I ate Kangaroo and it was delicious.....**

Whats up BLOGGY BLOG?

Weather Chronicle brought to you by TANK GIRL: Since we have landed in NEVER NEVER LAND it has been misty, foggy, the sun has poked out twice, and rainy.  Reminds me very much of Portland Oregon. Oh, and I noticed that I did not bring the weather report on my last blog, this weather girl should be FIRED!

BY THE WAY: I suspect my Blogs may be a little longer than they already are, and they may be a tad more informational and serious until we settled into NEVER NEVER LAND.   

The other night I told you we hung out with the Peterson's.  They are a family of six, 2 parents and 4 children, 3 girls and 1 boy.  The father I have nicknamed skids.  Here is the story;

So they are staying in the same B&B we are staying in, and we came downstairs to visit them.  I sat down in their living space, and the first thing Skids says to me is this;

Skids:'Tiffany, have you noticed the difference in the European toilets?'
ARMS:'Yeah I was noticing that it flushes different then the American ones....like there is no suction, it just fills with water and drains...'
Skids:'Yeah a tip I have for you is if your taking a big poop, like laying some serious cable, you should scoot forward a little bit on the seat or you will leave skid marks on the back of the toilet. Don't you hate skid marks?'
ARMS: In my mind.....Wow.....how should I respond to this? 'Um......I think you may want to share this information with LEGS?....'


So it shall be known that Mr. Peterson will hereby be known as Skids.

During the same visit LEGS was playing with Henry (the little boy) no nickname for Henry as I love his name so much as is.  Anyways, they were wrestling and playing, then Henry got down on all fours and started to growl at LEGS.  I would just like to say for the record LEGS was SHUT DOWN by a growling toddler, he had no clue how to deal or respond to this.

Yesterday I woke up at 3am and was wide awake and starving.  Since I have been here I have been waking up at odd times and more hungry then I can ever recall being.  I think its a combination of feeling cured from my cold, jet lag and the excitement of being in GERMANY has finally set in.  I wasn't really able to have that when we first landed because of how miserable I felt, but last night I was laying in the dark and thinking 'OMG I AM IN GERMANY OMG I AM IN GERMANY!!!!!'

We woke up and went downstairs to have a traditional GERMAN breakfast, it consists of more amazing bread, cold cuts of meat, and cheese.  Its not what we are used to in the states, and at first glance the meat didn't look that appetizing but it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!! And I am pretty sure I made LOVE to the tomato I ate yesterday was well.

We began the day by inspecting two apartments for rent.  One was in downtown Bad Winsheim, which is pronounced properly as 'Bad Vindsime.'  It was downtown above a design shop that does custom paint, flooring and tapestry.  

You walk up this junky set of stairs, where there is this open area to put your shoes (it is customary here, to remove your shoes outside the apartment), we walked through a white door with a glass window.  

Arguably the apartment was a one bedroom with one living space.  It had two large rooms, one large kitchen, two den/nook areas, and a terrace that overlooks the city.  It was very sheek, reminded me of a a tiny apartment you see in the movies.  We would never in a million years fit our stuff in there, and we would have to commit to walking Karmella everyday because there was obviously no yard.  The owner said he would paint and carpet the apartment however I wanted and was EXTREMELY friendly to me.  

It was pretty cool, and cute.  The greedy, adventurous part of me wants get rid of all of our stuff and move into that place.  But, the cautious conservative side of me realizes that I am in a different stage in my life.  If I had to pick out of what we saw yesterday I would pick this apartment.

The next place we looked at was located in Untertief pronounced 'ooonterteef', which is out in the country, about 20 minutes to base.  It was located in the same building as a restaurant and we would have American neighbors.  I found it to be a very odd space.  It had a large entry way, that connected to a long hallway, with very tiny rooms off the hallway.  It had a tiny kitchen, one large room in the very back, but it had a SUPER COOL loft above the big room in the back.  LEGS liked this apartment because it did have more space, but I wasn't sure how I would pull off the space with ANY of the stuff we have. 

So far my GERMAN has helped me and hindered me.  I was able to strike up a conversation with a fellow German dog owner the other day by saying hello and asking if he speaks English in German.  Once I established I knew a little German and was trying to improve my knowledge of the language he opened right up and started chatting us up.  

