Yet another strange day

I'll just give the rundown of today hour by hour.  I don't know if I could sort it out any other way.

So, I slept in this morning because I just needed the sleep.  The cloudy day truly helped my effort.  I then took Etsy for a walk and took her with me to the auto shop in town where I wanted to take my car to get fixed.

I chose this shop for several reasons.  First, it was in town, only about a mile away.  Second, it is a car repair shop only.  The other two car repair places in town are also car dealers.  I feel that when you double-dip like that, the quality of the repair is no longer a priority and is actually not the primary income source.  Third, on occasion, I have seen these guys working past 9pm.  If you live and work in Germany, this is exceptional.  The vast majority of 1st shift workers are religious-borderline-fanatical about clocking out at 5pm in Kaiserslautern.  Seeing him work late on repairing cars told me that he genuinely like repairing cars and cares about his work.

The receptionist spoke some english, (I learned her sister lives in New Jersey and is married to a US Army soldier!) but I memorized a few critical words to explain what I needed done.  The message got across, and I was told that the final could would range between tens of euro if drilling the bolts out was successful to hundreds of euro if the rotor needed to be replaced.  This was about what was expected.  They also said that they could get it done today, which I was very pleased to hear.

I drove the car very slowly to the shop, the owner looked at it, and agreed with me on what we had discussed.  I also asked him if he could simply replace all of the bolts, called "Schrauben."  I was beginning to think that maybe all of them were compromised given that two had snapped.  He said he would consider it.

I fortunately was still able to walk half of my scheduled dogs today, as I could take the train into Kaiserslautern and walk where I needed to.  While walking my first dog, they called me to say that they had successfully drilled out the bolts and the car was ready to go, and the final tab, including labor, was in the tens of euro! This is the best one could hope for anywhere!  I had enough time to walk my other two dogs and make it back to the train station in time to get back to the shop.

At the train station, I decided to get a beef stick while waiting as I was a little hungry.  It got stuck.  "Well,"  I figured, "may as well get two."  So I did.  Such a sacrifice :)

I got back to the shop an hour before they closed and found the receptionist gone, but the owner and another mechanic were working away listening to the local radio.  He said that he went ahead and replace all of the bolts when he found one of the remaining two on the wheel almost snapped in half as well.

The two broken bolts, the almost broken bolt, and a normal bolt.  These four bolts were what he was dealing with once he got that wheel off of my car to drill the snapped bolts out.  All were for the same wheel!

He said that I was very lucky.  I completely agreed with him.  I looked at the bill, thanked him profusely, and gave him a few euro extra for all of his exceptional work.  I learned from the bill that he was actually cutting me a huge deal based upon the cost for parts and what he was charging for labor AND factoring the typical 20% tax.

I drove the car back home to walk Etsy where it snowed a small sprinkle.  Talk about timing with getting the car fixed!

Snowflakes on my shoulder.

I then gleefully drove my car to Ramstein to buy snow shovels and then treat myself to Chili's on base there.  While waiting in line to pay for the shovels, the lady in front of me with her two little children was told by the cashier that her fuel ration discount had expired a few days ago because her on-post vehicle inspection had expired.  Upon eavesdropping, I heard that she had a 2 year inspection, and having just purchased a car that had a one-year inspection, I completely understand how she had lost track of that.  She also was told that as a result, she owed more money.  She seemed very embarrassed and almost scared because she didn't have the extra money.  She had no card to use, and was very likely on a fixed income because only her husband worked.  Again, this is very common for military families.  While she called her husband to figure out what to do next, I asked the cashier how much she owed.  He told me $20.  I just footed her the $20 in cash.  She was surprised and still embarrassed.  I simply told her, "Don't worry about it.  It's Christmas."  She was almost apologizing still, and I told her that I had the money.  It wasn't a problem.

That moment kind of made me a little sad for a few reasons.  First, it is the holiday season, and I felt that many people including myself just weren't thinking about it and it's meaning.  I actually surprised myself when I said it.  Second, I think it's the lack of snow and the lack of Christmas decorations on the houses.  It just doesn't feel like Christmas yet.  Third, I think being away from the states, effectively away from home, makes Christmas just not feel the same for a lot of military members.  Being in a foreign country, I feel like a lot of us just do what we can to make do until we get back, sometimes without even thinking about it.  Personally, J and I are getting geared up because we are slated to sing in several Christmas concerts very soon, and J and I are actively seeking out the Christmas Markets in the area.

Finally, I went to Chili's to gorge myself.  I saw this awesome sign in the parking lot.  I just had to take a picture.

