Our First German Weekend

Gutentag,

Jon and I had a really nice weekend. We first started by verbally securing a home on Friday. It is in Bann, 5-10 min from Landstuhl hospital. 3 stories, 4BR/3BA, back yard, 1 car garage, large open floor space, sauna (strange, but useful I hope). We will send pictures as soon as we can. Today we sign the contract.

Let's see. . . . Friday night we went to dinner with Nik Sneshkoff and Dr. Ramsey (both from Tripler in Hawaii) and had a huge Greek dinner. Then we picked up Nik from Landstuhl early Saturday morning and drove to Weisbaden. There was a flight surgeon who interviewed at Tripler the week before Nik left who is stationed there and he invited us to stay with him and go to a beer festival. So Saturday we met up with Dan Tran (pictured on the boat ride) at his beautiful loft in the city of Weisbaden. There is a great farmer's market where we at fresh cherries and amazing waffles.

Later that night we met up with a bunch of single pilots who made us feel old because they were partying like it was college again. However, we all successfully rode a bus to another town, Mainz, for the beer festival (picture w/ ice cream--we had beer too). It was great food, meat and sauerkraut and tons of beer (I had a couple of sips) and Jon actually found some beers he likes. We all left around 9 p.m. and made it back home to bed in time for the pregnant lady.

Sunday we drove to Rudesheim and rode the ski-lift gondolas through the wine country and ended with a river boat ride on the Rhein. That is a great little tourist day-trip we could take you to. Then we went back to Weisbaden and enjoyed the Thermabad (thermal baths). The town is known for hot springs (picture w/ Jon crouching next to spring). It was a huge indoor/outdoor pool with jets and saunas. We stayed there until 8 p.m., went to the recommended Thai restaurant and got home by 11 p.m.

We couldn't leave Weisbaden without visiting the Gummy Bear store and stocking up (pic w/ store in background). Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Nik!!!!

Dan really welcomed us to Germany. I can't imagine every weekend will be as eventful, but what a great start!

love,

Amy & Jon

The Hunt is On

0700 Monday morning (top right picture) Jon puts on his uniform to start the in-processing process. We both were looking forward to our German driver's license test (top left picture). We passed! However, there was no way we were ready to drive the Autobahn.

Our sponsors, Brian, April and Amelia (bottom left), have been amazingly supportive. They drove us around for two days and taught us the ropes. We would be lost (literally) without them (they lent us their gps)! We will definitely have to find a proper way to thank them (any ideas?).

The language barrier isn't too bad yet as many people speak English. Brian was a great translator for us.

We have been searching for what seems like weeks, but it has only been days for a home. The market is pretty tough here due to the large influx of people just like us coming into town. We have narrowed the location down to areas within about 10-15 minutes of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the hospital where Jon will be working. It is pretty important for him to be able to get to the hospital in a timely manner so we need to limit distance. Cross your fingers because we are expecting to hear back tomorrow if we got the place of our dreams!

Love you all!

Hello,

Hmm, how can I describe our trip . . . tears on take-off and smiles on the landing! We arrived safe and sound in Frankfurt at 10:00 a.m. local time. We found all our luggage had arrived, got on the scheduled taxi transfer and made it to the base by 12:00.

Of course, it wouldn't be a trip with a Gray if somethings didn't get screwed up though. Someone from Jon's unit insisted on coming to meet us at the airport even though we had transportation. So half way through our drive from the airport the driver got a call saying the airport was paging ROBITSCHECK and wanted to make sure he had the right couple. The guy from the Landstuhl unit was there looking for us. He didn't seem too upset though. We had told them not to come and didn't see anyone when we got out of customs.

Then we got to the Ramstein Inn ( a beautiful new building for lodging--not that we get to stay there). When we got out of the taxi a woman was yelling, ROBITSCHEK! We turned and it was April and Brian Kirby, the folks who have been our adopted sponsors and got us the lodging and rental car and everything else set up for us before we arrived. Then they said they were just going to drop a welcome basket in our room . . . then they found out our reservation was canceled b/c it was for yesterday, not today. Luckily, they were kind enough to get us a room at least for tonight, just not a room with a kitchen for long-term stay. Sooooo, all in all it has been a pretty good transition. We are SO TIRED.

I think we'll meet Brian and April for dinner then they are going to show us around some towns for house-hunting tomorrow.

love you all!

Amy