The trials and tribulations of an American in a small town in Germany...

I don't know what I did in a previous life to piss off whomever's in charge of technology, but whatever it was, I'm sorry, and I promise to be a better person next time around. A warning: this post will be full of bitching and moaning - sorry 'bout it, I just need to vent. Just skip to the jump toward the bottom if you don't feel like listening to me whine.

More daily life...

Well, nothing groundbreaking has been happening here. Last couple of days... 

Thursday evening, Becca and I took a walk down through the town - I can't think of a way to describe it that doesn't sound trite. It's just a little old town of about 35,000 people. Normal, everyday stuff. Pharmacies, grocery stores, boutiques, dance studios... quite picturesque though. You'll just have to come and see it, because I can't take decent pictures; I accept my limitations.

Friday we had appointments at Becca's office to get our passes to the compound. Cori and I went to the store to get stuff for dinner before getting on the bus, then rode the bus home.

Becca got a ride home from her boss, and texted me while on the way, that he and his wife would like to take us out to dinner. The stuff that I'd gotten was for salads, so it'd keep. Cori didn't fell like "peopling" (her word), so she stayed at home while Becca and I went out. Went to a local Greek restaurant with them - I ended up have a really good salad anyway. Becca had a gyro plate (gyro meat, french fries, tzatziki sauce), I had a Greek farmer salad. One of the best salads I've had, but I honestly may have just been in the mood for salad.

Saturday, we decided to venture into Frankfurt proper, and do some good old-fashioned sightseeing. Frankfurt has a very well developed public transit station, linking several different kinds of transportation. There's the S-Bahn, which is for longer distance area transport - think taking the train in from the suburbs. There's the U-Bahn, which is the actual subway system itself. There are trams, for moving around (generally) within sections of the city, then there are standard city busses, which seem to run just about everywhere. There's a city bus that runs on the street in front of Becca's office which comes straight to our town, and drops us off at the end of our street, about three or four blocks from our apartment - that's the bus we've been riding when we've been coming back from Becca's office.

There's a station for the S-Bahn right behind our closest grocery store. Unfortunately, that line will be closing for a month (for construction) starting next week, but for yesterday, it worked fine. We took the it downtown... but the train broke down midway there. We had to exit the train and follow the throng of people to get onto another train. We ended up eventually getting off at the same stop that we were planning on getting off at, which was a big shopping center downtown.

The main reason we wanted to get off at that stop was to go the physical office of the transit system, so I could get some paper maps to study and familiarize myself with the system; alas, they're only open during the week. C'est la vie, huh? We walked through the streets to a little area called Römer, that needs a bit of explanation:

In WWII, Frankfurt was a big target for Allied bombing. When reconstructing the city after the war, the Germans made a conscious decision to modernize the city; as a result, the Frankfurt skyline is rather unique when compared to other European cities. There are more skyscrapers here, more taller buildings in general (as befits Europe's financial hub). As a nod to the city's rich history, they developed one section of town to look more like an older hamlet, with traditional style buildings.

While the area looks charming, when we walked through, to me it felt like "Euro Disney" - wall to wall tourists visiting wall to wall souvenir shops. Your mileage may vary though - we'll take you through there when you come visit, and you can give me your impression of it.

One of two interactions that I was quite proud of... I used to speak German quite well... way back in high school (over 30 years ago). I've used it minimally since then, honestly only when we vacationed in Bavaria while living in Rome, and even then, only a couple of times. Yesterday, I went to a tourist information booth, and was able to ask for a map of the transit system in German... the only screwup I made was that I technically used the wrong word for "map" - I used the word "mappen" rather than the word "karte." While both are grammatically correct, I believe "karte" would be the right word to use there. Regardless, the guy knew what I meant (he probably was fluent in English, and was just humoring me - but you can't take this away from me, dammit!). Frau Sanders (my German teacher my senior year) would be proud of me.... I hope.

