{I'm Here!}

I'm here! I made it to Germany and things are just as wonderful as I had hoped they'd be. You know how you imagine that something will turn out and often are disappointed by the actual results? In this case, everything so far has not only met but far exceeded my expectations.

Our visit to Munich this weekend...

We had some problems at the airport with our connecting flight and a 12 hour layover, but all ended up just fine. On the plane, I had no psychos sitting around me. Can you believe it? I watched 3 movies - Kung Fu Panda, 21 (awesome film, love it- with Kevin Spacey and tons of Boston footage), and What Happens in Vegas (with Cam Diaz, who I adore). I also decided to eat the food on the plane because we arrived so late to the airport due to Boston rush hour traffic, so we had no time to eat dinner before the flight as we usually do. This changed things for me but it was okay, I still drank tons of water on the flight, did my stretching on the plane, did not sleep, and skipped coffee. I missed an entire night of sleep and did fine - jet lag-free. :) I'm so happy about this. I feel great. Okay so the flight was good and now to fill you in on the arrival details. When we stepped into our new apartment, and I do mean new as the entire place was gut renovated over the past 9 months since we saw it last, the living room had a little table with two homemade meals on it, a bowl of fruit, a bottle of wine, wine glasses, and red roses and chocolates. This was all left by my mother in law to welcome us. She also stocked the refrigerator with enough food for 4 or 5 days. The apartment was so filled with love and joy when we entered that I beamed from the inside out. It was one of those moments in life when you feel so absolutely loved that you can't believe it yourself. All of the things we had ordered in advance, vacuum - clothes rack - etc. was in our apartment neatly arranged and out of their boxes/packaging. Our mattresses were on the floor out of their package, beds made, with new duvets and pillows and linens purchased for us by our cousins. The apartment was spotless because my MIL (mother in law) cleaned it. My MIL also gave us a sink with a small counter and cabinet below it for temporary use until we buy our kitchen cabinets/appliances. MIL brought in a microwave too. We've stored lots of our clothing and bathroom things here in the apartment's storage room in the basement over the past months since we were in Germany last so my MIL had some of our friends take it out of storage and put it all into our apartment in advance, so all of that was neatly arranged and ready too. I have a brand new hair dryer, hot rollers, curling iron, etc. left from my last trip here so having them upon arrival was a lifesaver for when I awoke the next morning to get ready.

Morning sunshine floods this place...

My friend Danielle sent some things that I ordered from her shop Le Souk, and she included some extra presents (juice glasses and place mats) so those were here and came in handy for drinking during breakfast the next morning. The first room I arranged was the bathroom. I quickly pulled it together and went shopping for a few of the needed things for doing so (shower curtain rod and rings, for example). It's end of the summer sale time here so everything is marked down which means lots of great deals. I wanted the bathroom to feel like a spa retreat and so the goal was to complete 50% of it fast... And I did. Yay! I took a bath in the deep soaking tub already by candlelight listening to Corrine Bailey Rae. Heaven. Remember all of the things I showed you in this post that I wanted to put in my new bathroom? Here is what it looks like in place. With the bathroom looking organized and nice, I felt it was time to head to IKEA for necessary things. Today we spent 6 hours there and purchased a clothing wardrobe (remember, no closets in apartments here) for the bedroom, a sofa, a desk for my husband, a few throw rugs, a TV stand, and lots of little things for living like baskets and storage, an ironing board, and glasses, etc... Everything we purchased in the store will arrive by truck on Wednesday. We still have to figure out how to arrange the kitchen. I'm a little stuck with it and cannot really make a decision yet. When I have a hard time with decision making, I usually move onto something else to loosen the soil... Then I will return to it at a later time. It's better this way for me than to force myself to try to figure things out quickly when it comes to design. Plus I've never designed a city kitchen in Germany -- everything is so different here... In addition to our IKEA run today, we also ordered a Samsung flat screen white television and Thorsten ordered a desk chair from Italy along with a washing machine for the bathroom so we can start cleaning our clothes. I hate handing dirty socks and underwear to my MIL. :( I'm kind of funny like that, I feel weird making her do our laundry like we are children. We can do it ourselves so starting in a few days when the machine arrives, we will. :) SO! Things are coming together after only a few days in Germany. I'm pleased with our progress thus far. I'm determined to get all of the necessary items in place and then I can slowly build the rest over time. I will be in Hamburg next week on a business trip so I plan to hit Habitat too. I just want the basics for now because I want to enjoy my apartment.... Currently my laptop is on a box and I'm sitting on a pouf! Same for my husband. Not very comfortable... Aside from loving our apartment and the whole process of it all... The weather has been crisp and high 70s, sunny for the most part, and we've been enjoying all the errand running and the pleasure of being in a city again (we live in the country in NH). We walk everywhere and take public transportation constantly which I find so much less stressful over driving. Thorsten went to 02 today (it's like Cingular or something over here) and purchased an amazing new phone that looks like the Apple iPhone but it isn't... But it has a navigation system so this will be nice for all the mini trips we have planned to other cities/countries while we're here. Thorsten is already buying his gadgets and having fun. He's too cute. We both have our cell phones now (they are called 'handys' here) and German cell phone numbers, and contracts with 02 so we have unlimited calling and such. It's great. Oh and our apartment internet and cable connection was working the moment we arrived and is excellent, faster than in America (and cheaper!). Another bonus, the US dollar is gaining strength. We were around $1.60 on Friday and now it's down to $1.48. Makes shopping much nicer. ..... And finally yesterday we got dressed up and went for Sunday dinner with my MIL to oma's favorite Greek restaurant. We all went frequently when she was alive. Anyway, my MIL told us over dinner that she is so happy we took the apartment and that before she died, oma told her that she wanted us to take this place because it was the right 'next step' for us and our life. Isn't that amazing to find out? I thought so too. It makes living in her former apartment even more of a joy. So for now I am signing off. It's after midnight and I have a full day tomorrow of shopping ahead and I need to go to the immigration office to get my residency permit so I can stay here for more than 3 months this year (we are here for 5 months). Thanks for reading... I will pull together a little IKEA shopping list when we get everything delivered and photograph it so you can see what I purchased. Hugs to you all... :) ---- xo ----- holly