itsAlyx: We're here! And Settled... Sort of.

Now that we are in Germany, I think I will try to update this thing fairly regularly. Since this is going to be a quite long entry, I figure I can make life easier (or try to, at least) for all of you who are reading but don't want to hear EVERYTHING. So... I'm dividing this entry into sections, and each section will have a bold heading.

The Trip

As many of you know, we were originally planning on bringing our cat/child, Zeuss, with us to Germany. Everything was set up - he even had a brand new, air friendly pet taxi (more like limousine). We left for the OKC airport around 5:30 a.m. (my mother is an absolute angel for being willing to wake up and take us that early... bless her heart), stopped by Sonic for some breakfast, and arrived shortly after 8:15. Hugs and kisses were given, and Mom left to go back to KS before her afternoon class. We were so excited to start this adventure, and even more excited that Zeuss was going to be there with us (we get lonely)! When we started to check in, however, it didn't go quite as planned. Long story short, because we were travelling through London it was basically impossible for Zeuss to come. We could spend hundreds of dollars to ship him here, but we aren't exactly millionaires. I called my mom and she came back and picked up the cat (after calming me down [I was crying my head off] and ensuring me that he would not be eaten alive by their dogs). She ended up missing her class (I don't think her students were depressed about that), but all was well. After check-in, we had a couple of hours before boarding the plane and just hung out.
It was a short flight from OKC to Houston, but then we had a little less than 45 minutes to get to our next gate, and once there, we immediately got on the plane and got ready to spend the next 9 hours in the air. The flight from Houston to London was actually pretty enjoyable. We had plenty of in-flight entertainment, and there was almost no turbulence. The food was decent (for airline food), and my flight neighbor was quiet, polite, and slept about 2/3 of the flight. Once we arrived in London, it was 6:45 a.m. and extremely cold. We had a couple of hours to kill before our next flight, so Mike went and bought some of his favorite drinks (only available in the UK), and we sat down to relax. Once we got onto that plane, we were finally tired enough to sleep, and I believe we both slept through almost the entire flight.

Arrival in Germany

We arrived in Germany at approximately 11:35 a.m. CET. We did not, however, get our luggage and go through customs until about 12:15 p.m. My good friend Pam met us at the airport and helped us carry our luggage onto the train and the U-Bahn and eventually to her home. We were extremely tired and suffering from jet lag, but decided it would be best to wait until the evening to sleep. We got to her apartment, showered and changed, and got ready to run some errands. We were able to get cell phones, Bahncard 50s, and a couple of other things that we needed... like Spaghetti Eis. All in all, it was a pretty good first day. The next day was spent running errands as well.

Apartment Hunting

On Thursday night, I looked in the paper and online for apartments (we were homeless and had nothing lined up when we arrived in the country). I found a couple that looked good and decided to call about them. I set up appointments to look at two on Friday afternoon. Come Friday, we visited both apartments and found one that we fell in love with. We were sooo worried that we weren't going to be able to rent it, though, because the ad had said that they wanted a single person who could live there for a year, and had a career. Three strikes against us. All ended well, though, because a lady (the bishop's wife) who had been helping us knew the landlord's wife. We were able to get this wonderful apartment (which has a dishwasher, washing machine, oven, cupboards, sink, refridgerator, and all the furniture we will need) with no problems, and will live right down the street from the bishop's family. It was definitely an answer to our prayers - more than we could have even hoped for. I'll put pictures up when I can.

Other Random Things

Today was spent wandering around Frankfurt. There was a Fest this weekend (I can't for the life of me remember which one), and it was really fun! It would have been better if it wasn't rainy, but whatever. I'll spare you the novel and just put some pictures on here for you to enjoy (or not, but if you don't like them, you don't have to look!).