I was so freaking hungry!  The service at Chili's is so very close to the service back in the states.  The wait staff really wait on you, are very prompt, and are always helping you out while keeping a casual atmosphere.  I went for the triple threat:  boneless buffalo wings, boneless buffalo chicken salad, and a chocolate shake with Diet (yes diet) Coke on the refill rotation.  I swear I ate it all in record time, and only for one minute did I start to feel full.  That minute passed quickly.

J and I chatted on the phone a little bit while I was there.  She got a chance to meet another female officer.  This particular officer was close friends with the first three star female general.  J absolutely loved all of the time, however brief it was, she spent talking to her.  I'm so happy she was able to find such a wonderful mentor, and what a rare opportunity to meet such a person!

We both agreed that today was laced with too many "perfect timing" situations.  It was the kind of day where it was perfectly clear that we either had awesome guardian angels or that there really is a plan for us that we don't entirely know about yet.  I was reflecting on how many close calls I have had in my life.  I'm definitely thinking that my life is being preserved for something.  I'm starting to think that I know what that is, so I'll pursue it.  It's starting to feel like J's feeling was about applying to the US Army JAG.  She wasn't sure why, but she felt very strongly that it was something she was meant to do.

This Saturday, we are going to Heidelberg to experience the Christmas Market there.  I'm hoping to have a bunch more pictures to share.  Until then!

A dog, a girl, and a car

Today was quite interesting.  I had a relatively light load for walking dogs today, so I decided later that I was going to change my car tires to winter tires.  The forecast says snow either tomorrow or Friday.  This has been forecast for almost a week now, so there's a pretty good chance it will be significant snow.

While walking my second dog of the day which happens to be in the same town J and I live in, a little blonde girl came right up to us while she was on her way to school.  It was kind of cute.  She spoke only german, so  as is typical, a question is asked in german that I can't understand.  I then follow with "Enschuldigung.  Ich spreche wenige Deutsch."  This translates roughly to, "I'm sorry.  I speak weak german."  To my surprise, she then asked if I spoke english.  I said yes, and then she said nothing, but continued to follow me walking the dog for another half of a block.  The dog was so excited about being tailed, that I had to stop to get the dog under control.  Once I did, the girl came up to pet the dog.  I did have to restrain the dog from jumping, but she didn't seem too afraid.  She then proceeded to have a conversation with me in german about her own dog, which was a boxer.  I was not able to contribute much to the conversation, but I did learn a few words, like "springen" because the dog was jumping, and others that I have now already forgotten.  Along the route I was taking, she branched off to her house, or at least the house she was heading toward, and said goodbye.  I felt self-conscious while she was following because I was a complete stranger and she just followed along to pet the dog and chat.  Oh well, it was an easy way to learn a little more german.

To my german-speaking friends...after walking another dog in downtown Kaiserslautern, I got to my car when a woman came up to me, pointing at a hill that had construction on the other side and said something about "zuras."  I have no idea what this means nor can I find it online.  Did she mean a different word?  I told her I didn't understand what she was saying, to which she shrugged and then promptly left me.  Whatever.  I'm guessing it wasn't a life-threatening situation.

After finishing walking dogs, I proceeded to swap out my summer tires to winter tires.  For car people out there, german cars have lug BOLTS, not lug NUTS.  I lightly researched this in advance so I wasn't surprised when I found this out.  Swapping the tires out was actually quite easy.  The only thing that bothered me is that there were four bolts per tire, not five like I'm used to.

So I get to the last wheel when not one, but TWO bolts snap!  Both for the same half of the same wheel!  I had to test drive the car anyway to get it out of the garage, so I drove it around the neighborhood only on first gear, and it seemed to handle ok.  I also was very careful not to turn too sharply.  I checked it four times to make sure that the wheel was ok.

This puts me into a predicament.  I will probably have to buy a new rotor to replace the one holding the other half of the broken lug bolts.  I also am tempted to replace all of the lug bolts in the car.  I might be able to salvage the rotor I have, but I would have to try to drill out the snapped lug bolts and try not to damage the threads of the rotor...a tricky task.  This is a predicament because this is the only car I have for the next two days.  While I could limp it to a shop, I doubt they would readily have spare rotors and lug bolts on hand.  Well, I cancelled half of the dogs I have tomorrow, and I can take the train for the other half.  J and I talked about it and first thing tomorrow, I will see if I can talk to the german mechanic in town.  Ideally, he can drill out the two bolts and will have two spares.  That would literally be all I would need to be back up and running again.  We'll see how tomorrow unfolds.

And the excitement continues...

Here are some car pictures.  Yes!  Finally!  Pictures to prove that I own a different car!

I couldn't get a good angle of the car because it was dark and parked in my tight driveway.  Hopefully, you can get an idea of how relatively small it is.  I think it is actually classified as a mini car, which I would believe.

