Well, Hello Deutschland!!

We finally made it!! After 6 months of waiting, planning, and ever so patiently (not) working through all the paperwork, we are in Germany. It is so beautiful here, almost like walking into a fairy tale. The food is amazing, and the people have been very nice. Some of them are very fluent in English which makes it so much easier for us. Hopefully we'll be speaking some basic German very soon so that they're not doing all the work!

I'm not sure it's really sunk in yet that we are actually here and we are really going to live here for the next three years. So surreal, especially for this small town girl who never thought she'd live more than an hour away from home!! We feel so blessed to have this amazing opportunity and to be able to share it with our children before they leave the nest.

So many of our friends and family members have asked for lots of pictures and updates while we are here, so I decided the best way to do that would be a blog. The photographer in me is more than happy to share some "exposures" of our daily lives and adventures here in Europe.

So without further adieu, here are a few pictures I snapped with my phone during our first 24 hours or so in Germany!!

This was our first glimpse of Germany, somewhere on the outskirts of Ramstein. I was too jet-lagged and sleep deprived to pay attention to any signs! I love everything about this building from the architecture to the flowers in the window boxes. Beautiful, isn't it?

Right down the road from this building was the hotel we stayed in. So quaint! Birds on the wall and a table set in pink! Interesting fact...their windows open out, not up and down. So the top part angles down, in toward the room, while the bottom angles up toward the outside. The ones in this hotel just had a handle at the top to pull, but the hotel we're in now has windows that open at the press of a button. 

We ate dinner at this cute little hotel, and it was delicious. Sadly I left my phone in the room, so there's no photographic evidence of the amazing schnitzel I had. I did, however, remember to take a picture of last night's meal!

This is Austin's brotzeit platter. It literally means "bread time", and is full of bread, sliced meats, cheeses, and butter. We had this a few days before we left the states, courtesy of a wonderful German friend who has been such a help to us in preparing to move here. Trust me when I say that German bread is amazing!

I had a tarte with feta cheese and peppers, and it was delicious! I feel like I'm going to need to spend lots of time at the gym over the next three years!!

Finally, a look down the street near where we're staying for at least the next 10 days. 

Stay tuned for more pictures from this very old city. Exploration starts today, and I'll have my real camera in tow!!