in Germany!

Thank you to everyone for all of your kind words and well-wishes. I arrived yesterday in Germany in the morning. It is a 6 hour time difference from NY and being that my flight was at 6:35pm and it was chock full of screaming kids with quite developed lung capacities (do parents not believe in pacifiers any more?) I got about 40 minutes of sleep only. Needless to say, I was exhausted and my contacts were dryer than the Sahara. TLS picked me up at the airport and drove me home after a quick pit stop at an authentic German restaurant by the name of McDonald's. When I got off the plane, I was complaining how every part of my body (up to and including my left big toe) was hurting and I needed a full body massage badly. TLS said "that can be arranged." When I got in his car, he said "look in the glove compartment" and in there was a gift certificate to a spa for a massage. He learned major points with that one! The drive home was absolutely breathtaking. So much greenery. The best part, by far, was getting to finally ride on the autobahn. We were going 116 at one point. So thrilling! He took me to our house to drop off my things then we went onto base. Our house is an apartment in a three family building where each floor is its own apartment. The second and third floors were converted into a duplex apartment, which is where we live. So we have about 4-5 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms for two people. Not bad. I'm very glad about the stairs because they will hopefully help with the wedding dress workout.

Europeans have a different standard of living than Americans do. One major difference is storage space. In Europe, it is generally very much socially acceptable to wear the same outfit to school or work or just out and about  for 2 or even 3 days in a row. In America, not so much. (I once stayed with a family friend in Belgium for about a week and went to school with her. All of the girls in her class had very nice, super trendy outfits on. Two days later, they all were still wearing those same exact outfits. She told me "the only reason I wore different outfits each day is because you're visiting me and that's what they do in your country.") Europeans tend to have a lot less clothing/shoes and just "stuff" in general than we do. Also, it is almost unheard of  for a house in Europe to have closets. We don't even have a linen or coat closet! Europeans just usually buy wardrobes and keep all of their clothes in them. (Keep in mind European bedrooms are also smaller than American ones!) Americans who are stationed here usually just end up getting more rooms than they need. TLS and I both each took one of the unused bedrooms to use as walk-in closets. I gave TLS the ugliest room in the house, which I nicknamed "the Bordello." I really want to know what kinds of mind-altering substances the architect/designer was on when designing this room. Naturally, I gave myself the prettiest room in the house. The walls are a really pretty shade of blue (think a slightly more saturated version of Lilly's Shorely Blue) and it had a really cute short lace curtain already hanging up on the window. The previous tenants had also used it as a closet and had installed shelves and clothes rods onto the walls. Lets just say that the color of the wall complements all of my Lilly beautifully.

Then we drove on base. TLS's former base in England was a really teeny tiny base. Small enough that it did not have its own commissary or BX (Base Exchange) and the nearest medical facility in case of an emergency was actually an overseas civilian hospital. By contrast, the base we're at now is the biggest Air Force base outside of the United States. Needless to say they have a lot more things/resources available to us here which makes me happy. As many of you know, I am a total princess, and am very picky about which hair and beauty products I use. While the BX here does not sell Fekkai and I will need to order that offline, I was over the moon ecstatic to learn that they have almost the full range of Philosophy products here, at a slight discount!

After the BX, TLS and I went to lunch at Chili's on base. You may turn up your nose, but I've never been to one before. In NYC, all of the chain casual dining restaurants were in Times Square which I tended to avoid like the plague. At this point, I was so tired, I was yayclose to forgetting what my own name was, but we had no food in the house for me for lunch for today, so we needed to go to the commissary. We ended up buying more in the form of cleaning products than food (this is how TLS knows that he no longer lives alone) and my big excitement of the day was finding some German brand pudding cups that  had Snoopy and Woodstock on them! (Not only were they adorable, but they were also delicious. Unlike Jello brand ones, they were very light and fluffy and did not leave us feeling heavy afterward. Perfection.) On our way back home, TLS tried to give me a tour of base in the car, and I slept through most (all) of it. When we got home, I took a much-needed hot shower and we opened a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Rose to toast to our new house. (Yes, even my champagne is pink. Although in all fairness, I do prefer the original.)

My big plan for today was to unpack, clean the house, and get settled in. Yea, that didn't happen. TLS and I are both very competitive, especially when it comes to our Wii scores and in the three months since I got to use the Wii Fit, he managed to knock of all of my high scores off the scoreboard. My revised plan for today was to return the favor for when he got home.  It is now 3:09pm, he gets home in about 2 hours, and I have yet to be successful in that endeavor.