Apologies to the folks who check this blog regularly and are probably mighty ticked that there's been nothing new for several weeks. I promise, this is temporary.
I usually try to keep my posts positive...which is why I haven't posted much lately. I must confess that I have been having a very difficult time adjusting during this move to Germany. It has been the perfect storm of errors, changed plans, miscommunication, and culture shock. My life has felt like a roller coaster: I'll have a challenging day, followed by a really good day, followed by a day that's so discouraging that I just want to curl up in bed and cry for several more days. Part of what is making this transition so challenging is the fact that most people who've been through this only told us how awesome it was going to be to live in Germany. Only two people tried to break the news that it was going to be a rocky start. But that in itself was reassuring, because it means that other people had a tough time and we're not alone in this experience. I've been talking to as many people as I can about this - there has been massive turnover in the squadron Mike's in now, and there are tons of new people over the last few months - and most people say the same things: 1) this is way harder than they expected; 2) they wish somebody would have WARNED them about how hard it would be; and 3) spouses find it particularly difficult. As alienated as I felt when we moved to Middle Georgia eight years ago, I felt more alienated and isolated here. But it's getting better, and I keep hearing (from strangers, even) that it takes at least 3 months to get stabilized. I am extremely grateful that Mike works closely with 5 people (and their families) who have been friendly, helpful, supportive, and just plain awesome. Several of them have gone way above and beyond for us.
I won't get into all the nitty gritty of our daily hurdles, but they have to do with a million little things: construction areas and detours with no warning signs, German salespeople who don't speak English (and are highly annoyed that I speak very little German), trying to figure out how to plug in our home phone and then discovering we can't get incoming calls (a glitch that has since been fixed), driving on a highway system that ignores all sense of navigational direction, base employees being NO HELP WHATSOEVER, inability to buy household goods at the BX because they're closing the old shops and opening a new one that will mobbed for weeks, and the local German folk giving cold, hard stares to anyone they don't know.
And don't even get me started about how to work our oven. It's still a mystery to me.
BUT the good news is that all our stuff arrived a couple of days ago. Once I get the house in order, including our PC, I'll be able to start catching up on photos from the last month or so.