However they other night I was speaking both German and English to the nice lady Hiedi, who runs the B&B.  Her and I got caught up in this complicated misunderstanding about whether or not you needed an reservation to have dinner at the B&B.  Here is the conversation:


ARMS:'Guten Abend.  Where should I sit...anywhere?'
Heidi:'Ya anywhere...'
ARMS:'Are you expecting people for dinner?'
Heidi:'Ah yes, 6 people.'
ARMS:'Do I need reservation?'
Heidi:'You have reservation.'
ARMS:'Um...no...no reservation.'
Heidi: Yes this man called last week and made for you.'
ARMS:'Um....no?'


At this point we are both utterly confused.


ARMS:'So you need a reservation for dinner?'
Heidi: Laughs at me and says 'No, no, no!'

She thought I was talking about a reservation for the hotel and I thought I needed to make a reservation for dinner.


Heidi and I have turned into fast friends.  She has three children, and owns a vacation home in Florida.  She has agreed to help me find an apartment by calling the places in the newspaper and setting up times to look at them.  This is a great help because I suspect the housing people are not showing us all the apartments that are available.  She has also agreed if we have to sell a bunch of our stuff she will help me do that as well.  She says she needs to practice her English and I have been asking her to help me with my German.  


The European Command and Europeans in general really admire and support the sport of boxing.  They have told me that there are no programs on any of the bases and have purposed that I start a program to teach people boxing on the bases.  I find this incredibly flattering but also very intimidating.  I do not feel I have enough experience to teach boxing, and I seriously need to get back into boxing shape.  I haven't made a decision yet, but I am not passing up the opportunity just yet due to my fear. 


We have made new friends.  Our sponsor's have been amazing.  'Sir Bradford' is a very well spoken, senior Warrant Officer 2, who uses very proper English, is very intelligent, and has some of the same nerdy tendencies as LEGS.  His wife,' Squirrely' and I have been getting along fantastically, she reminds me very much of my SISTER Rachel.  Last night they took us to an Australian Pub. The pub used to be an Irish pub, but there were so many fights they closed it down and re-opened it as a Aussie Pub.  


We had Kangaroo for the first time ever and it was delicious.  I had a slight apprehension to eating Kangaroo because its significance in the boxing as a boxing icon, but all that went away after my first glass of wine.  We also had this stuff called 'beet root mash.' Its mashed potatoes with beets in it, that was also delicious as well.  


We were given a proper welcome to 'Whiskey' company.  Some of the guys showed up at the pub a little later on.  We had great conversation over Keller Beer, Wine and Shots of a type of German Schnapps.  The schnapps was a little intense for me, and I totally thought that I would be hungover today, but we were told last night the Germans have very strict regulations about the ingredients in the beer/liquor, they do not allow all the junk that makes you feel so yucki in the States.  


After we left the pub, we walked down the cobblestone streets to get a Doner- this is a lot like what we know as a Gyro in the states, we took a peak at the catacombs in the dark- scary, and tucked into the B&B for the night.


Random Thoughts and Stories:


Since being here without my iPhone I have gone through SERIOUS withdraws to being constantly plugged into my email, and facebook.  I would just like to say that I am proud of myself for getting over the hard part, I am now able to enjoy REAL LIFE more!


The Hef- here is another character that entered our life last night.  There is a guy in our unit that we met last night.  Single, charming, attractive, and simultaneously texting two females that were in the exact same bar.  I suspect we will have many more funny stories about 'The Hef.'


When LEGS arrived here he was hazed.  All the guys switched ranks and proceeded to give him a hard time about taking a maintenance test flight and taking a emergency procedure test his very first day.  The community here is a familiar one and VERY comparable to the Recon community that we are so accustomed to, let the games begin!

I have eaten, chicken, beef, pork, lobster, crab, halibut, salmon, other assorted seafood,oysters, clams, duck, squirrel, AND Kangaroo.


I have some pictures of last night that I haven't uploaded, but they will be put up soon!


Over & Out.....


Just another day in the life of an unlikely military wife....**