let's start from the very beginning. a very good place to start.

sorry. we watched a sound of music before i left. always a good movie. i hadn't seen it in somee time, mccall and i were i THINK the only 2 who stayed there through the whole movie. (though admittedly i did fall asleep for a few minutes right as the movie got intense and they were trying to flee the country.)

anyways. germany.
WE'RE in germany!!

that's basically what i think every day.  example: walking home today after getting off the S Bahn (above ground train) and suddenly i'm like "joslin. nbd we're just walking around in germany."

so it's great.

the trip here was pretty good all things considered. we went to bed really late the night before because we were packing, naturally. we started packing the day before :). classic. but the packing went well, my bag was only 48 pounds (score!)  and joslins was just barely over 50 so we were able to shift things around to fit. we had carry ons that had hardly anything so that was nice. we had to leave our house at 4:40 to make it to the airport on time, apparently you're supposed to be to the airport 2 hours ahead of time for international flights. so went to bed at 2 ish...woke up at 4 ish. less than ideal.

which is mostly why we look like that. but if you had a 3 hr flight to chicago and then a 2 hr flight to philly and then an 8 hour flight to munich and THEN a 1 hour flight to berlin, all with layovers in between you'd want to wear you're stretchy pants too. so don't judge.

on the plane to munich we were surprised with a nice dinner. like, seriously it was good. yummy pasta, salad, a tasty roll and brownie. good job US airlines. i was sure impressed. i was also impressed with this GPS display that let us see how far away we were from our destination. almost there!

we arrived safe and sound and our cute host family, the Beers, came and picked us up. it all worked out very well and even though we were sure worried about the flight and traveling that part was great. we barely even had jet lag at all. probably mostly because i slept through the 8 hr flight. that'll do it.

when we drove to the house where we'll be staying i could not even BELIEVE it. cutest little town you've ever seen. it's north of germany and my favorite part: cobblestone roads. like honestly it's adorable. the town is so quaint and beautiful, then with only a short train ride we can ride into the huge city of berlin. it's perfect. we'll clearly be taking more pictures of the town soon.

other things about the typical german house:
-no dryer (crunchy towels)
-no ice for my ice water. most germans drink mineralwasser aka carbonated water. mmm ya not so good. also i mean i don't like soda so that'll do it. barely ANY germans drink regular water so they don't need ice...how do you think i feel about that??
-the european electric plugs sure have caused us problems. one post about that coming right up.
-every thing is itsy bitsy. the fridge, bathrooms, etc.
-beautiful backyard, lots of flowers.

point is, i like it here.