So, it's been awhile since I've really posted something here, I guess it's about time I did, huh? Alright, well we've been kinda busy, frustrated, happy, traveling, visiting and so on...Over the Christmas holiday we flew to GA to spend Christmas with my folks. While we were there I got to see both my brothers and their wives and my niece and nephew. After Christmas we went to Warner Robins to visit with James' side of the fam. We got to see his folks of course and also enjoyed time with one of his sisters (Seana, the one in the Army) as well as time with his Aunt Carol and Uncle Ralph. It was a lovely time in both places but MUCH too short. We didn't realize how much we missed the states and neither of us wanted to come back to Germany, but we are here nonetheless and will continue to make the best of it while we are!
Since before the holidays there have been rumors of the company James is with having to move this summer and therefore James and I having to move with them...Well it's true, they are moving (if the army ever gives them orders to) but because James will be promoted to captain this summer or sooner or later we will not be moving with them. We were very excited to hear this news because neither of us wanted to move. HOWEVER, since he'll be promoted, he'll be sent to (possibly) another division/company/unit (I don't know what they call them) and unfortunately the unit he's being sent to (possibly) is also moving! Not only are still we moving (possibly), we'll be moving sooner than expected, grrr (Mayish). I wouldn't mind it so much if we'd been in our house for longer than a year (by that I mean a year and a half at least!) and we'll have only been in this place for 1 year and possibly 2 months before we have to move. I also wouldn't mind it as much if they'd stop breaking our stuff as they're packing and moving it so we wouldn't have to deal with the headache of claiming it all! *BIG SIGH* Oh well, that's how it works in the Army!
(take a step back in time with me...i didn't finish this post until after Carol and Ralph left, but let's pretend they are still here for the sake of me not having to change this part of the post that i wrote already...)
On to more exciting things! We have family visiting us right now, yay!! Aunt Carol & Uncle Ralph arrived here the morning of the 16th of February and will be staying until the 27th (I think, whatever this coming Tuesday is) of February. The Saturday after they got here we went by train to Heidelberg and walked around the city and saw the sites. A very picturesque town. There is a neat castle/fortress thing there that is partially in ruins and partially rebuilt in what looks like a Victorian style. I didn't take any pictures of the rebuilt part 'cause it just wasn't as pretty as the rest of the place, even being in ruins!
We've taken them to a couple of our favorite restaurants, a nice little Chinese place and another place called Alt Landstuhl which has a most excellent steak like dish that I can't spell the name of but it's SO very yummy! They seemed to enjoy both places and want to go back to the Chinese place before they leave.
(now present day...picking up the post from where i left off...i know, i'm a slacker but it's after 3am, gimme a break! ;-)
We did go back to the Chinese place and it was good! The Monday before Ash Wednesday we had another adventure with them. They wanted to see Koblenz, which is about a 2 1/2 - 3 hour train ride from here. Before I go on, you all know what Marti Gra (sp) is right? Well the Germans have their own version of that here, in fact they celebrated it soon after James and I first arrived here last year, it's called Fasching (sp)
pronounced fahh-shing it's kinda like a mix between Halloween and Marti Gra for adults here
. What we didn't know was that ALL of Germany celebrates this holiday, stupid us, we thought it was just a Kaiserslautern thing. We found this out on our way to Koblenz that fateful Monday morning...We arrived at the train station about 20 mins. before the train was to depart. We got our tickets (Carol and Ralph had theirs already) and proceeded to the proper train tracks. We should have gotten the hint from all the people (adults mostly, a few teeny boppers) dressed in costume, with their cases and bottles of beer/wine/other alcoholic beverages waiting with us that maybe we should wait for the next train...nope...The train came and those of us that could, Carol, Ralph, James and myself included, rushed to grab a seat or place to stand. Unfortunately by the time we were able to actually get on the train, all the seats had been filled, as well as the isles, stairs, halls (where the bathrooms were) and doorway area of the train had been filled. So what did we do, we got on anyways and were pretty much packed in like sardines, but the fun doesn't stop there, oooh no, it gets better.
