NEW ARRIVALS

Well great day in the morning – we had a big slice of home arrive yesterday!! Not only did our car arrive from the states, our Express Shipment also showed up at the hotel! Things are changing over here – here’s how:

The Honda arrived!!! This is overall very good – but has a drawback or two. The good: of course, we’re glad it made it! It is registered and inspected and road ready for us here in Stuttgart. Having it gives me freedom of a different flavor because I wasn’t allowed to drive the rental car. Now I can drop Hubbz off at work and do whatever errands I want, visit with friends, etc. The downside is – now I have to drive…and PARK… in Germany. It’s an understatement to say that parking is nerve wracking. The spaces are tiny, the turns are sharp and well, now the paint I scratch is mine!!! Driving isn’t that tough – but remembering the rules, tracking along with the GPS and maintaining some modicum of sanity are difficult when performed simultaneously (difficult for me, that is!). I’m rusty, so I’m giving myself a break. It will all come naturally soon enough, I hope!!  In the meantime, Hubbz is happy to retire his chauffeur cap for a bit!

With the arrival of the Express Shipment, we now have in our possession the following items:

HANGERS!!! - We can actually hang all of the clothes we want in our hotel closet. What a relief, since we’ve been sharing 3 drawers and a handful of hotel hangers for the past month.

Extra clothes – Hubblicious triaged some clothing items to arrive later and was happy to have them arrive yesterday – thus further enhancing our need for...HANGERS!!

CDs and DVDs. – O Holy Night, goodbye CNN!!! If you’ve ever spent any time at a hotel in Europe, you know that there are a scant few tv channels broadcast in English. Here they are CNN and Bloomberg TV. There’s only so much Richard Quest a girl can handle!! We’ve been limping along leaning heavily on iTunes and Netflix for other entertainment (and did I mention I’ve read no less than 6 books since we left the states?!). But now we can gorge ourselves on movies and tv series we’ve collected over the years. It’s manna in the dessert, people!!

Printer – I’m still working, albeit on a part time basis, here in Deutschland. It turned out, on final inspection, that our printer/scanner/copier was dual voltage. Completely by accident, but what a great turn of events!! So we boxed it up and forwarded it along. Having it today has made my work day waaaayyyyyy easier. Yay!

A pot and pan – Sometimes you get into an apartment before your big shipment of household goods arrives. In that case, you kind of limp along with what you can, because you sure don’t want to buy things that you’ll only need for a few weeks. For this reason, I picked one frying pan and one pot to ship quickly – just in case we get a stove before we get our stuff. For now, they sit in an empty suitcase waiting to fulfill their cookware destinies.

And some Trader Joes Treats - In a crazy fit (of inspiration?), I grabbed a few extra boxes of Madras Lentils (try them, they look like dog food but they are delicious and healthy!) and some snack packs of nuts from TJ’s before we left. I figured with access to a microwave at the hotel, the lentils would be a welcome change from restaurant fare and the nuts would be a healthy hotel room snack. Turns out, I had no idea how tired of restaurant food I would be! So the lentils will also serve as a little sanity booster when I nuke them in the PCS lounge for dinner one night. And the nuts –well, yeah, they have nuts here in Germany – but they’re familiar and homey and we’re happy to have them :)

THIS JUST IN - we have an appointment with the landlord for Friday night for the Holy Grail Apartment!!  We're scared to be too hopeful, but the realtor is very confident that this is a positive sign for us and we're thrilled to have made it thus far.  Keep your fingers crossed that they like us.  (Aren't you tired of hearing about this from me?? I'm getting tired of myself already)