Home Sweet Home

Almost two weeks ago, we moved into our new house here in Vilseck, Germany. Nestled on the top of a hill in an area surrounded by German farmland, lies our home. Our house is a two story, three bedroom, 1 1/2 bath house with a basement. We have a slotted, spiral staircase which our dog is a little unsure of. He's used to regular stairs with wall-to-wall carpet on them so he's slowly learning how to use our new stairs. I'm pretty sure he's afraid he might slip through the stairs if he moves too fast. Poor guy. The house is connected with two other homes, so I suppose you could consider it a "triplex". A five to ten minute walk down the hill brings you to the downtown area of Vilseck, which we have yet to explore (hopefully soon!). Up the hill, in the other direction, is a huge view of the Bavarian countryside. Rolling green hills and tall pine trees sit in the distance. When I first saw the view, the lyrics "The hills are alive with the sound of music!" popped into my head (I'm a musical theater nerd, if you didn't know already). There are trails that take you on walks through the forest and there are also corn and wheat fields along the way. It's truly beautiful. I grew up in San Francisco, CA where there aren't many countrysides near us. I'm used to skyscrapers and busy streets and although I've explored the outskirts of the city and the farmland a few hours away,  I've never seen countrysides as beautiful as the ones I've seen so far in Germany. I need to remember to take pictures the next time I go on a walk so I can show you how amazing it is. And the sunsets here are spectacular! So breathtaking.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND INFO SO FAR:

• Almost every taxi I've seen so far is a Mercedes-Benz. So not typical in the United States.
• The exchange rate is CRAZY! When I convert how much something in Euro would cost me in Dollars, I'm in shock. Ouch.
• You have to use a special salt in your dishwasher to prevent hard water buildup and something else I can't remember. The product is literally called Special Salz. 
• The lack of storage space in our house bothers me. We have a large basement but there are no linen closets, no counter space in the bathrooms and lack of storage in the kitchen. I'm going to have to get creative so I can make it all work together.
• Our first shipment of Unaccompanied Baggage arrived last week. Finally have my beloved Keurig back!
• Beer bottles come in a case of 20 here. And instead of coming in a paper pack, they come in a plastic crate and you pay a deposit on the bottles. When you finish all your beer, you can return the case with the bottles and get a deposit back for recycling!
• I hate the 220 voltage here. Almost all of my electronics are rated 120V or 125V so I either can't use them or I need a power converter/transformer box for them. I ended up buying a new dual voltage hair dryer and flat iron because of this. And my vacuum is 125V so I'm probably going to buy a new vacuum because the transformer boxes are heavy to move around and it would be too hard to vacuum while dragging a heavy box behind me. It's unfortunate because the vacuum is less than a year old so it will probably just sit in the basement while we live here.
• I got my German drivers license. Yay!
• Our Honda CR-V still hasn't arrived. It was supposed to be here two weeks ago. It makes me frustrated because almost all the cars in this country are manual and I don't know who to drive a manual, therefore, I can't drive. I hate depending on Nick for rides.
• Nick bought a 97 VW Golf (it's a manual) so he can drive to work. He's trying to teach me to drive stick, but I'm not very good so far. Practice makes perfect, right?