We rented a car! - Our Weekend trip to Bavaria

Hello everyone!

So, this weekend brought lots of excitement, fun, stress, and exhaustion. We rented a car! The Solid Gold Station Wagon. SGSW for short. Sadly, we forgot to take a picture of it before we turned it back in. Alas.

Quick picture of the front of our house.

First of all, remember Europe is much older than the U.S. So sometimes city streets are very narrow. And parking lots are very small. And parking garages are very tight. And in general driving in a new place is a bit stressful at first. So, when Charles picked up the car on Friday morning, he went out and drove around a bit by himself. Just getting it out of the parking garage was an interesting feat, and he quickly enacted the rule "no one talks while Daddy is parking the car in the parking garage."

After he had a quick drive in silence, we all trucked downstairs and loaded up car seats and headed out for an adventure. First we drove by our house! It is about a 10 min drive from where we are staying. Then, we drove by Charles' office so I could see where that is. It is about 3 km from our house, so a little less than 2 miles away. Then we drove by the school Emmy will attend.  Then we went to find the Tesco. It is a British grocery store chain and we are familiar with it, but were happy to learn from our sponsors that there are a couple in town. Angela suggested I do some of my first big shopping trips as I stock my pantry again at Tesco because things will also be in English, not just Polish. I'm not sure I can tell you how overwhelming it is to walk down a grocery store aisle and not be able to read any labels!  So we perused the Tesco and also found a couple of things we needed to stock up on for Rags, so that was a worthwhile trip.

Front of our house, the garage is to the left and the room over it
our landlord uses for storage. 

Just across the street from Tesco is a shopping area with a Media Market (Best Buy type place), Toys R Us, home store, and several other stores. It also has a Burger King and a couple other food places (ice cream, etc.)  There was a delicious smelling food truck outside, but we ended up eating at Burger King. Travesty you say? Yes, it was but when you  have a hangry child, sometimes the thought of having to stand there and translate what they sell at the food truck using google translate on your phone and then hope there is something that sounds appealing and try and order is way more stress than you can manage, and this was where we were at that  moment. I actually find ordering at someplace like that or in the mall to be way more awful because you are standing there and wrangling children and trying to figure things out, even at a place like Burger King where you kinda know some of what is written, is it stressful. Sit down restaurants usually have menus in English, so while I would like to see the Polish so I can compare, at least figuring out what they have is not as stressful.

Side view of  the Old Town Hall, now the city museum,
with a brewery underneath.  

Anyways, after our outing (we did not really shop much, mostly we browsed, just trying to get the lay of the land), we went back to the hotel. We walked to dinner in Old Town and ate in the brewery that is under the Old Town Hall, which is now the City Museum. The food was good and it was a nice evening to sit outside.

Dinner at the Brewery 

Saturday morning we got up and after breakfast headed to Coburg, Germany. It is about a 5 hour drive, but it ended up taking us much longer to get there. We had to make several stops with the kids and in general getting anywhere with kids, much less in a foreign country, takes a lot longer. I thought we'd be there by 3 at the latest. We didn't get
there until almost 5 pm.

Coburg is a beautiful, historic city. It is the birthplace of Prince Albert (as in Victoria and Albert) so during the war, it was spared from the worst of the bombing and is therefore mostly original, I believe. At least this is what I was told, I have not done any research. :) We'd made a reservation at hotel near the square, and our GPS basically got us there, but small, old streets and modern times, we missed the turn we needed to make and ended up driving across the mostly pedestrian square. Awful. I mean, cars drive there some, but it is rare, so we felt like fools. Oh well, we circled the block and found the hotel, I checked in and got the key and got some sense of parking from the guy at the desk. He'd said to park in the garage under the hotel and bring our key up. Basically, there was room for maybe 6 cars and I guess you leave your key so they can move your car if someone in front of you needs to get out. But the garage was full, so we squeezed (and by we, I mean my husband with is awesome driving and parallel parking skills) into a spot and took our big bag, the pack and play, and a couple things upstairs to our room, then headed back to meet our friends for supper.

Saturday night, after we'd finally arrived. 

Jason and Jocelyn are our Army best friends, our Army family, as she calls us. We were stationed with them at Ft. Gordon and Jocelyn and I became close via email and phone calls during the deployment (she lived in TX at the time and they were engaged) and she came and stayed with me when the guys were redeploying, and we spent a few days together waiting on them to arrive. The guys had meanwhile gotten to know each other while deployed and hit it off. They are very special friends, we flew to NH that fall for their wedding and were the Protestants singing for the Catholic wedding. They left GA when I was pregnant with Emmy, but we were able to have a couple of visits before we left GA, and then were delighted to have them come to KS when we were there at ILE. We were there for the winter class, they came for the summer class, so they arrived in July when Jocelyn was super pregnant with their son, Logan. They lived with us for 10 days while their household goods (HHG) made their way to KS. We had 5 lovely months with them again before we departed for CO. They moved to Germany, to be stationed at Grafenwöhr when they left Kansas 2 years ago, and now they are moving back to the states.

So, we are super sad that we will not overlap with each other in Europe for longer because we would have some amazing trips together (Jocelyn is a fabulous trip planner. She's just a fabulous planner in general) but at least we needed to see each other!! Charles actually stayed with them for 4 or 5 days back in March when he went to Grafenwöhr for an exercise with the 4ID and their planes were later leaving to come back than planned. So he had some time with them, but I had not!

