still a half dozen or so away so we settled into our ride.  We did notice that the driver only announced every few stops, though he did stop at each whether announced or not.  Ok, so we just have to watch for our stop.  Well, we did.  We watched the driver as he passed right by it.  What was going on?  He drove right past our stop and nobody even flinched.  It was the only stop on our journey so far that he passed.  Maybe it was no longer a functioning stop.  But the website told us we had to be there at exactly 12:51 in order to catch our next bus.  The website couldn’t be wrong…could it?  So we got off at the next stop looked around like we were just dropped in some foreign country where we have only a slight handle on the language.  We watched as cars drove and people walked by, none of which seemed to take notice of us.  We weren’t sure exactly what to do for the first few minutes.  Then a bus pulled up to the stop.  It was bus 15, which was on the same route as the one we just got off of so we let it pass.  We looked around and noticed a schedule posted on the wall of the stop.  We walked over to it and saw that it was for two bus routes, 15 and 28.  Praise Him, we were in luck.  We were actually supposed to transfer from 15 to 28 at the last stop.  Ok, we had missed our stop and the bus we were supposed to catch, but another would be along shortly, or at least we thought.  We waited for over a half an hour as five or so bus 15’s came and went.  We waited 10 minutes past the posted pickup time until bus 28 finally arrived.  We counted the number of stops until ours so we would know exactly when to get off at our destination, even if it meant jumping from a moving bus.  Luckily for us there were people waiting at our stop so the driver had to stop.  We made it to our destination and we were only 45 minutes late.  It’s a good thing we didn’t have a meeting to go to.  The ride back to our place was much less eventful.  Once we figured out that you had to alert the driver to stop by pressing the stop button, which by the way was in English, before your stop.  If you don’t know when your stop is coming then just press the button after each stop and the driver will do just that.  Who cares that no one is coming on or off the bus, at least you won’t miss your stop.  As far as the buses being on time, we’ll just plan on catching one bus earlier on the route so that we can make it to wherever we are headed next on time.

dinner and directions

We had dinner with Antje’s parents last night, who showed us a wonderful time.  They are the friendliest people you can imagine.  They invited two complete strangers into their home and fed us till we were bursting at the seams.  Für Abendessen aßen wir Brokoli Auflauf.  After the meal we walked around downtown Wiesbaden, eating ice cream and deep in conversation.  The conversation was very interesting because Danielle and I speak little German and they don’t speak much English.  It was a great time nonetheless.

Today Danielle and I walked to downtown Biebrich which is about a mile to a mile and a half from Antje’s and Tyler’s place.  We stopped at ein Buchhandlung and Danielle worked up the courage to ask one of the clerks what book she recommends.  This turned into quite the exchange.  I must say, I was quite impressed with my wife’s mad German skills.  On the walk back to the apartment,  a lady pulled over to the side of the road to get directions.  We are probably the last people that she would want to ask for directions.  Surprisingly, we were able to understand where she wanted to go and even stumble through a few simple links und rechts to point her the right way.

saying goodbye

embarking on our adventure is bittersweet.  i can’t think of much that is more exciting than the opportunity to go to a foreign country in a situation where so little is determined ahead of time.  as exciting as this opportunity is, it is still difficult to leave.  flagstaff has been my home for nearly 20 years.  of course it’s not flagstaff that is so difficult to leave.  it is the friends and family that is tough to leave.  i have so many memories with so many of my friends and family in this mountain town.  this is where i grew up.  this is where my life fell apart many times and each time i got to see God bring it all back together.  this is the place where all of my friends and family live.  this is the place where i met my wonderful wife.  as sad as i am to leave, i am comforted by the fact that i will be able to keep in touch.  it is wonderful to know that as i leave my home town i do not have to leave the relationships or the memories.

whats in a name

Was noch… loosely translated as whats next.  Thats where I feel like my life is right now.  I’ve given notice at work.  We’ve moved out of our place and back in with my parents.  Our cars are for sale.  We bought plane tickets to Germany.  Whats next.  Only God knows.  Part of me is excited about that, but part of me is nervous about that.  I’m leaving behind every bit of security that I’ve ever known.  I’m going to a place where my education, family, social status, and whatever else I believe to be of any value won’t matter.  My goal is to have an adventure.  What does that mean?  Perhaps finding work and living life for a year.  Perhaps leaving Germany after a couple weeks to venture further east.  Perhaps returning to the states after three months.  Sure I have my hopes, but those seem to change with the wind.  Whats next?