We wandered around a bit more, and (purposefully) found a specific market, the Kleinemarkthalle. It's the biggest market in Frankfurt, with bakeries, and vegetable and meat vendors - that kind of stuff. Becca had seen it on a Rick Steves show. We decided to get a bite to eat there in one of the quieter restaurants. We sat down, and got menus. Becca and I decided what we wanted - Cori didn't want anything to eat (that's important in a minute). The lady came over to take our order, and I was able to order exactly what we wanted - two waters, a radler (beer/lemonade mix - don't knock it until you've tried it!), an appetizer for me, and an entrée for Becca. I had to explain to her in pidgin German that Cori didn't want anything to eat, since the number of people didn't add up with the number of things we were ordering. All went well, and I'm counting that as a win... now stop trying to take these away from me!

We were thinking of taking a tram to Becca's office and bussing home from there (like we'll do for a month, while our S-Bahn station is closed down), but we ended up wimping out and taking the S-Bahn home.

Didn't do much last night - used the salad ingredients from the previous day and everyone had salads for dinner. We had picked up what looked to be Italian dressing from the store, but it didn't have the normal Italian palate of herbs & seasonings. I can't identify it, it's edible, but not my favorite. Cori liked it, Becca used something called Grüne Soße ("green sauce" - the squiggly looking capital B is the German way to write two consecutive s's.). That's a Frankfurt specialty; it has to be made with certain ingredients, and every place has their own special green sauce. We picked up a container of it a few days ago, and we've had it on a few different types of veggies and meats that we've had.

Becca went for a walk with her boss and his wife this morning - I wimped out. She was gone for about two and a half hours, and came home all sweaty and sunburned. Glad I missed it!

So - that's about it... strange things are afoot next week, I might have an update before, but by the end of next week, I'll have a fun post for ya!

Getting our feet wet...

We're nowhere near our normal routine, and won't truly be up to speed for a few weeks. I've found in the past that putting some of this random stuff down helps me "process it," for lack of a better term. No huge revelations in this post; sorry to disappoint!

Housing came by yesterday morning to show us how to use all the appliances, how (and what) to recycle, that kind of stuff.

Our oven is tiny. We knew about that coming in (since Becca had done a temp assignment over here), but I think the biggest thing we'll be able to get into it will be a quarter sheet pan. Our 11x14 casserole dishes might barely fit, won't know until they arrive though.

We have two refrigerators. Right next to each other. Haven't figured out why, not gonna complain. We have a German refrigerator that's a little bit smaller than a "standard" refrigerator. It's got panels on the front that look like the cabinets - if you didn't know it was there, you'd think it was just a big cabinet. Next to it is a "standard" American refrigerator - it sticks out about 8 inches further than the German one, and is a little bit taller as well. We're still working on a system to know what goes in which fridge - for now, we don't have enough stuff that it's an issue.

Our washer and dryer are standard European ones, front loading, stacked one on top of the other. The dryer has a bin that fills with the water it removes from the clothes, and must be manually emptied occasionally. Don't know how often... I guess we'll all just have to be a bit surprised.

We don't have central A/C. I don't know how much of an issue this will be in the heat of the summer, but it's been mostly bearable thus far. Periods of heat... but right now (for instance), it's nice and cool. We have a couple of air conditioners that we can put into individual rooms as needed, but then you have to set the vent up, and that can be a bit challenging when you take the windows into account. The windows are a bit odd... may have to post pictures, as a description I was trying to write turned into a novel, and nobody wants to read that!

The garage. You know in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog (or any other catalog filled with random crap that you can't imagine that anyone needs) you'll sometimes see a double-decker machine that only takes up the space of one car, but holds two cars in a stack in a single garage? There are three of those in our garage side by side. Evidently, we're assigned one of the floors in one of the machines, but our car won't fit - it's a little too tall. So, when our car gets here, we'll have to park it on the street. The previous tenant had the same issue - she drove a jeep that was just a little too big. She had an arrangement with one of the neighbors - since our predecessor wasn't using the garage, the neighbor could use it. Well, we bumped into that neighbor outside this evening, and after introducing herself, she quickly steered the conversation over to whether we have a car. We assured her that we knew all about the arrangement, and that our car wouldn't fit either - she would be more than welcome to continue using that spot. Not hurting our feelings, and spreading goodwill around the building!