We'd agreed to go to Coburg, where she has family friends that lived across from her family in NH for a few years growing up. And the daughter of that family is a little younger than we are and lives in the house her mother grew up in there in Coburg and had invited us all over for a cookout. Jocelyn's parents and sister, whom we also know, are here for a visit and their whole family is traveling for a couple of weeks before they head back to the states.

So, now that you have that history, you know we were headed over to their friend Lisa's house, just outside the the area where we were staying, about a 7 min drive. Our GPS found it, and Jocelyn sent me written directions. We did not see the first street she mentioned and we could not leave exactly the way we'd entered the city because of the one way streets (which is where she started us from) so we just followed the GPS. We clearly got to the right area, but we could not find the house. And in the midst of all this, my phone stopped working. (Turns out because we'd done a temporary set up on the phone at first until Charles could go back with his employment letter, NATO ID, etc. and set it up on a long term contract and get our cable/internet/home phone added, we were not able to use our phones more than 10 days so they stopped working on the network). 40 minutes later, we finally found them. It was 6 pm.

This photo does not adequately show how narrow this was.
Yikes!

And I should also point out that before we even got lost, it was stressful just getting out of the city area because as we circled behind the hotel, the street was so narrow I had to get out and guide him. We pulled in the mirrors on both sides and had about oh, 4 inches of clearance maybe on either side? So Charles was already a bit on edge (he did great, it was super impressive) and in need of a beer, and then we got lost...Lord have mercy.

Sunday morning in the hotel. 

Finally, we found them and there was much rejoicing and hugging and good food (and yes beer and wine). It was lovely to meet their family friends and their children. Emmy had fun playing with Logan, who is now almost 3, and Lisa's son Fritz, who is 3, and her daughter Mia. We stayed way too late because we hated to go, and so then getting everyone in bed was a challenge because everyone was over tired and cranky.



Because we had a late start to our visit, we decided to meet up the next morning. We had a lovely German breakfast in our quirky little hotel, and then took our bags to our car (we found a parking garage a couple of blocks away and that was a MUCH better option for parking the Solid Gold Station Wagon) and met them in front of our hotel.

Yummy brats!

 We walked across the beautiful square and just managed to catch the 10 am little shuttle (it looks like a train, super cute) up to what they called the castle, the Fortress of Coburg. We had a nice time walking around outside. There is a museum inside, but we did not really have time to do that on Sunday, and the rest of them had already done it, so we just walked outside and the kids had fun running around. Then we went back down on the little train to the square for what Jason and Jocelyn promised us is the best bratwurst in Germany. Coburg apparently is known for their bratwurst because they smoke it over pine cones. There was also a booth selling sauerbraten (German pot roast), knödel (potato dumplings), and rouladen (beef stuffed with bacon, cabbage, pickles rolled up and braised). So Jocelyn and I got plates of food from there and Charles, Emmy and I shared my rouladen and knödel and Emmy shared her brat with me. Yum!

Apparently, Germans love their dogs. Rags was welcome in the hotels without extra fees or anyone batting an eye. Plus, we were able to take her all around Coburg with us. She loved it! 

The Codys and the Dixons together again!

After some ice cream with the gang, it was time to hit the road. We said our good-byes and headed back to the SGSW to head to Pressath, about an hour and a half away and a small town close to Grafenwöhr, which is where the closest Army post to us is located. (Most of you probably know that there are several U.S. installations in Germany.) Jason and Jocelyn have been stationed at Graf in their time here, so they had just left when they headed to Coburg. Before they left, they met up with some other friends we were stationed with at Ft. Gordon, Leslie and Daniel and their boys Andrew and Jack, and left several things for us, including a microwave, home phones (remember none of our electronics work over here without appropriate converters and adapters). Plus, we wanted to go to Graf and visit and I wanted to check out a few things.

So, we headed to stay in a hotel in Pressath (which is the town actually where J&J lived), and after we checked into another quirky hotel (I've never checked in where I did not see anyone face to face, just talked to them through an intercom and was given a key code so I could get the key from a key box!)  met up with the Watters family at their home in Weiden, about 20 minutes away. They just arrived in May and just received their household goods (HHG), so we are grateful they let us come by! And, I got to do laundry again, which was great. It was so wonderful to see them again. We last saw each other I think at Jack's first birthday party, which was 5 years ago. Leslie and I were pregnant at the same time and Jack and Emmy are just a few weeks apart. The kids had a great time playing, Emmy is already asking when we are going to see them again.

Andrew, Jack and Emmy

We spent the evening with them, walked to dinner nearby, and the kids played while I folded clothes. They have a great house in Weiden and we can't wait to go back and stay and see more of the town near them.

Monday morning we checked out and headed to Grafenwöhr to the post.  This is where we will go for our well checks and vaccinations for the kids to keep them in the Army system, Charles will have some appointments and things he will have to do there periodically, and this is where we can shop at the commissary and PX and get a taste of the U.S. when we need it. Although I will say it is certainly  more lovely than many Army Posts!

Breakfast Monday morning

We walked around the PX and Commissary for a bit. I wanted to see if they carry certain items like my make-up I use, diapers, razor blades etc. Not that we can't or won't find things like that here in Poland, but since I don't speak Polish, reading labels, etc. in stores is really difficult. Some things it will be easier to get, or at least know I can if I need/want to. We needed a few things and we stocked up on some basics at the commissary.  There was not much rhyme or reason to my shopping, but I figured I would be grateful to have some basics when we move in and not have to figure out what everything is right away in the Polish grocery store. And we bought lots of tortilla chips and some tortillas. It was weird to go from Colorado where the tortilla section was the whole end of one aisle to the commissary here which in general does not offer as many options of brands, but when it comes to tortillas, it was one brand (and none of them were corn tortillas). Time to get back to making my own tortillas, so if anyone wants to send me a tortilla press, that'd be great. We love Mexican food and the only way we are getting it over here is to make it ourselves!

