I'll start this by letting you guys know that Malu and I passed our German driving tests! About two hours after that, we got our Jeep out of the shipping yard. The not-so-good thing is that the Jeep failed the German inspections for a tiny little thing--the tinted windows that I had put on the front windows in El Paso. Those aren't allowed. Because of this, we weren't able to get our permanent German license plates. No big deal. We were given temporary plates and have until the end of the month to have the tint removed and get the Jeep re-inspected. But it is soooooo nice to have the option of driving around versus taking the bus!
So yesterday, we went to the main post (Patch Barracks) to fill up on gas (when you ship vehicles from the states, the tank has to be at a quarter). Here in Germany, gas is rationed. So we had to go to the PX to get issued our ration card. If you exceed your rations for the month, you have to pay German gas prices, which are ridiculously high. In any case, we went to Patch Barracks to go to the commissary and to check out the house that we will be moving into.
It's really cool. The housing office here just issues you keys for places that you're interested in moving into. Such was the case for three other houses that we wanted to look at a week ago at another post across town. Those were great, but I didn't want to have to commute to work every day. So the housing office eventually found a house on post that is a five minute walk to work and accessible to everything on post! Here in Stuttgart, they refer to housing as the "stairwells" because they're multifamily houses in six-floor buildings. I was never quite sure why they don't just call them apartments. It's essentially what they are. Big apartments. And here's what our building looks like.
See the stairwell to the far left? That's our building. And we're on the ground level! This means...no stair climbing! Totally stoked about that.
We are so pleasantly surprised at how huge our place is (by European standards). It's soooo much bigger than the place we rented in El Paso. Please forgive the photos you're about to see. They're not the best, and you can't really tell how spacious the place is just by looking at them.
The dining room/living room. Love the wood flooring. The previous tenants were nice enough to leave the temporary furniture they used before moving out. Nice thing about moving overseas...they provide temp furniture for you to use until you get your household goods in. So that's where all this furniture you're going to see, in these pictures, comes from.
The master bedroom. There's another window to the right and more space to the left that I couldn't take a picture of. There's a full-size closet with tons of space and a full bath (below).
I love the sinks they have in the bathrooms here in Germany. All bathrooms also have these towel warming racks that you see to the right. It's so nice to get out of the shower and have warm towels!
The shower and toilet, which aren't exciting, but I took a picture anyway.
Another bedroom, which will most likely be Sina's. You can't see it, but the room has a nook to the far right with another window, where we'll most likely put her crib. To the left (which you can't see) the entire wall is lined with closets with tons of space.
Because the second full bathroom (below) is so big, I had to take two pictures of it. A little kid could really roller skate in here. Malu and I were surprised at how big it is.
I'm so happy about the double sinks. I'm not sure I like the white tile flooring. But I'll get used to it, I'm sure.
And here's the kitchen adjoining the living room/dining room.
The house also has another good-sized bedroom, which we'll use as a guest room (for those of you that plan on visiting!) as well as a laundry room equipped with a washer and dryer. Another nice thing is that we live right next to a German restaurant (like an officer's club type of place) that's on post.
So we're definitely not going to roughing it here in Germany. We actually thought that the place was going to be tiny, but we're pleasantly surprised and I'm now wishing that I had shipped more of our furniture instead of putting them in storage back in the states. I guess shopping at Ikea will be a must :)
We're hoping to be in the house and out of lodging by the end of the week, depending on how fast we can get our unaccompanied baggage delivered to us. This is the stuff we had shipped ahead of our main household goods shipment--the stuff to keep us comfy until our big furniture arrives, like linens, our uniforms, Sina's swing and other toys, and our DVDs.
Anyway, I'm sorry about this long post and I hope you guys are enjoying your weekend. My grandma Ines turned 80 yesterday and all my family is in Colorado to celebrate with her. Her big party is today and we're soooo wishing that we could be there.
So happy birthday grandma! May the Lord bring many more blessings and years to your life. We love you!