We had appointments down at Becca's office this morning (ID's and access, stuff like that), so we rode down there with one of her coworkers who would be able to walk us around to where we needed to go. Afterwards, Cori and I left, planning on running to Aldi and then catching a bus home. We walked out, weren't able to find what we wanted at Aldi, and went to a store across the street. We poked around in there for a little while, then came out to catch the bus. We rode the bus all the way to the stop at the end of our street, and started walking up to the light to cross over. On the way up there, we ran into Becca. She and her coworker had done all that they could for the day, so she'd walked out front to catch the bus, and gotten on at the next stop after we did. She got off at the stop at the top of the hill, while we had waited one more, to get closer to home. A little amusing, that the three of us were on different ends of the same bus, and it didn't even occur to us that the others might be on there.

Like I said - nothing big happened today. Just day to day stuff, but we're not down to a real schedule yet.

We're here!

 Well, we arrived in Frankfurt mostly in one piece.

The flight over was brutal. We left Knoxville at around 2:00, and flew to Dulles International in Northern Virginia. Our flight out was delayed by an hour, so our layover was a little longer than we planned, but not too bad overall.

Let me mention a humorous part.... well, it's humorous now, but my wife was a little freaked out at the time. When we were packing our suitcases we each were packing our own stuff. Rebecca took charge of all of the important papers, and put them into the carry-on suitcase that she would take on the plane. The planes that fly out of Knoxville are the little planes, and most carry-on suitcases end up getting "gate checked," and you get it back when you get off the plane.

An important aside (I'll circle back around momentarily): Over the past few years, we've accumulated quite a collection of those TSA approved luggage locks, but unfortunately, the keys between different sets don't match, even though they look identical. This becomes quite important later in our story. We ended up getting a huge set of locks with matching keys, so that we could just carry one or two sets of keys and be able to secure all of our luggage.

When Rebecca was locking up all of the luggage, she used locks from the huge set of locks that we had, including a lock on her carry-on with all of the important papers (since we were pretty sure that piece would be gate checked). All was well until our slightly extended layover at Dulles, when she tried to get into her carry-on. Turns out, she had used a lock that wasn't from the set to lock that suitcase, and we only had access to keys from the set with us (one set of keys each, to be safe). That was the only carry-on that had a lock on it - all the rest of the locks were on the checked luggage, so we wouldn't know the extent of the "damage" until we got to the apartment in Frankfurt.

Turns out, the keys we were each carrying opened every other lock, on every other piece of luggage - just not that one particular one. Her boss happened to have a set of bolt cutters at his house, so we stopped by before we came to the apartment and were able to get into the most important of the bags. A little funny now, but at the time, Rebecca was quite perturbed. We didn't know that we'd be making these kinds of memories on day one, but here we are.

The flight over.... took what seemed like forever. This felt like one of the largest planes I've been on (including when we flew back and forth to Rome). In our section alone, there were over 110 seats; according to seatguru.com, there were 350 seats, and the flight was 100% filled. Our section had three seats outboard on each side, with four across the middle - ten seats per row. We'd paid a little extra to all sit together, me on the aisle, Cori in the middle, and Rebecca on the window. The seats were just as cramped as you'd imagine, and none of us got much sleep. The flight was around 8 hours long, and we arrived here first thing in the morning (local time), so it's been a rather long day, especially with no sleep last night!

Our apartment is a little north-northeast of Frankfurt, in a little burg called Bad Vilbel. The community seems like a sleepy little suburb, mostly walkable - which will be handy, as our car won't be here for a few months. Our apartment is a good size, three bedrooms and two baths, all on one floor. Seems like plenty of room for (right now) the three of us, should be quite spacious for just the two of us when Cori returns to the states.

Housing assignments are made based on full time residents, and Cori isn't considered a full time resident - she's just here accompanying us for a month or so. As a result, the housing department only gave us supplies for two people. We brought sheets with us because we knew the sheets that they would be providing would be "Government Issue," 250 thread count or less... lucky we did, or we wouldn't have enough sheets for the three of us! As it is, we had to borrow a set of towels from Rebecca's boss until our fast shipment arrives, hopefully next week.