Since our phones were not working and I could not get WiFi working, I was afraid we would not be able to find Leslie and the boys for lunch as we'd discussed since we had not made a definite plan. Miraculously, they walked into the Food Court just as we did, so we got to sit down and have one more meal with them which was delightful.  She showed us where we needed to go to register our ID cards while we were there (so we are in their system and should have an easier time getting on post in the future), and Charles checked on sizes of new uniforms at Clothing and Sales, and then we hit the road. Thus ended our quick recon of Graf, as Charles called it. We were both very glad he had been there back in March so he was somewhat familiar with the area, that made navigating it a lot easier.

The drive back to Szczecin was pretty uneventful, and much smoother than the Saturday drive to Coburg. We just had timed it better, I supposed, because both kids slept for the first 2 hours. We did run into some pretty heavy rain, which slowed us a bit (especially when we watched a car spin out in front of us on the Autobahn, miraculously not hitting any other cars). We stopped for supper and with a delay due to an issue with our debit card we still were back on the road within an hour and were able to make it the rest of the way without stopping, except for getting gas right before we returned to the hotel. There was a lovely rainbow on the way home, too.

Charles decided he really likes driving on the Autobahn with no speed limit. My lead foot is pretty excited to try it next time. And while the SGSW served us well, my car has much better get up and go, which will make it better.

We got back into town just before 9, it was another late night. The kids needed baths (neither hotel had a bathtub, though Emmy sometimes does and did take a shower) and we had to unload it all. We were glad to be back in our hometel, as Charles has dubbed it. The lady at the front desk said they were glad we were back. I can tell we've been here awhile!

Thus ended our first weekend adventure. We both agreed that we are glad we were sort of pushed out of our "comfort zone" so quickly, now we are ready when we need to go to Graf again, and Charles at least has driven around and feels a bit more comfortable driving here. And we know where not to drive when my car arrives (small parking garages and super narrow streets)!

Here are a few more photos...

Hay Market Square in Old Town in Szczecin, right by the City Museum where we ate Friday night. 

Being silly and wearing Matthew's bib. 

Coburg

Riding the little train up to the Fortress

Emmy and Logan 

Sweet sleeping baby. Look at those eyelashes! 

Martin Luther spent time here in Coburg writing and translating the Bible. 

Best buds together again. And Rags.

Best friends together again! It was also Jocelyn's birthday and I'm SO happy we got to be together! 

Ice cream after lunch. 

Logan loved walking Rags. 

Silly shot after Sunday night supper. 

Pressath hotel had this fun little space for Emmy. We were in the "family room," which is not so family friendly when it is on the 4th floor! But it was a good space for us. 

Matthew's pack n play went right here, so it was like we each had our own "room!"

Our room was just to the right of the sitting area, separated by a wall. 

Rainbow on the drive home.

Week one is done!

We've now been in Szczecin for a week! Well, in a few hours, it will be a week.

Here are a few photos from the last few days. For now you are getting iPhone photos, which are decent, but hopefully I'll be able to take more, and better photos as time goes on. Unfortunately my camera started doing something screwy during Matthew's baptism a couple of weeks ago and I've yet to figure out what is wrong. I think it may need a new battery which should be super easy to get here, right? Hehe.

On Monday, we found a playground.

Matthew loves to swing, but he was too little to be in this one alone, so his sister helped him out for a moment. I love that she tries to get him to smile for photos, and ends up making a goofy face or something and sometimes it works.

Monday night supper at an Italian restaurant. The weather here has been pretty nice, overall.

I couldn't pick a favorite, so here's another one. Aren't they the cutest?

I was told this is the gate to the city. but I have not read anything about it give you any history just yet. My phone could not capture how lovely it was with the sun setting, alas.

Lunch picnic in the hotel. We've done a lot of fruit, cheese, crackers, and nuts for lunch.

Rags was hidden in the first photo and I love how she is patiently waiting.

 

This is the Basilica that we visited over the weekend. I snapped a quick photo on our walk to dinner last night, from the walkway that goes across the road.

Matthew loves water! And he prefers to drink it from a cup. He will even drink the water "with gas", the carbonated water that Europeans love. His sister likes it, too. Traitors.

Tuesday night we wandered to an area that our current sponsor had suggested has lots of good restaurants. Emmy picked this one randomly.  This was probably one of the most beautiful meals I've seen. The beet and apple soup was beautiful, but I failed to take a photo before we started eating. This restaurant only had a few options, they cook with local ingredients, so their menu limited, at least I think that is why. It was rather fancy, probably would not have chosen it had we fully understood this, but we were brave. Emmy loves duck, she ate almost half of it (the photo on the left, served with cherries and charred potatoes). I, however, confirmed that I do not care for duck. The other plate is seafood, shrimp (with the heads, of course), a scallop, and trout.

Little dude is pulling up all the time, and today after his all to brief nap, I caught him looking like he was about to pull this suitcase down!

