The GOOD, the bad, and the UgLy

March 26, 2012

Guten Tag (Good day)! We had an exciting weekend! We went to Schwetzingen Schloss, which is a palace with a beautiful garden. The garden in August is much prettier then now (March), but the kids didn’t care about the lack of flowers, greenery and water in the fountains. The garden is huge, and takes hours to go through. The kids loved running around, seeing the birds, and just being outside.

Sunday we stayed home, and played on the farm. Almost everything is closed on Sundays in Germany. Especially grocery stores, clothing stores, etc. Gas stations are open, and a few restaurants open later in the day. Fortunately we had just enough food to get us through the day, and Monday morning! J

Today, I had my breaking point…  L Steven can be strong willed. Almost everything is a fight with him.

At this particular time, the girls were riding with Dave, and I was following him in my car with Steven. As I was driving down the autobahn, I looked at Steven and noticed he had taken off his seatbelt. I flashed my lights at Dave. We were going to pull over at a rest stop. When we got to the rest stop there was only one parking space. Dave continued on the highway, but I had to stop and strap Steven back in. Steven was putting up a fight!!!       Then I hit a point of no return…and broke down.

It wasn’t just this one incident that brought me to tears… it was the fact that everything “easy” in life, is now Hard! Things I wouldn’t have thought twice about are now difficult and stressful.

As I was sitting alongside the autobahn, crying, I couldn’t help but ask myself …

“What am I doing?”   “Why am I here?”   “Really?… 5 months?”

I wiped my tears, put on my big girl pants, buckled my little man into his car-seat, and surprisingly I felt a lot better. J When I got home I found comfort in talking to my husband, and telling him what to say in order to make me feel better.

It is difficult not having adult conversation all day… everyday. It is very different living in a country, compared to being on vacation. I have 3 children to care for. I’m in a small German town and most people only speak German. Grocery shopping is a nightmare because I can’t read German. I want to pick up my phone and call my friends but I can’t.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I am trying to portray my exact experiences, and emotions. In a few weeks, I will be a pro German grocery store shopper! J These are all things that I expected. I knew I would have to adapt to my ‘new’ life. It is a slow process but I am getting more comfortable everyday. I am looking forward to the lessons in life I will find through this journey. 

A small Victory!

March 21, 2012

We are still working on getting settled in. It has been difficult because we had necessary obligations. We had to get our German resident permits, open a EU bank account, and become residents in the village we are residing in. It took most of yesterday to accomplish these tasks. I also went with the coordinator from the German Gentex office to look at a few apartments in the city of Heilbronn. Heilbronn is much closer to Dave’s work, and I think it would be best to live in the city.

Life on the farm is good, but it is a big adjustment for me. The small kids cannot go outside and play without close supervision because of all the tractors, and heavy equipment, and it is only fun looking at cows the first twenty times. J Hopefully we will find out about the apartment. It is very difficult finding available apartments in the city right now. Additionally, people are hesitant to lease to Gentex (a company), and instead of an individual. These factors have contributed to the delay in finding an apartment.

It was a humbling experience yesterday looking at apartments. Initially I felt like I was on the television show “House Hunters International”. But when we were viewing the second apartment, the owners were not thrilled with a foreigner living in their apartment, and Gentex holding the lease.

Today was a victory for me! We all loaded up in the van. (Yes we have a van!) We dropped Dave off at work, because we needed groceries (so I needed the car). When leaving his work I realized I needed to find a bank to get cash, because in small towns most stores do not accept MasterCard/Visa. You need the EU bank card, which we will receive in a week. I found a bank, went grocery shopping, and got back home, with all three kids! This was a HUGE victory! Oh the small things in life. J

                                              

Adventure #1 ----- Getting to Germany

It was definitely stressful the last week getting everyone packed and ready for Germany. At last March 18 came and we headed to the airport. It was difficult keeping everyone together because, of course, nobody wanted to ride in the stroller. We made it from Grand Rapids to Chicago, without any issues. I sat by Caitlyn and Emma. Caitlyn asked the flight attendant if she was the “Captain” which made everyone around us laugh.

Our flight from Chicago to Frankfort was longggg of course ~ 8 hours… Each seat had a touch screen computer, so we could pick movies, television shows, games, etc. The girls thought this was the coolest thing ever!!! So they couldn’t sleep of course. Steven passed out for the last 2 or 3 hours (lucky Dave!). The plane started descending for landing, and apparently this is a good time to sleep, because Emma and Caitlyn fell asleep. Minutes before landing Emma wakes up, complains of a stomachache, and states she is going to puke. I have nothing to give her, so I do what any mom would do… cupped my hands together and let her puke in them. My hands were not big enough; she turned to her sister (Caitlyn who was sleeping) and continued to vomit on her. At this point, I don’t know what to do, I started calling for the flight attendant, who gave me approval to break the rules and get out of my seat. I carried Caitlyn to the back of the plane and had to first, wake her up, and then change her clothes (I had pants, but she had to wear one of Steven's shirts). As this is going on she is crying “ I wet” “I wet”… Emma was now doing better, we were reseated on blankets covering our seats, and the plane was landed.

Now we are in Frankfort airport… Dave and I get separated. He is with Emma and Steven, and I have Caitlyn. I have the stroller so I can’t search the airport quickly or efficiently. About five minutes before I would have had a freak out… we stumble upon each other…. Thank Goodness!

The courier service picked us up from the airport, and then brought us to the German office where Dave will be working. Our belongings were unloaded, and we walked inside to get our rental car. That’s when it was discovered no one actually checked our itinerary… it was assumed we would get to the office around noon, so our rental car was going to be brought there around noon. FYI we were there at 8:15am! So my sleep deprived little girls were passed out in the lobby of Gentex, Steven was running around, and Dave and I were losing steam. One of Dave’s co-workers in the German office called his wife, and she brought us car seats, and drove us to our apartment. It was now around 10:30am, and we all got in bed and slept. ZZzzzzzzzzz

Around 5:00pm we met the owners of the farm we are staying at. They gave us a tour, and showed us the sheep, chickens, rabbits, cats, dog, and the cows. They have a couple kids around Emma’s age, and a daughter Caitlyn’s age. The family speaks very little English, but I think we communicated alright.

We needed to do one last thing before the day was over… get dinner and groceries. The kids didn’t want to leave, but I was not brave enough to venture off the farm alone. For multiple reasons I was nervous:
I didn’t know where in the world I was going
I haven’t driven a manual transmission in at least 5 years 
I have NEVER driven in Germany
We didn’t have any EUROS, and we needed to find an ATM

So I made everyone come with me to run our errands. I made sure I drove because I needed to get use to driving here. It was difficult balancing everything such as looking at the Garmin, learning the street signs and meanings, shifting the gears, navigating the twisting and skinny roads. Dave wasn’t impressed. But I have 5 months to practice… right?

By the time we got to an ATM (3 missed left turns and multiple “redirections” from Garmin later) the kids were sleeping. I quickly went into a grocery store and picked up some items to get us through tomorrow…. Our first dinner in Germany was home cooked frozen pizza! My family is so lucky to have my cooking.