Regensbug & Ryan's Promotion!!!

Friday, July 30, 2010

Another day of in processing. Cross finance office, Army community Service, adding me to the APO box, adding me to the bank account for over here, off the list. Also got the forms for medical and got the paperwork for Caelyn’s school filled out. Just need to get her physical and she will be all set.

Ryan had to be back at work by 4 pm. So we had to cut our in processing short which was ok because most places close early on Friday. Earlier than then normally do. Everything has pretty strange hours over here. A lot of things on post have weird hours because it is such a small post and just not enough demand to keep everything open every day (I’m guessing). But off post almost everything is closed by 7 pm and on all of the German Holidays (which there are a lot of).

When Ryan got back to work for final formation he was finally pinned for his promotion. He was up for promotion July 15th but because of block leave and pay schedules it had been postponed. He is now a Private First-Class.

After Ryan got home we ate a quick dinner and headed to Regensburg. Beautiful city! I love the cobblestone streets and old buildings. It is not uncommon to see buildings from 1100 or 1200. I think if the kids were older they would appreciate it history of everything a little more but Caelyn does enjoy seeing the “cool” churches and some of the “weirder” things that they have in Germany.

One thing that she still hasn’t gotten used to is not using the public bathrooms. Seems like no matter how hard we try she always has to go when we are out and about. Most places here you have to pay to use a bathroom if you are not a customer. It is not uncommon to have to pay for each step: getting into the bathroom, using the toilet, washing your hands. So it can cost a couple of euro to use a public bathroom. I guess we will have to start a bathroom fund!

In Regensburg we drove around the city for a bit before parking. After that we got out and walked for a couple of hours. I did a lot of window shopping but didn’t buy a thing. Of course, most of the shops were already closed but hey. We did stop and have some ice cream at one of the ice cream shops. I think that the Germans love ice cream. There are a ton of ice cream places! Sometimes there are 2-3 on the same block.

Some history on Regensburg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regensburg

Still waiting to hear on our shipment of household goods. The last day that they were supposed to be in Germany was August 1. So hopefully we will hear something tomorrow. Until then I have been relinquished to the couch. The air mattress was too much (or I guess I should say to little) for my back. It has been much better for my back sleeping on the couch but I really miss my bed!

Saturday July 31, 2010

Ryan has had staff duty all day. From my understanding staff duty is basically sitting behind a desk for 24 hours, not sleeping, waiting for someone to call you with a problem that you then forward on to whoever needs to be informed about it. Sounds like fun… but at least he only has staff duty once every few weeks or so.

Planning to go out to see a “real” castle tomorrow if Ryan can get caught up on his sleep.