A Long Day....

Man oh man - Germany is busy!  I drove up yesterday to Schweinfurt, which is about three hours Northeast from my apartment.  A three hour drive here is different than a three hour drive at home, mostly because there isn't a Super-stop, or McDonald on every corner to get coffee when you are tired!  This is something that makes Germany unique, it is like driving through the country, with beautiful scenery everywhere you look.  You don't have all the "clutter" of billboards and signs everywhere, it is really beautiful. 

My briefing today was the largest one that I have had over here.  It was with the Army, so I had the four hour TAP briefing, then a break for lunch and the two hour DTAP briefing.  So basically, I was talking for six hours, which all of you know that I don't have a problem talking that long!  LOL  

There were 37 in attendance and not a single one from or going to Arkansas!  When I finished the briefing I stayed around to answer a few questions for service members then drove home.  That makes for a really long day!

As far as Arkansas connection, I always ask when I begin my briefing to get an idea of where all the service members will be going they are discharged.  So far, I haven't met anyone from Arkansas.  Although, Ann my co-worker lives in the third floor apartment of a house, the second floor is rented by service member that has been deployed and his wife is visiting family in the states, I  bring this up because his doormat is a Razorback - so I know there are some folks around with Arkansas connection!

I am traveling again tomorrow, I will be going to Spangdahlem, which about two  and a half hours from here, is almost in Belgium.  I will drive up tomorrow and spending the night in base lodging.  The great things about staying in base lodging is they have laundry facilities, so I can wash my clothes free without having to go the the Laundromat!  My briefing is not until 12:30, so I will go in early and take personal interviews prior to the briefing.  Liz, my contact at that office was really glad that I volunteered to come in early for interviews, she has lined up several appointments for me.  After the briefing, which will be the four hour TAP briefing I will be driving back home, so it will be a really long day!

I have a lot of great pictures to post of the BBQ that my German friends invited me to and my weekend trip to Trier.  It is only 8:30 p.m. and still full daylight, but I am ready to head to bed!  I will close now so that I can Skype with the family get to bed.  Tschuss!

My apartment

I live on the second floor of this house.

My apartment is really nice!  It is modern and quite roomy for a one bedroom apartment.  I have a nice little balcony with a table and chairs.  My landlords really do not speak English, but their daughter and granddaughter do, so they can translate.   I live on the second floor of their house.  It has one bedroom, a large living room - kitchen area and a huge bathroom!

View from my bedroom window, that is my BMW X1 Sport in the drive way.

This is sunset from my bedroom window, by the way when I say sunset, I mean like 10:15 p.m.!

View from balcony

View looking down from the balcony into the landlord's backyard.

I will post pictures from the inside of my apartment, after I clean it!

My new German friends

I can't say that is has been all work and no play!  There is a nice little restaurant a couple of blocks from my apartment.  I walked down there Wednesday for dinner.  They had a pizza special, so that is what I got, and it was delicious!

The Zur Feiermaus (pronounced fire mouse) is just down from my apartment, it is directly across the street from the Feuer Haus (fire house).  It is a volunteer fire department where I live in Seigelbach, which is a village in Kaiserslautern.

On the other corner from Zur Feiermaus there is a wonderful Backerei (bakery).  The have Laugenbrotchen - Kase, which is a wonderful pretzel roll with cheese melted on top!

It was at Zur Feiermaus that I met my new German friends, Marcus and Elka Zeigler.  The live just down the street from Zur Feiermaus in the other direction.  They introduced me to Cola-Bier, which is beer and coke and believe it or not, it is REALLY good!  I know it sounds crazy, but it is on all the menus in Germany, I didn't make it up!  It makes the beer tolerable they don't serve Michelob Ultra with lime and salt anywhere in Germany!  Except possibly here on base.

Working......

Wow, this first week of work has been a whirlwind with briefings and interviews.  I absolutely love getting to meet with service members and veterans.  It certainly is refreshing to get out and see how VA impacts the lives of our customers.  Sitting in the office looking only at claims files or computers, it is very easy to lose sight of our mission.

