Leaving Germany

Well, it is 11pm on this Monday and I am sitting in the dark looking out at the beautiful Germany landscape.  I just have too much emotion to sleep so I thought I would blog since I have not done it in a while.

Ten months ago when I sat at the Houston Airport waiting on my flight to fly over here to Germany, I was so scared out of mine mind.  All, I could picture about Germany was everything was different, the language, money, food, and for sure the driving.  When we talked about coming to Germany it seem like a excitement but then it soon hit me that I was not coming over here as a vacation but I would have to live here the excitement wore off.

So, I won't lie I did spend the first 2 months or so, crying every night that I wanted to go home (which I did not care if it was Fort Stewart or Texas) I just wanted out of Germany.  I felt like I could not leave post cause I did not know what anyone was saying or how their money worked.  I was afraid to go shopping and ride the bus.  The one thing I hated was going out to eat.  I hated paying 2 Euro for a glass of water that was mineral water so it was nasty.  Then for the first couple of months I would only eat a schnitzel and pommes (fries).

Then I got a car and begun driving a little around Schweinfurt and started to learn my way around and learn to enjoy shopping again.  Soon we begun going all around Germany and seeing the wonderful country.  I enjoyed getting that chance to go and see it.  I did have a list of places I wanted to go like Italy, Paris, Czech, Berlin, and Austria but with Jeremy's health issues we never got to leave Germany.  At first I was upset by that, but then I realized that when I graduated from Buna High and had my mind on leaving Buna, TX I never thought I would every go to Europe yet alone live there for almost a year.  So, I am happy that I had the chance I had to live over here and their will always be a love for Germany even though I am going back to the good ole USA!

So, I thought about writing down some of the things I will miss about Germany!

1) The beautiful country side.  It does not matter where you are driving or which way you go I just love to get in the car and go.  It is so beautiful and picture perfect.  It looks just like you see on post cards and in pictures.  Beautiful!

2) Well, I was never really a history bluff, but I always love to study about the places I have been.  Living over here has gotten me back into studying history and learn a lot more about the history.  I love how some of these castles and churches are so old even older then America.  It just seems so unreal, at how old some of the places are here.

3) The old cities.  Again with old stuff I know but I love how the cities are lay out.  You park your car and just wonder up and down the cobber stone streets shopping, site seeing or whatever you want.  They all have a center market which makes it nice and you just wonder from there and there is always good things to eat.

4)   The food! Yes, I know I said it was something I hate at first but then I fell in love with.  I will miss eating schnitzel, jager-schnitzel, European Pizza, Italian Eis, brats, doners, and pretzels. Oh, not to mention the candy...gummy stuff, chocolate, and ice cream.  But, I am craving some good Tex-Mex food!!

5) The driving!!! First of all the autobahn I thought would be scary was actually more fun.  I love the idea of going 80-90mph and not worrying about get pulled over.  That being said some times in towns the Germans suck at driving.  Now lets just see how many time people honk at me for waiting on a green light to turn right  or how long till my first ticket on the interstate.

6) The markets and shopping experiment.  I love how they celebrate everything and have a market full or shopping.   I am glad I got to experience one German Christmas and hope to bring some of the German traditions like St Nicholas day back with me to the US.  Also love Easter here too and I have a new love for how to decorate eggs.

Well, that is all I can think of now.  I do hope to come back here one day and see more places, but until then I will have the memories I made in these 10 months.  We keep joking that we should start saying and on our 20 year anniversary in 10 years (we hit 10 in August) that we should come back with our kids and tour the country.  So, we shall see!