Day One:
Hallo!
That's about the extent of my German so far!! Before I forget our address is: Valenzuela
CMR 409
PO Box 391
APO AE 09053-0391
Our flight was long but the length wasn't really an issue...that space was...never fly America Airlines!! But once we arrived it set in that we are here to stay :) Something really interesting about the Frankfurt Airport is that they have a section of "prayer rooms" 5 total I think, for Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism and 2 others I can't remember. Once we made it through customs we were kind of greeted by a lesion that instructed us to meet him after we gathered our luggage, so after we found our 8 bags and loaded them onto our cart we made our way through the sea of people to meet up with the representative. There were about 25 soldiers total that morning that were PCSing and immediately I found out what it's like to be a soldier...kinda. Single file line, keep space in between you and the guy in front of you, but not too much, be aware of your surroundings, check in here, sign here, fill this out, answer this, answer that, etc. We finally met up with the Provost Sgt from Garmisch, SFC Parker & his wife, Amanda. They were nice and talkative but not really what we wanted to do after 15 hours of traveling ;) anyway our first official meal in Germany was Hooters at the airport. Then we started on the 5.5 hour drive down to Garmisch, the scenery was truly incredible, it was so green, kind of reminded me of Yosemite how everything is green and the mountain are sheer, grey rocks. I did happen to doze off and when I woke up we were going 112 MPH...talk about adapting quickly!! That happened to be our average speed of travel on the parts of the Bahn without a speed limit....other times the minimum is 80 KM!! Oh and they don't give speeding tickets here, just tickets for driving to slow because then you are considered "an obstacle". I don't think I'll be getting my German license soon, drivers are VERY aggressive. We arrived at the Artillery Kaserne (German term for military post) around 6 pm and were greeted by our sponsor, Sgt Briggs and his wife, Kerri and daughter, Camryn. They showed us our apartment which already has lender furniture in it...couch, 2 chairs, coffee and end tables, dining room table, tv, queen bed in master, twin in guest room, dishes and appliances! They also made us a dinner and gave us a mini- stock of toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap, etc. We were so exhausted but we showered and decded to go explore anyway! We walked around the entire base in less that 20 minutes...from our apartment to the school, library, headquarters, police station, px, commissary, bank, coffee shop, playground and back to our apartment...that's it! There is no cable TV available and Netflix/Hulu aren't in Europe....soooo instead of everyone being inside after dinner everyone is out bike riding, playing softball and other outdoor activities, it's nice to actually 'see' the people in the community. I just wonder how it will be when there is snow on the ground for 6 months!! We went to bed early at 8 o'clock....I was exhausted and hungry! Day 2 is coming next! Talk to you soon hopefully!!
Sent from my iPad
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