St. John the Baptist Basilica (near the mall, of course). Poland is almost entirely Catholic, and you certainly can tell just by the number of beautiful churches that I've noted in the small part of the city we've explored. We stopped into this one on our way to the mall to buy a GPS tonight. Construction began in 1888, and it was consecrated in 1890. In 1987 the spire of the tower was reconstructed, and from 1996-1998 the vaults and the roof were renovated and copper was added, though I'm not sure if that was to bring it back to it's original look or not. In 2008 Pope Benedict declared it a minor Basilica.  One thing we have noted in both churches we have entered, there is a large statue and/or chapel honoring Pope John Paul II, who of course was Polish.

They hydrangeas outside this church are so beautiful!

Statue of St. John the Baptist

I thought it was interesting that the bricks that are darker are actually glazed green. It is also interesting to see how many of the older historic buildings have been reconstructed and you can sometimes see where the original pieces are and where newer ones were added. I believe that the city has been rebuilt 3 times, most recently after WWII.

I'll say "good-night" with some sleeping cuteness. Emmy told me she wanted to take a nap this afternoon, so she did. And Rags decided she needed to be right next to her sister.  Some of you have asked how Rags is doing, and she seems to be handling it all quite well.  She really likes being walked 4 times a day, so in many ways hotel living is working great for her! I will be glad when we are in our house and can just let her out first thing in the morning and at night, but we need to do better and keep up the daily walks for sure. Europeans build their hotels pretty sturdy, so we don't hear a lot of noise from the other floors, which is good for her sake.

Charles now has his NATO ID and Badge, and I will get mine later this week. We opened our Polish bank account. I have no idea how to use it, but we have it! That will be necessary for paying bills in the near future. Our large shipment of household goods should arrive in port next week, as should our car, so fingers crossed everything clears customs and we have that all sooner rather than later. Our unaccompanied bags should have arrived today, but no word on that still.

We are hoping to rent a car this weekend so we can explore around the area more, and also take a trip down to Germany. Our best Army pals are leaving Germany to move back to the states (SAD) but we need to hug their necks before they go. They will be in Coburg, about 5.5 hours from here, for the weekend visiting friends and her parents and sister will also be here.  Charles got to stay with them back in March when he was delayed getting home after his work trip to Germany.  I have not seen them since we left Kansas so I'm super excited, even though we will only have a few hours with them. We have not seen her family in awhile, either, so we are excited to see Mama and Papa T and sister Kate. From there, we plan to drive down to Grafenwoehr, the closest Army post to us, and pick up somethings that they left for us there (microwave, phones, pantry items) with some other friends of ours who just moved to Germany in May. Graf is where we will go for well checks, immunizations, and other misc. things we may  need done. It is about 6 or so hours from here, so not exactly close. It is also where we can send mail from, because apparently we either have to take mail there or use the Polish system to send mail. So don't expect Christmas cards from us! Or Valentines, since I usually do those instead of Christmas cards. But this way we can explore Graf and that area a bit. Wish we could have done so with the Codys, but at least Charles spent a little time there with them and knows some of their favorite places, including where to find bratwurst stuffed schnitzel. WHAT?!!?

Anyways, having a chance to explore on our own (and maybe get over being intimidated by driving here) will be good. Now if only we could magically learn Polish...

Polish is hard, y'all

Well it is the end of our 3rd full day here in Szczecin. Here is a brief recap and some observations...

Friday is a bit of a haze. I know I blogged for y'all at the end of the day, but man, most of the day I felt like a zombie. I don't remember jet lag hitting me so hard when I've been to Europe in the past. But also, the last time I was in Europe was over 10 years ago. And I did not have children.  Matthew has been up for a couple of hours every night. His poor internal clock is so screwed up. We are hoping tonight is better.

Saturday we slept in again, then went down for breakfast just before 10 am. Emmy was anxious to swim in the indoor pool, so she and Charles went down to swim after breakfast while I stayed and tried to get Matthew to nap. But he did not want to nap while they were gone, oh no, he fell asleep right before they returned. So no nap for Mommy.

Snack on a bench beside the river.

After everyone was showered and ready for the day, we finally left the room around 2 pm. We walked down to the river (the kids and I had walked that direction on a brief walk the day before, but we have to cross a major road to actually get to the water and we had Rags so I was up to do that by myself at the time). Emmy was whining about being hungry so we stopped at a stand selling pastries and bought a snack and juice and went and sat on a bench by the river to eat. That made everyone happier. We walked along the river, it was a nice day and people were out walking, biking, and riding in boats.

Same bench, facing the other direction so you can see the river!
Emmy is snapping to get Matthew's attention. Clearly it worked...

We walked up to the Basilica, which was lovely. It was interesting taking Emmy in and trying to explain the chapels, candles, etc., especially since we are not Catholic!

We kept walking and eventually came across one of the malls. I needed to go the restroom, so we decided to go and find one. We walked around a bit, then Matthew woke up so we went to change him. We eventually left the mall, then decided to go back in because we'd seen a grocery store inside (yes, all the malls apparently have grocery stores inside) and we thought getting some snacks and milk to keep in the room would be a good idea.  The grocery store was a bit overwhelming. Y'all, I don't speak Polish. I don't read Polish.  We looked around mostly, just trying to get an idea of what there is, and grabbed some cheese and crackers, etc. and checked out. Emmy had seen McDonald's in there and wanted that for supper. And we gave in.  From a 6 year old's perspective, we saw she wanted something familiar (not that she has been starving or even complaining about the food).  She was super whiny and Matthew was hungry at this point so Charles and I also got McDonald's to be easy. (There is a food court with maybe 7 or 8 choices, but at least 3 of these are U.S. chains, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's and maybe one was KFC, I cannot remember). Y'all, that was the best McDonald's food I've ever had! My friend Jocelyn lives in Germany and she said they don't eat McDonald's in the states but do in Germany because it's so much better! Do Europeans have higher standards? Who knows. But that coke was also heaven on ice. I had not had coke since we left home, but this one was amazing and on ice. A lot of Europeans do not use ice, I knew this, and Polish folks apparently never drink anything cold. And never give kids cold drinks. (I learned this tonight at dinner with new friends, more on that later). So the ice was amazing.

