Remaining Branches: First Week in Deutschland

In case you're wondering...we're still in Germany! We don't have Internet set up in our apartment yet, so we have to walk about 25 minutes to a cafe that has wireless Internet and power outlets. I've bought many scoops of eis (ice cream), apfelsafts (apple juice), and other things to not feel guilty about sitting in this cafe for hours using the Internet. We have a month-long subscription, so hopefully our Internet will be up and going by that point.

We are now officially residents of Friedrichshafen and can stay in Germany for one year. We got our residency stamp and our visas in our passports this week which was definitely the most important thing for us to do right away. We have to go back again when our visas expire to renew them for another year, but that shouldn't be too hard. We spent multiple mornings this week going to the Rathaus (city hall) to figure this all out with the help of one of Brian's co-workers that speaks English and has had to do this all recently for his wife who is from Brazil.

Our apartment is very large. Definitely an upgrade in size from our apartment in Belleville! There are definitely some things that need to be replaced, but MTU will hopefully pay for most of that (since it belongs to them) and we just have to make sure we go about purchasing these things in the correct way. I will take some pictures of our apartment and post them on the blog sometime. We have a guest bedroom and bathroom, so we will definitely take any visitors we can get!

It has been pretty rainy here this week. The first weekend we got here was gorgeous, but it has rained some almost every day since then. Only one day was hard rain, but the steady drizzle is not the most pleasant. Brian walks to work in his rain suit and I have an umbrella to use. The temperature has been about 70 most of the time.

Brian started work on Monday and has been slightly frustrated with the amount of German that his co-workers use around him. This will take some getting used to and some learning of the language. We hope to take German lessons soon, but those have not been set up yet.

Brian has the second two weeks of August off, so we are planning a vacation to Barcelona for one of those weeks. There is a budget airline here that offers very cheap flights, so we decided to go to Barcelona. My sister did an English bike tour recently in London and Paris and this same one is in Barcelona. We hope to do that and then take the rest of the days to explore things a bit further on our own. We're still in the midst of planning the whole trip, but the flights have been booked!

All our luggage made it here so far! We are still waiting on our load from the boat, but we have heard that it may be here already by August 23. We have to get some paperwork so that it can go through customs, but we hope to have that on Monday so that it can start to make it's way further here. There are definitely things we are looking forward to having again!

We are looking forward to having two sets of visitors soon. My friend, Becky, is coming the beginning of September for a long weekend and will be our guinea pig for flying into Zurich and then taking the train/ferry to Friedrichshafen. Brian's best friend's parents, the Monsma's, are coming to visit the middle of September in a trip around Germany that they are taking. It will be nice to see people we know well again!

Here's some pictures of the first few days that we were here. We haven't taken as many pictures because we know we will be here longer than we were the last time. :)