Yep..bolts, not nuts.  Yep, four, not five.  That sweet little tool there is a swiss army key tool.  It's the shape of a key so that it easily fits on your key ring, but is the combination of a phillips and flathead screwdriver, wire cutter, wire stripper, nail file, and a very limit knife.  I freaking LOVE it.  It was one of my many Eddie Bauer finds that my wife got me as a gift for Christmas last year.  Eddie Bauer sometimes is so much my taste I can barely stand it!

Yeah, a little shorter than they are supposed to be.  I double-checked the rotor and indeed, the other halves of these are still in the rotor, possibly to never come out.  Yes, Dad, I oiled all of the lug nuts I put back in.  I'm guessing the previous owner did not employ that practice.

Thanksgiving and gearing up for Christmas

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and now J and I are looking forward to how we are going to spend our Christmas in the country that has practically invented Christmas.

For Thanksgiving, J and I visited and celebrated with her co-worker AH, her husband SH, and their two cute kids A and C.  I was particularly excited about this because they share an extraordinary number of coincidences with J and I.  First and foremost, SH is a civilian husband who left his job to follow his wife's career in the military.

In short, we enjoyed it.  Their children were absolutely adorable.  Their two beagles were very snuggly and nose-driven.  The food was good.  We went for a jog right before Thanksgiving dinner to "pay it forward" as I like to call it.  We also had some pretty good cheese (more on that later).  They had a really neat yard, fully landscaped with two ponds with koi in them.  Sadly, I did not get a picture of any of this even though I did bring my camera.  Everything was very active with the little ones running around, J and I sleeping in both mornings we were there, and all the socializing we did.

One little trip SH and I went on was simply getting a cheese and bread appetizer before Thanksgiving dinner.  It was also an excuse to have a teeny bit of guy time.  SH is a really interesting guy and it was great conversing with someone who has experienced so much of what I have in the past year.  About the cheese though...  We got a good handful of cheeses and picked one neither of us had tried before: Gouda Chevre!  First, I never knew this existed.  I picked it because I'm a Gouda fan and J is a Chevre fan.  Second, it was good!  SH also shared a favorite of his: Rochefort.  It's like a salty blue cheese.  Over dinner, SH made a recipe suggestion using Rochefort cheese.  We didn't try it while we were over there, but J and I think we will give it a shot if we find Rochefort cheese in town.

Random tangent:  I acquired my first purely German recipe two weeks ago!  I got it from one of our choir members.  We were having a rehearsal with the small choir at one of the members' house.  They had served a very good tasting dip, everyone loved it, and I decided to ask for a copy of the recipe.  We have yet to try it, but we are very much looking forward to giving it a whirl.  We know we won't be disappointed.

Another tangent:  We have 5 or 6 concerts to sing this December with the choir.  They are all crammed in the first two and a half weeks of the month.  This will put a damper on J and my ability to visit the Christmas Markets around Germany, but this is also the "high" time for the choir, so we are excited.  I haven't had this many concerts in such a short time frame since high school, and then it was with an instrument.

Yet, another tangent:  Our list of Christmas Markets or "Weinachtsmaerkt" are the following: Heidelberg, Rothenburg ob den Tauber, Strasbourg, and Bruges.  We don't know if we can make the last two happen.  Ulm, Stuttgart, Dresden, Salzburg, and Munich are also on the list if we get our act together and contact our friends in those cities.

J and I have gotten almost all of our Christmas shopping done now which is kind of a funny feeling.  We did it so that we could be sure that all of our family will get their gifts by Christmas.  It had the strange side-effect of leaving J and I with no December holiday stress of worrying about gifts for anyone except ourselves for Christmas this year.  J has already beat me to the punch and gotten my gifts.  She'll be out of town this coming week for another CLE, so I will do shopping for her while she is away.  We're also thinking of having a Christmas date night for which I will start fleshing out plans.

The dog walking front has developed in an odd way.  I am about to meet up with another possible client.  With travel times involved, this will put me almost at 8 hour per day capacity.  This is good in that I'll be busy earning money.  This is bad in that instead of being able to take on more clients, I will have to start making the judgement call of trading out clients.  I suppose I could simply stop advertising, but something tells me that might not be a good idea.  I should also be focusing on a more permanent and typical job.  I guess that's a thought:  stop advertising as a dog walker and start advertising as a more regular employee.  I'll have to stew on that.

Good news for all of you!  J and I capitalized on a Black Friday deal and, in combination with saving money in advance for it, we have purchased a new camera.  While it is not the ideal camera we were hoping for, it does replace J's camera, which I accidentally damaged, and is a step closer to the DSLR that J ultimately dreams of possessing.  It is also HD video capable, so hopefully you will have better videos and pictures coming your way by 2013!