Midnight parties with Matthew.

Thus ended our 2nd full day. And after the late night Friday night fighting with picture uploading and Matthew waking up, we were headed to bed at 9:45 when Matthew woke up again. And then was up for 2.5 hours. Good grief. Emmy was also up crying while he was up, it was a rough evening.

So today, Sunday, began a bit groggily again. My goal was to make it down to breakfast by 9:30 and be showered before breakfast. I was showered, but Charles was not and we missed the goal by a few minutes, mostly because a certain 6 year old was being sassy. This has been the case a lot lately. Not sure if it is travel, change, a new place, tiredness, or just being a 6 year old. Probably all of the above, but she is going to have a hard time making it to 7 if she keeps this up! Seriously, we are trying to give her a lot of grace and understand where this could be coming from, but when she does things like put her hand up to stop Charles from talking/disciplining her, on my goodness.

Anyways, we headed back out around 11 to walk around some more. We had been invited to dinner tonight at the home of some "new friends." M is the wife of another officer in the unit and they have been here for 2 years. She is the friend of another Facebook friend of mine who worked for Charles' battalion in Colorado, so she connected the two of us.  We have been emailing back and forth for several months and even had a Skype chat.  She is lovely and I appreciated her helping us, especially since we already had lovely sponsors giving us info., but as always it's good to have more perspectives, and to know someone here.  Anyways, we wanted to get a bottle of wine to take as a hostess gift and we forgot when we were at the store the day before. We knew there was another mall just a few more minutes down the road, so we decided to walk that direction and get that errand done and see what we could find.

At that mall, we found the other grocery store, Real, upstairs. It reminded me more of Walmart or K-mart because they also had clothes, seasonal items (pools, outdoor toys, etc.), and other home items. We grabbed 2 bottles of wine (one for our room!) and Charles found one of the "share a coke" coke bottles that said "Supermama" and decided I needed that, and we checked out. We let Emmy get some gelato as a treat at the stand downstairs and watched the big fountain while we shared that, then headed out to discover it was raining hard. So we went back up to Real and bought umbrellas! Mine had been left at school earlier in the year and Emmy's is packed somewhere in our household goods, so we needed a couple anyways.

We walked back to the hotel in the rain, which was interesting. It was not pouring, but a steady rain and about a 15-20 minute walk. We were all quite soaked, except for Matthew. I was wearing him in my wrap and he was under the umbrella so he was nice and cozy.  Clothes were changed and we tried to get him to sleep, but he'd napped in the wrap and was not having it. Of course he was ready to sleep when we needed to get ready to go. R picked us up at 3:30 in the pouring rain and drove us to their home, about 15 minutes away. It is very big and lovely, very fancy. M had invited me to bring laundry over since having it done by the hotel can get expensive, so I graciously accepted. Except laundry here takes a long time so my 2 small loads took over 4 hours and still were not totally dry when we left at 8:45!  It was nice to get to talk to them in person and R shared a lot more about the unit with Charles. They have 2 boys who are close to Emmy's age and they all played and had fun. And they have an adorable English bulldog named Malcom who thinks he is a lap dog and loves the kids so he kept licking them and almost knocking them over (unintentionally) because he wanted to play. The cooked us a delicious supper (bacon wrapped shrimp kebobs with pineapple and mushrooms, broccoli casserole, chicken legs, and garlic bread for you detail lovers, with ice cream and sorbet for dessert) and had a lovely time. We are very grateful.

Matthew dozed in the car on the way to their house and slept in my arms before supper but by the time we headed home he was exhausted. He fell asleep in the car and I carried him up asleep and got him to nurse a bit before I put him down. He just woke up but Charles got him right back down, so now we pray he stays asleep!

And thus ends our first weekend in Poland.

Some observations:

•  We walk by people smoking frequently and Emmy is not amused by the smell.  When I studied in Spain I was quite used to it, but after so many years of being around little to no smoking, it does stand out.
• I'm going to miss ice and cold beverages until we are in our own home and can make ice, and I may need someone to send me some good old fashioned ice cube trays. M told me when they asked for cold milk for their children (because here they give kids warm milk) people looked at them as if they were crazy. They don't give children cold beverages. Is this supposed to be detrimental in some way? 
• Polish is hard, y'all! Seriously, I've listened to how to say things like "good morning" and "thank you" over and over on Google translate, and I'm still not certain I could tell you now if I had to. The pronunciation looks nothing like what it sounds like, to me at least. I feel better that the people we've met have been here 1 year and 2 years and they all say the language is so hard for them. R and M both say they have hardly learned any. Gonna be super frustrated with that one, so learning to let it go and do the best I can is going to be a hard one for me.

Overall we are doing ok. No major meltdowns on my part, I kept waiting for something during the travels to break me down (Karen had warned me it would happen) but we're doing ok. I'm afraid when it does hit me, it may be ugly! Haha.

The hotel has a children's area (many businesses do, we've told and we've seen so far), which was useful when he woke up in the middle of the night and we were trying to keep him from waking Emmy up.

At least he's cute at midnight.