Monday morning was our first day "alone" Ann and I both had 0800 briefings.  She was at Kleber Kaserne for an Army briefing and I was at Ramstein for an Air Force briefing.  After my briefing I had a quick lunch then a telephone briefing with Aviano AFB, so it was a full day for me!

We have an office at Kleber Kaserne Army Post, but will be traveling so much that we will only be in the office one day a week for sure.  We will spend all day Tuesday at Kleber and all day Wednesday at Ramstein Air Force Base taking appointments.  Ramstein is great about keeping our calendar full of appointments on our day there!  Of course between all the travel, briefings, and interviews, we both have an e-mail address so, we get a lot of e-mails to respond to!

We are going to have to do some outreach to get Kleber appointments up!    Our office there is pretty remote!  We are on the third floor of the ACAP Center/Library, with no elevator!  Which is crazy because many of our customers are disabled!  I did learn that there is a Warrior Transition Unit located at Kleber, (for service members with injuries or disabilities that will more than likely be released from active duty) which I will visit just to see if the service members have any questions.

There was a briefing Tuesday at Baumholder which is about an hour from Kaiserslautern.  It was a great group of guys!  There were only nine service members present, so it was a nice small informal group.  Thursday afternoon I was all set to travel to Geilenkirchen (which is about 3 hours from here, very close to Belgium and the Netherlands) for a briefing Friday, thank goodness I finally got in touch with the office Thursday morning, because they didn't have a briefing scheduled, although it was on our schedule.  I guess that shows me the importance of calling ahead to make sure the briefing is still on!

Basically from here on out, Ann and I will be going in different directions!  The only thing we know for sure is that on Tuesdays one of us will be at Kleber and Wednesdays one of us will be at Ramstein.  We will be all over the country on the other days!

Now that I am somewhat settled, I will post more often!

First Weekend - Fun in Belgium

I headed out Friday after work for my first weekend adventure to visit Summer Frantz Dickinson and her husband Mike in Belgium.  I really tried to talk myself out of going, because I was tired, but I have so many places that I want to visit, I can rest later!

I arrived in Mons, Belgium it was so great to see Sumer and Mike.  I took this picture to show everyone that it is 10 p.m. and as you can see, it is still daylight!  With all this day time it is really hard to sleep.  Seems crazy to go to bed at 10 p'clock when it is broad daylight!  

Can you believe that this picture was taken at 10:00 p.m.?

 Three countries in three days, and the fun is just beginning!


If I wasn't sure that I had left Germany all I had to do was look at the road signs, especially the exit signs, French exit sign is SORTIE and German exit sign is AUSFARHT.



To be continued......

Germany - Here I Am!!

My home for the first week.

Sorry, it has taken me so long to update you all!  It seems like we got here and hit the ground running!  The first week was spent with the previous OMSC's.  They took us under their wing and took us so many places that I don't think I will remember where to find a single one of the places that we went to.

Tykisha Tull

Laurel Law

 After we were picked up at the airport we went to the lodging facility at Ramstein Air Force Base to drop our bags off and get checked in.  Ann and I were both so excited, we to be there.  We went to lunch at a great Italian restaurant, it was very good.  We drove around to Kleber Kaserne; Vogelweh; and Ramstein.  We finished the day with dinner at Chili's.  Yes, there is a Chili's and a Macaroni Grill at Ramstein AFB.

The morning of Tykisha and Laurel's last day with us.  We felt like there were so many thing that we didn't know!  Ann was little apprehensive about driving.  I guess having driven on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road in Okinawa and UK, I feel like Germany will be a breeze!

It's almost time!

In less than 24 hours I will be on my way to Germany!  Seven VA Regional Office employees will embark on the adventure of a lifetime!  Chantel from LA will be headed to Yukosuka, Japan; Max from Milwaukee PMC will be headed to Okinawa, Amy from the Columbia Call Center will be headed to Iwakuni, Japan; Crystal from Atlanta will be headed to the UK, Jen from Philly will be headed to Italy, and last but not least, Ann from the Houston/San Antonio office and I will be taking Germany by storm!  I am very fortunate to have served in this capacity twice before, so during our week of training the others probably got tired of hearing me say what an awesome experience it is to be an OMSC!

Stay tuned for details of my adventures!  I appreciate all your prayers for safe travels!