Apparently the conductor (or whatever the driver of the train is called) didn't realize the massive amount of people he/she had on this train, because it continued to make it's stops for the next twenty minutes or so it seemed. Among those stops there was one particularly "fun" one that involved two people getting off the train and a handful more trying to get on the train...sadly I was right by the door that had opened for this particular stop...the two people getting off the train wasn't nearly as bad as the FIVE+ pushing their way onto it. Needless to say, as they were pushing their way onto the train, I was being smushed up against
at least three people I didn't know, not including the ones that were doing the smushing. As this was going on the folks from the other doorway side were yelling in German at the people trying to get on the train saying it was too full and to wait for the next train, and then THEY started pushing them back out, I almost went with them, and so the pushing and shoving went on for a couple of minutes until finally (thank God) those that were trying to get on decided it would be okay if they waited for the next train that was supposed to arrive in 7 mins.
RIGHT, so we ride the some more make more stops where no one gets on or off, until Aunt Carol starts to feel faint from all the heat 'cause of all the people. We decided we'd get off at the next stop and wait for the next train if need be, simply hoping it wouldn't be as packed. Apparently the stop we got off at was THE stop because the train emptied, it literally took about 3-5 mins for everyone to get off the train. It was quite a sight to behold, all these drunk people dismounting a train, wearing ridiculous costumes and it wasn't even yet ten in the morning. Since the sea of people got off the train we figured we'd get back on and hopefully reach our destination without further obstacles, which we did.
Once in Koblenz there were a few stops that Uncle Ralph wanted to make (I don't remember what they were, I think all the people scared it outta me). As we were making our way to one of them, we kept seeing groups of costumed people just standing around and the groups only got bigger as we went along. At this point James and I are both fairly uncomfortable, large groups of people, okay, large groups of crazy dressed up, drunk people, not so good. We wandered some more before we realized we weren't going to make it to where ever it was we were trying to go because there was a parade going on, hence the groups of people. We decided to try and make our way back to the train station, now that was
fun! If you like swimming through large crowds of drunk adults and teeny boppers, with glass all over the ground, for a few miles. Thankfully we made it back home in one piece.
What we learned that we'll pass on to people who might visit us, don't come in February and if you do, come AFTER Ash Wednesday!!! (and before the summer, as we won't have a nice air conditioned place for you to visit)
All in all our visit with Carol and Ralph was a welcomed and pleasant one. We enjoyed having a piece of home with us while they were here. Sadly though they are probably the only family that will get to see the place we live in now, as I said before we'll probably be moving. Then again nothing is ever sure fire in the Army, at least not for us right now, so who knows!
Aside from that and the *schizophrenic weather* we've had, we've just been dealing with the everyday changes as to what's going to happen with us, we're still in limbo and have been since last summer. I hope they tell us soon seeing as how if we're supposed to move and be there by 1 May, I'd like to start trying to find a place to live, but we can't even do that without orders which of course we still don't have! GRRR!
*schizophrenic weather* in a single day (this past Monday actually) within minutes we experienced, nice and sunny to raining to snowing back to sunny to hailing to snowing to sunny again and to finish it all up a rainy/snowy/haily evening that left us with a couple inches of snow Tuesday morning and no I'm not making this up! SCHIZO!!!!!!!!
So as we deal with the craziness that is our lives right now, please keep us in your prayers as you are in ours. And a special request, because of all that's going on I've not been getting much sleep if any. As it is already it's now 4:3o am and though i'm EXTREMELY tired and sleepy (two different things for me) I cannot fall asleep and will probably be up until this evening. Anyways, if you think about it, I ask for your prayers to help me get some much needed and much much wanted sleep. Thank you! I'll try and get some pictures up from our visit to Heidelberg soon, toodles!
This was a cool door that James and I really liked in the Forum, it was attached to a building of course but I don't know the name of it...go figure right!
That building that's behind us and to the right a little, next to the building with the collums, was the cool door building...we are sitting on some of the random ruins that are all over the Forum.
Aww, us with the Colosseum in the back ground and some random guy.
Me attempting to be "cute" as we take a sneaky photo of the Roman Guards in the background so we didn't have to pay them!
