How we got here... and other random details.
I have lots of vacation pictures to catch up on (which I'll do soon) but I think I'll go out of order for the next little while because...
We are here. In Germany. Finally.
We woke up on Wednesday morning in our Atlanta Hotel beaming with excitement. Emily said, "Mom, this is the day I've waited for forever." We swam in the hotel pool and then got ready and checked out. We took all of our baggage back on the skytrain to the airport and picked a corner to sit and wait while Chris went to see if we could check in our baggage. Since no one was even at the counter yet, we pulled all of our luggage outside of Atlanta Bread and took turns standing by it as we ordered and ate our lunch. There is no doubt that people 'noticed' us. We are just too big a group with just too much luggage to go unnoticed. We got lots of interesting compliments like "your children seem so educated" and lots of comments like "you've got your hands full" or "you've got your own platoon" (coming from a military guy) but my favorite came while eating in Atlanta Bread. Chris ordered the food while I played with Luke and the girls sat around the luggage reading. Then we split up to eat since there wasn't a table big enough. When I filled up a drink for Chris, handed it to him and walked to my own table I heard one lady whisper to another lady, "that's the mom" and it made me smile. Yep, this 'platoon' is mine. How proud I am to tell people that 'yes, they are all mine' and answer 'six' before they go to all the trouble of counting. Traveling with 8 people is not a piece of cake, but it's not bad either.
After lunch we went and checked in getting rid of two thirds of our luggage. With three hours until we could board we headed up to the USO. Finally at 4:30 we headed through security and found our gate. It had already been a long day of waiting and the kids were so excited to finally be getting on the airplane.
We were among the first on the plane. The plane had two seats, aisle, four seats, aisle and two seats.
We sat:
Luke, Dad
Matthew, Mom, aisle, Katie, Ryan
Emily, Megan
Luke and Matthew were asleep before we even took off. Both hadn't had a nap yet and were just waiting to be strapped down so that their busy bodies could relax.
We flew Lufthansa and were very impressed. The kids were amazed with this airplane's features. Each chair had it's own TV with 18 different movies to choose from. The chair reclined further than other planes and had a little cup holder so you didn't have to have your whole tray down. The first thing the stewardesses did was to go up and down the aisles giving packages of toys, pencils, crayons, and a pack of cards to each of the kids. The kids didn't even open their backpacks once. No coloring pages. No crayons. No expensive Leapsters bought especially for this big flight. Nothing. Just headphones and individual movies.
After our initial drink and snack they served dinner. Beef, mashed potatoes, carrots & gravy, salad, roll, cheese, and brownie. Is it unusual to want the recipe of your on flight meal? Maybe I was just hungry but it was delish. The kids ordered pasta and loved it too.
Most of us chose to watch Alice in Wonderland, which we enjoyed. The kids watched a few until we finally realized we only had 3 1/2 hours left and forced them to turn off their TV's and get some sleep. I slept too. Chris tried but couldn't fall asleep even with his extra leg room. Two hours later they were serving breakfast.
As we descended we could see lots of clouds, rain and green fields everywhere. We landed and stopped but not at a gate. Instead they rolled a staircase to the door and we got out, and boarded a bus to the airport... in the rain. The kids and I squished on the first bus like sardines, and Chris grabbing the two carseats and stroller was left to get on the second bus. The Frankfurt airport didn't look like an American airport but I don't really know how to describe it. Most signs were in German and English and everybody we asked questions of spoke English, thank goodness. We are learning that Germany doesn't have too many elevators so it's not really double stroller friendly. We went in search of a way to get down to baggage claim, found an elevator and then ended up passing the baggage claim and sending Chris and the big kids to go back and get our luggage.
20 minutes later, with all of our luggage, we headed to the USO to make contact with the military who would help us get to the right bus. What we thought would be a simple procedure ended up being so inefficient and time consuming. First we gathered for a short briefing with three other families inprocessing to different locations in Germany. Then they caravanned us upstairs to the 'holding room' where our luggage sat by the big Heidelberg sign. From there we could sign out and walk around and get something to eat until our bus was ready to leave at 1:30.
Our nine hour flight had got us into Heidelberg at 10:00am (4:00am Georgia time -- 2:00am Utah time which is really what our bodies were used to). By the time we got our luggage and had been led to the 'holding room' it was 12:20. Since most of us got only a few hours of sleep (Chris didn't get any) we were EXHAUSTED, whiney, weak, and shaky and just the thought that we had to 'hang out' in another location to WAIT was more than we could take. Chris, (again the one with no sleep) took Katie, Emily, Megan and Matthew to the market in the airport to get some lunch. Ryan kept an eye on Luke who was running around crazy, and I cuddled up on two chairs with a jacket over my eyes to sleep. An hour and a half later, after another 'briefing' at 1:30 we caravanned through the airport to our buses. That sounds easy enough but it took FOREVER and was so frustrating. Finally we were outside in line for our bus.
The bus was nice and we had most of it to ourselves. Best part... a bathroom on the bus. We were on the bus for about an hour. We loved looking out the windows and enjoying the scenery. Green fields, cute quaint houses from a distance. Lots of green. We slept until they asked us for our ID to get on base.
We were dropped off outside of the Guest House here on Patrick Henry Village at almost 4:30. There are several small bases around Heidelberg instead of one large base. Where we are is close to the bowling alley, movie theater, the Middle School and a huge park... and a 20 minute walk to the commissary. Our 4 room hotel situation is better than we expected. All four rooms are connected. The first is two twin beds with small fridge, TV, desk, wall of closets and bathroom (Ryan and Katie and Luke). The second room is a living room area with TV and a small kitchen (smaller than our laundry room in Georgia but bigger than I expected -- it has two burners, a mini fridge, microwave and pots and pans etc. for us to use. The third has a double bed, desk, TV, cabinets and bathroom, (Emily and Megan) and the fourth room exactly like the third but with another fridge now known as the 'diet mountain dew' fridge (Chris and I and Matthew). It is going to be great.
Carol, our military sponsor, and other Radiologist here, met us and helped us walk over our luggage to our rooms, handed us a bag full of food and treats and helped us get dinner.
By 7:00pm we felt like we couldn't even stand up. Our legs were shaky and it seemed like the hotel was moving back and forth. So weird. After going through our luggage to find pjs and putting all the kids in bed we climbed in bed at 7:30 (1:30pm Georgia time -- 11:30 Utah time) and most of us slept most of 14 hours. Katie had a hard time sleeping because Luke apparently had a hard time sleeping. At 1:30am she tried to climb in bed with the other girls who were apparently already awake and talking in bed. At 2:00 Matthew woke up and wanted to talk so Chris who couldn't get back to sleep after telling the girls to go back to bed, decided to get up and watch the final Basketball game with Matthew. They came to bed again later and we all slept till 9:00. Emily and Megan slept till 11:00. Even with all the sleep I still feel a little wobbly today but feel like we have effectively switched over to Germany time... hopefully without any more crazy nights. We'll see.
So much more to see this weekend... Time to head to the huge park.