So, we moved to Poland

Remember in my last couple of posts I mentioned that a lot had been going on and I had a lot to update? Well, most of you, my very small readership, know that meant we found out the last day of February that Charles' next assignment would take us to Poland. Yes, POLAND. And, here we are. It has been a loooong few weeks since that hilariously shocking day, and on Wednesday, 15 July, we flew out of Atlanta and arrived the following afternoon in Szczecin, Poland, our new city for the next 2-3 years.

(EDIT: Photos are at the bottom. New computer, a baby that woke up, etc. made adding photos difficult so I'm just adding them at the bottom, so if you get bored reading, scroll down!)

Since I have recounted parts of the trip multiple times today, I thought I'd answer a few FAQs here for you all. Feel free to follow up with questions. :) Or feel free to ignore most of this, but for those of you like details (hi Mom!), read on...

1. How was the flight? How was going through customs? 

• We flew out of Atlanta at 4:10 pm in the afternoon EDT.  We had 4 seats together in the middle of the plane. We flew Lufthansa, a first for me, though not for Charles, and it was quite nice. Each seat had a screen, as most longer flights do these days, so each of us had a plethora of movies and shows to choose from. Emmy enjoyed watching Home. I watched the latest Avengers movie over the course of several painful hours...Because the flight was ok. 
• The whole trip was not as bad as it could have been, and most of it was not the stuff from my nightmares, but...getting a baby to sleep on a plane with like 5 other crying babies, tons of SCREENS to distract him (he loves to look at TVs, computers, etc.), and other strange noises is not easy. He did sleep in his car seat after take off for about an hour or more. He woke up just as they were bringing food around so that meant I got to eat one handed holding a baby in one arm perched against his car seat. A baby who grunts a lot when food does not get into his mouth fast enough. Matthew thought the dinner was quite tasty. It was SO much fun! (Please note the sarcasm.) 
• After dinner (a choice of chicken and mashed potatoes or pasta) when I did try to settle him back down, many times over the next couple of hours one of us would have him almost asleep and something would happen to distract him and then we'd have to start all over. Walking him around was difficult, and when you did, there were lots of other screens to look at, fun! 
• Speaking of screens, he loved to touch mine...every time you touch it, it turns on, so I would turn it off, he'd turn it back on. Fun game! Eventually Charles managed to get him to sleep and handed him to me and we got him in his car seat. But the car seat did not recline as much as it usually does so his head tipped forward and when he shifted, he'd almost wake himself. So I did not sleep much because I was constantly adjusting the pillow to try and keep him asleep and eventually he just slept in my arms. I'm sure that flying in a car seat is the safest thing for a baby, but frankly it was almost completely pointless. Sorry car seat advocates and Car Seats for the Littles (a great site about car seats and car seat safety). When you are trying to keep the baby from screaming his or her head off, well, you do what you gotta do. Some people may not mind being hated by the entire plane, but since there were other babies that I was hating because they woke mine up, yeah, I'm not one of those people.
• My "sleeping" caused me to miss breakfast (seriously, I barely slept more than maybe 20 min at a time, how did I manage to miss this? ) but I did wake up enough to pass him off to Charles and get myself to the bathroom, then wake Matthew up for a diaper change before we landed. I feared disaster if I did not since he badly needed a diaper change when we arrived at the Atlanta airport in the first place (there was no place to change him at lunch and it was so hot I did not want to do it in the car, big mistake) and a super saturated diaper plus a dirty diaper means I was changing a diaper on the floor of the international terminal by the business class check in line. Fortunately no one was in line. 
• But I digress, so we landed uneventfully in Frankfurt, Germany at about 7:15 am local time.  By now Matthew was in a GREAT mood (seriously)! Because Charles and I were both on separate aisles, he took Emmy and the car seat and the dog and went up one aisle and I went with Matthew and several bags up the other. I waited just as I got off the plane for them, worried that he had so much stuff (the car seat was heavy) that we'd need to quickly regroup. And I waited, and waited, and waited. And then I walked on up because someone said there were 2 exits to the plane (huh? I still couldn't figure that one out) so I came to a landing where you had to go up stairs or wait on an elevator. I waited a couple more minutes, then went up the stairs and waited at the gate. And waited and waited. I was getting a tiny bit panicky and asked a flight attendant and she said a few people were still waiting on the elevator. Suddenly, there they were coming down the hall calling my name. He'd gotten on off and also waited and waited and finally took off looking for me. Word to the wise: never leave the gate area and always agree that you'll just meet at the gate. Ugh. I've never taken an international flight that dumped you into the terminal, they almost always have a hall that takes you directly to immigration, so this was a new one for me in a lot of ways. 
• So one we were together again, we hustled back down the terminal towards passport control, which led us to the next terminal where our flight to Berlin was boarding. Miraculously, once through passport control no one (literally no one) was standing in the customs area, so we passed on through. Some of you know, my nightmares were mostly about trying to get all of us quickly through customs with all our bags. In the US, when you land in the airport and still have another flight, you still have to get all your bags and go through customs, then recheck them. But here, no! Not only was there no one to stop us, we just had our carry-ons! That was enough to have to deal with, trust me, getting the 9 checked bags, oh man, I just can't even. 
• We made it to the gate of our next flight to Berlin (in the very warm airport, I might add) with relative ease, a huge, huge relief. We only had a little over an hour before the next one, so we'd been a little worried and we'd just tried to have faith it would work out, and it did.  Charles refilled water bottles and I went on a hunt to find a place to change Matthew (PSA, European bathrooms thus far do not have changing tables) and I did eventually find a designated baby room for this. By the time I got back to the gate, they were starting to board.  We did not hear them call families with children first, but a nice lady saw our sideshow standing there and called us on up to board. Matthew was almost asleep again in the wrap, so I wore him on the flight and his car seat just sat empty in its seat. He slept most of the way of the 45 min flight until the very end when a stupid flight attendant made me open the window shade, which streamed sunlight into his face, and also "buckle" him in (they have this buckle attachment that goes on my belt) and I had to wake him up to do it properly. Seriously, he was probably safer in the wrap because he was screaming so much I took him out of the wrap, unbuckling him in the process, and let him nurse to land. Again, sorry car seat safety advocates. 
• Once deplaned in Berlin, we waited hardly anytime before all 10 checked items were off (9 bags and Emmy's new booster in it's original box, car seat safety folks). Charles got them all on a couple of carts and I pushed one and carried Matthew in the wrap and Rags in her carrier while Charles pushed the other and pulled another suitcase with the car seat strapped to it, and Emmy pulled the final suitcase. Seriously, so many people just started at us. We were a sideshow! Haha. We did have to pass through "customs" again but there was just a lady sitting there and no real place to stop us, so I guess she just made sure no one looked sketchy? Who knows. 