Becca's office is in Frankfurt proper, and transportation shouldn't be too bad - there's a bus stop at the end of our street where we can catch a bus that takes us directly there, with no transfers. Her check in isn't for a couple of days, but at some point we'll probably venture out and take the bus into town.

I think I want to get a "granny cart." The stores around the apartment are all relatively close, but carrying groceries back and forth will be much easier if I can just drag them.

That's all for now, but I expect that there will be a continuing flurry of posts over the next week or so. Until then, auf wiedersehen!

Departure day!

 Well, today's the day. Three quarters of the Shores family are heading across the Atlantic. The shipments are well on their way there, the luggage is all packed, and we're waiting for our departure time. We're taking a metric crap-ton of luggage - I think 2 suitcases per person, and 1 or 2 carry-ons each.

We'll leave Knoxville early this afternoon, and arrive in Frankfurt early tomorrow morning.

Someone from Becca's office will meet us at the airport and drive us to the apartment - hope their car is big enough for all of our damn luggage! Most stores in Germany are closed on Sunday, and tomorrow is a German holiday, so we're not expecting many local places to be open the day we get there. We're planning on just hanging around the apartment tomorrow, trying to get our bodies acclimated to the time difference. The rest of the week will probably be pretty full, going through in-processing (getting our local ID's, etc.).

Start planning your trip over - we'll be ready for you to visit before you know it!

The Clampetts go to Frankfurt!

 Please forgive me, it's been 9 years since my last "confession."

Haven't gone anywhere that y'all would care about since then, really. Now, though... watch out, I'm back with a vengeance!

So... back in 2013, when we were coming back from Rome, my darling wife and I talked about what it would take to get us to do another tour overseas. I put my foot down on one specific item: I wasn't open to learning a different alphabet. Different languages don't scare me much, but I draw the line at random squiggles - none of those for me, thank you very much.

Her agency doesn't have a huge presence overseas - we were going to be limited to a very small number of possibilities. The ones that stick in my mind that we discussed as strong possibilities: London, Paris, Frankfurt.

She had an opportunity to apply for Paris in 2019, but the timing really wasn't right - Cori was in her final year of high school, and we had some other things going on - but it started a serious conversation about the possibility of going back to a post in Europe at some point. We'd loved visiting Germany during our first assignment, and Frankfurt was the one possible post (within her agency) in Germany. The timing mostly worked out, and here we are!

What timing? Well, turns out we're going to use this to try out the whole "empty nest" thing. We're leaving the kids here (in Knoxville)... mostly. Cori will be doing one more year of college here in Knoxville, then coming over to Germany for a year; Palmer will be staying in Knoxville and coming over occasionally to visit. Cori will be making the initial trip over with us, and staying for about a month, then returning to the States to go back to work and school. We're keeping the house, and I'll be coming back over at unexpected intervals to check on them. Hopefully, I'll at least get invited to some of the parties that I'm sure are being planned.

In all seriousness, they're both good kids, they're legally adults, and we've got a couple of people around town to whom they can turn in an emergency. Additionally, I'll be able to get back to Knoxville relatively quickly, if necessary.

So... to sum up: Half of the Shores family is going to Germany, three bedroom apartment (all on a single level - no stairs! Yay!) We'll have plenty of room for you to come visit, and you're more than welcome to use our place as a jumping-off point and base of operations if you wanna trek around central Europe. We're on a subway line, which can get you to either the train station or the airport, or, if you're really nice, we might be willing to drive you around.

Once we get on the ground in Germany, I'll update the "Things to know before you visit" document (linked at the top of the page) - for now, that info might still be applicable, but it's a few years old (and it's for another country), so YMMV.

Frankfurt might not be the top place for y'all to visit, but one thing about it that we like is how centrally located it is. We'll be able to travel around Europe pretty easily from there - let us know if you find yourself in Europe, and we'll see if we can meet up somewhere on your itinerary!

Auf wiedersehen!

Cori's update:

Cori wrote something up about our latest trip, and you can read it all after the break.