One loose end that J and I have been working on the past several weeks is getting our Cornish Rexes over.  I requested at least half a dozen online quotes from professional pet movers, and have not even received an acknowledgement of one request!  These requests were make two weeks ago and it was absolutely not the response I was expecting.  It is possible that our location in Germany is problematic as the only local airport is a military one.  I now have to take the next two steps:  consider calling each of them for a quote and firm up a game plan for simply doing it myself.  I would rather have a professional do it as it would be old hat for them and might possibly be cheaper than doing it myself, but doing it myself would assure that it gets done correctly and has the added advantage of using the local airport.  I might be able do it via Space Available military flying for at least crossing the Atlantic.  We'll see.  I have plenty of options to investigate.  Our hope is to get them over by February, but we'll see if we can save up enough money in that time frame.

One final thing:  J and I decorated the house for Christmas today.  We kept it pretty simple, but here is a picture of the tree...

Costume Party, New Car, and another round in Heidelberg

Halloween was interesting here.  Talking to several friends and locals, we learned that not even a generation ago children did not go Trick or Treating in Germany.  It's interesting learning that America is responsible for an imported holiday!  We also had a surprising number of trick or treaters on Halloween night.  J and I did not expect the locals to celebrate, so we did not buy candy to hand out.  Man, they were persistent!  I was alone at home as J was working late, so I turned all of the lights off.  They rang the door anyway.  When J got home, they were still at it so we posted a sign in both English and German stating that we didn't have any candy.  They STILL rang the doorbell, sometimes twice!  That is way more persistant than any American Trick-or-Treaters I had experienced.  I give them credit for really working it.

J and I got invited to a Halloween Party.  We had a hard time coming up with a couples costume that was inexpensive and was not based upon an American culture icon or euphemism.  We settled on a leprechaun and a pot of gold.  We already had everything for the leprechaun and we only needed some simple paper products for the pot of gold costume.  Everyone liked it so much that we actually won first prize.  I personally think it was because we stood out like sore thumbs.  Everyone dressed in black as a witch, vampire, skeleton, or pirate..and then you had us ignorant Americans in bright green and shimmering gold.  Even further, the whole leprechaun-pot of gold idea is also an American culture reference.  Only one german who lived in America for six years understood what we were.  In retrospect, I had heard that the Irish have said that America celebrates St. Patrick's Day more crazily than the Irish do.  In short, two wrongs made a right.  How funny is that?

As for pictures, J has several on her facebook page.  Sadly, I don't have any with me at the moment.

After looking at cars for a while, and assessing the market for used cars where we live, we decided that shopping for a car in K-town was just like shopping for a rescue dog back at home.  The turnover for decently marketed cars could literally be hours, so we started checking daily, made inquiries daily, and got a car that fit the bill after test driving it and looking it over.  It's definitely a german spec car: stick shift and tiny. While it doesn't have the pickup of our american spec car, it certainly maneuvers the hills a lot better and fits in the narrow stretches more easily.  It's not the best on gas, but it works for our purposes.

Still no pictures of the car.  I'll get those this week if I can.

J had two ODT's to look over this past weekend.  Funnily enough, one of them was just here a few months ago.  I'll do some explaining.  ODT stands for Overseas Deployment Training.  The US Army Reserves requires a short amount of deployment time each year for each reserve soldier.  It is unusual for a reserve soldier to get an ODT to the exact same location twice within a few months.  It happened because November is the new fiscal year, and Kaiserslautern's Kasernen are currently going through a rapid-fire cycles of ODT's.  They used them this time because the vast majority of J's office was out for a CLE (Continuing Law Education) course out of town and they were temporarily short-staffed.  J had responsibility for them this time, so we took them out to a farewell dinner.  During the dinner, it was decided that we would take them to Heidelberg for an outing.  ODT's typically don't have their own transportation, so they were pretty much locked to base unless they walked around town.

We all drove on over to Heidelberg, J had lots of great conversation, and we both learned a lot about the US Army Reserves program.  While in town, we just had a very casual and relaxed afternoon and evening around town.  We walked through the main walking street; we shared a few meat and cheese trays; we chatted at a cafe; we ate truffles, roasted chestnuts, and dates; we had fantastic regional and Swabian food at the Roten Ochsen (Red Ox); and then we got a nice view on the old bridge and finally got to experience the bronze monkey!

One of the places we visited in Heidelberg was the Kaethe Wolfahrt Christmas Store.  They had TONS of decorations.  I took particular interest in the miniature wooden trees they were selling.  Here are the ones I took pictures of...

A new car!

Lots happened last week! Sorry, no pictures yet, but J and I bought a new car and we also won a costume competition. More details to come...