2. How did Rags do? 

• She did well, she barked a couple of times about halfway through the long flight. Charles took her to the bathroom and got her out and gave her a puddle pad. She did not use it, just seems she wanted to be held and she was quiet after that. In Frankfurt at the gate for our Berlin flight I let her out and gave her more water and a chance to use the puddle pad, but again she was not interested. She finally went potty once we were finally outside in Berlin. Which all proves that all her "accidents" are just "intentionals". She can hold it, she just gets mad when ignored. The calming treats we bought her seem to be helping. 

3. Back to "how the kids did..." and our drive to Szczecin: 

• It took awhile to find our sponsor, Chris. I think he somehow thought we had 2 older children, so me with a baby threw him off. He'd brought along one of the NCOs from the unit in one of the vans the unit uses (didn't want to just say TMP for you non military folks). He took all of the checked bags in the TMP and was waiting around for another family to get in later on, and Chris took us in his car. 
• The drive from Berlin to Szcecin is usually pretty short, 2 hours or less, but they were doing road work so we were detoured off the highway and through the suburbs, which was pretty but full of traffic and took much longer. I was so tired and dozed during some of this drive that it's a little fuzzy, but I think it took us almost 3 hours. 
• Of course, that was 3 hours with 3 stops. During the flights, Emerson Elizabeth was awesome, I mean exceptionally awesome. And we are thankful. She was praised and rewarded. And then we got into the car with Chris and pretty quickly, she fell asleep. And then she woke up and needed a potty break. Fair enough, Chris has kids, he gets it, so we stopped. And back on the road, that's when she got whiny. The lack of sleep and the fact that for her body it was the middle of the night caught up and she was so rude and ugly. She wanted to be covered up a certain way. And she whined about it. And woke her brother up in the process. Ugh. We both wanted to strangle her. Fortunately you know that when you have kids and other people's act up like yours do you smirk because you are glad it is not you threatening through gritted teeth, so Chris was very nice about it, but man she was obnoxious and there were 2 more stops to attempt to fix her blanket in an acceptable manner. 
• Finally, we entered Poland and Szczecin. Our city is right on the German border so by the time we got to Poland we were almost there!

4. What is the time difference? 

• We are 6 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone. I'm not even sure that this time zone has a name, but if you're looking it up, look for Warsaw. 

5. How is the hotel? How is your room? How long will you be in the hotel? 

• The hotel is good, it is quite nice. It is near the city center, there is plenty that is walking distance from us (which is good because our car is still on a boat).  We have 2 rooms that are adjoining, and one is the handicapped accessible room, so it is even larger.  It is a bit of a mess and we need to unpack more.  We will be here at least a couple of weeks, our lease starts 1 August, plus our realtor is out of town until week after next. Also, our unaccompanied bags do not arrive for several days. 

6. How did everyone sleep? 

• As previously mentioned, by the drive here I was practically a zombie. I could barely stay awake once I dozed off in the car. Once we arrived at the hotel at around 2 pm local time, we had to wait about 40 minutes for our rooms to be ready.  By the time we got everyone in here and settled, I nursed Matthew and he and I dozed on the bed. Charles started to fall asleep and then though better of himself. Emmy watched cartoons in Polish. We were waiting for our bags to be delivered around 5 pm, but by 5:30 they were turning into pumpkins, so we went down to eat supper in the hotel restaurant. Matthew fell asleep in his high chair. We got the kids both in bed by about 7:30, then we were in bed shortly after 8 pm.  
• Around 11:15, Matthew woke up. I thought he just wanted to eat, but no, he wanted to PARTY. In fairness, this was about supper time for his body.  He nursed, had a bottle, then stood on the floor holding onto his carseat (a favorite position these days) and pulled out magazines and such I'd stuck in there. Finally sometime after 12:30 he went back to sleep. Emmy came and got in bed with us at some point, then Charles took her back to bed and fell asleep with her. He came back in when his alarm went off at 7, and promptly fell back to sleep. 
• We woke up at 9:27 am. He was supposed to be meeting Chris downstairs at 9. Oops! He had a message from Chris that he was running late and would arrive at 9:30, so Charles told him that was ok, he'd just woken up! While he was frantically throwing on clothes, Matthew woke up. Then Emmy woke up just after Charles left. This left me alone to take them all down while we let Rags go out, then brought her up and made it to breakfast after 10 (it ends at 10). Emmy melted down when I told her we had missed breakfast so we ran back down and they had not started putting it away so we managed to get to eat there.  Matthew went back down awhile later and took a looong nap. Like over 3 hours, I finally woke him up. During that time I dozed again (apparently the time change with kids is a lot harder than I remember it being in my younger, childless days) and Emmy complained about the Sound of Music on TV being dubbed in Polish and me not letting her eat a granola bar in my bed. The usual. 
• The kids are in bed tonight and we are going to be soon. Pray for a good night's rest and that we can all adjust a bit. I'm still feeling rather zombie-like. 

7.  Wait, Charles had to go to work?

• Yes! He had to go sign in and start some of the many pieces of paperwork, etc. that need to be done. No time to waste! He said he met several different members of the U.S. contingency, and the new person in charge of our support element seems to be great, so that is good news! He got back here around 2:15 pm and dropped off a box of things our first sponsors had left for us, then ran back downstairs and Chris took him to get our cell phones squared away. 

8. Which brings me to, phones and communication! How can you talk to us, you ask?

• We now have Polish cell phone numbers. We did take our U.S. cell phones with us, our accounts are suspended and whenever we come back to visit, or when we return for good, they can be reactivated with our old numbers. So save those!  We were able to swap out the SIM card for one with our carrier over here, so I now feel a lot better having a way to communicate with Charles when he's gone and with other people here. You can call us on them, and we'll be glad to give you, but once we are in our house we do plan to have a plan that will allow us to call the U.S. much cheaper.  
• We both are using an app called Whatsapp (https://www.whatsapp.com/) that you can download to your phone, it allows us to text for free and we can even make calls through that. Use our email addresses to find us. I talked to my mom today, it was not a great connection but it does work in a pinch.  We can also Skype and Facetime!  My friend Jocelyn and I use Whatsapp to set up phone or Skype dates and then if we are using the phone, she calls me from Germany because it is cheapest for her. 

9. When do you get a house? 

• Well, we have a house, we just can't move in yet! Our lease is for August 1st and our retaltor is on holiday, as they say here, so we will do a walk through with her when she returns week after next. I'm not sure if we'd be able to get the key early since the 1st is a Saturday, but fingers crossed we could get the key and get our unaccompanied shipment (which has our air mattresses, Matthew's crib, linens, some kitchen stuff, toys, etc. in it) scheduled for delivery. It was sent on a plane so it should be here by the 22nd, I believe. 
• We have a signed a lease on the home that our original sponsors occupied (for those that don't know, we knew them from early in Charles' career, the wife was active duty and was actually in Charles' first unit and he and Angela shared an office when he joined his first unit and so I think they volunteered to be our sponsors, but they were moving back to the States this summer. Originally they were going to be here when we arrived, but their assignment changed and Steve had to be at the Pentagon much sooner so they just left Poland around the same time we arrived in the Southeast 3 weeks ago). We did a Skype tour of the house several weeks ago and decided it would work. Because the U.S. contingency has grown this summer, as have other nations' populations, housing is at more of a premium and folks we've talked to here, our sponsors included, were worried about us finding something without having to go far outside of the city. 
• The house is an older German style home, and should suit us fine, though I'm anxious to see it in person! It has 4 bedrooms (guest room!) and 3 bathrooms. It is quirky and European homes are just different so it will take some getting used to, but it has a lot of space and surprisingly good storage and a surprisingly good kitchen for Europe (most are super small) so I think it will work just fine. I'll share more about it when we move in. I can send you the address, if you want to see the outside of it on Google maps! It is about 3 km, just over 2 miles, from Charles office so we hope to get by with just one car, but we'll see about that. 

10. Speaking of cars, how will you get around? 

• My car is on a boat. We shipped it from Dallas the first of June, but unfortunately it is not scheduled to be delivered until later in August, I think by the 10th. Not sure how long we can last without a car, but we'll see! 

11. How can we send you mail? 

• We have an APO so you can send mail, just like you did when Charles was deployed. You have to use the post office, so packages must be mailed Priority Mail and complete a customs form, plus we have size limits and things may take awhile to get here, but it can be done! I will send out an email with this information, so please let me know if you don't get it. 

So there is a very long, yet oh so brief, update on us. :) More to come, I promise, but for now, I have to go play the tooth fairy. Because oh yes, Emmy lost her 2nd tooth today.  

Fuzzy selfie from the gate in Atlanta

Leaving on a jet plane! 

This was outside the Berlin airport waiting to meet up with the folks picking us up. 

I had to try and capture all our stuff. I feel better, though, knowing other people said they had a lot more. Our sponsor said when they arrived last year with their 3 year old twins they had almost twice as much as we did. 

Asleep in his high chair at supper Thursday night.

 Here are a few photos of our rooms, I've had a lot of questions about where we are staying. :)

Room 1, note the tiny human holding onto his car seat and playing. He loves to stand up all.the.time.

Other view of our room. Bad lighting, but you get the idea.

In the middle of unpacking

Big bathroom for the accessible room. (I almost said ADA but I guess it's not ADA...EDA? PDA? Haha)

Room 2, Matthew and Emmy's "room"

Kids' room, the brown door on the right is the connecting door to our room. 

Note Emmy had Charles write to the Tooth Fairy and her response. I could not edit before I uploaded, will try to fix it later.

She lost her 2nd tooth!