Fairfields in Germany: Transition week! August 15-19

The last days before our departure were a flurry of activity: vet appointments with the cats, urgent care visit with MK (poison ivy!), and repacking... Several pieces of luggage were still too heavy, so we shuffled and discarded until everything came in under 50 lbs. We knew we would be checking an "extra" piece of luggage (one giant suitcase dedicated to winter coats, snow pants, and ski gear), but wanted to avoid other fees. The kids each had a backpack stuffed full of their favorite toys, books, or other personal items. Joshua and I had important papers, files, and our laptops along with the usual crim cram you want in your carry on (chargers, tablets, phones, etc.). By Wednesday early afternoon, we were ready to go, the house was in order, and I couldn't stand the thought of twiddling our thumbs waiting for the "don't leave later than" time, so we loaded the luggage into the van and spread the kids out between the 3 vehicles traveling from home to Harrisonburg for good-byes and picking up the extra driver (to drive our van back from the airport) and just left (3 hours earlier than planned)!

By late afternoon my parents, J's parents, and some in-laws had gathered at my sister-in-law's house to see us off. The cousins wanted to hide away in our luggage and come along! A little before 5 p.m. we were on the road and only encountered a little construction traffic on 66 East. We unloaded and checked in almost immediately. Our check-in guy was kind enough to wave the extra baggage fee (I think we impressed him by having all our luggage--even the giant suitcase--under the 50 lb weight limit)!

The Lufthansa flight was pretty slick--arrived 30 minutes early. I've never flown without a layover before and it was really nice to know that we didn't have to find another gate or sit and wait (or race through an unfamiliar airport to get to a connecting flight). Our luggage came out quickly and we were on our way. It was lunch time so we found food on our way to the rental car area.

Since our flight went so smoothly, I figured there would be a hiccup somewhere. Flizzr did not disappoint. Flizzr is a discount rental company that piggybacks off Sixt. Somehow a "reservation" of a certain sized car does not guarantee that we'll get that size of a car! So we pressed the Sixt rental agent to figure out our options and he eventually figured out that he could get us the right size if we could adjust how many days we needed it for. Thankfully, our needs were flexible, so after 2 hours of back and forth (he had to go to a manager at the main Sixt counter to sort this all out), we finally had a set of keys and a super-minivan (what passes for a minivan; has a 3rd row of seats in the trunk space, but is more like an oversized station wagon). I was sure we wouldn't be able to get all 6 large suitcases in the back, but we stacked them flat and stuffed one in behind the driver's seat (I was driving--short legs!) with GE sitting cross-legged in the seat behind it! Everyone but me held their carry-ons on their laps and we were good to go.

Loaded! Still can't believe we got it all in.

The property manager of our building is on vacation in Morroco, so his brother met us on the road outside, helped us unload the luggage, and then guided me to the underground garage with the tiniest, most awkward parking space to get into (had to turn around and back in). Managed to squeeze the large wagon in with just a few mm to spare! All the car's space detectors were going off! Then he showed us where the garbage room, storage room, and laundry room (with dryers!) was located, gave us keys to all and went through a checklist in the apartment. By this time it was after 5 p.m. and we were all hungry, so I took a short walk with ME to the REWE City grocery store around the corner and came home with supplies and some simple supper food. Shower and bed... Day 1 FERTIG!

August 17, 2018

On Friday J and I walked over to the KVR (Kreisverwaltungsreferat - "Regional Administration Center" or something like that... German bureaucracy...) so J could do the Stadtanmeldung (city registration) for our family. Basically, we have to tell München that we have moved into a residence and plan to stay and then when it's time to leave, we have to do an Abmeldung (un-registration) with the city 2 weeks before we leave. We got to the office between 7:30 and 8 a.m. (it opened at 7:30) and there was already a ridiculous line. I left him there to wait and in the meantime, I found the nearest Aldi, got a few things, found a home goods store with a 50% off sale on towels and bought towels (there were only 3 for the whole apartment and nothing in the kitchen), and explored a couple of other side streets while walking back to the apartment. When I arrived I got J's texts (via wi-fi at the office building--we still didn't have SIM cards for the phones at that point) that he needed the passports for all the girls too (he had ours with him), so I grabbed those and hustled back to the KVR to find him in the waiting zone. I left him there to wait some more and took another new route home. Once he returned, we had a simple lunch.

After lunch, we rallied the girls to go back out with us to investigate our options for cell phone SIM cards. We stopped at a couple of places until we settled on T-mobile's Congstar service which is a prepaid/pay-as-you-go style plan so we won't be locked into a service plan when we leave in 9 months. We forgot to take our passports with us though and those are needed to buy and activate new SIM cards throughout Europe, so Joshua left us to go back to the apartment and get them. We agreed to meet back at the phone shop in an hour. I wanted to find a shop where I could get a rolling shopping cart. My shoulders and arms were already complaining about carrying the grocery bags that morning. We asked the phone shop guy for a suggestion and were off.

We found all kinds of other things on the way-- a fountain, various shops and cafes, 2 movie theaters, and Sendlinger Tor, an entrance to the Altstadt. Finally, we arrived at the Galeria Kaufhof where I quickly located the department where there was a range of simple to fancy rolling carts to choose from. We got a few other essentials while we were there, loading up the new shopping cart, and then headed back to the phone shop.

J had already finished when we arrived, so the girls got their promised ice cream cones from a local Gelato shop and we headed home...

25,000+ steps that day. Whew!

The rest of the week...

I'm writing this on Tuesday morning and realizing that so much has happened that it's starting to blur together and I'll need to write things down each evening (I sort of remember doing this when we were in Bonn, but it's a faded memory). So, I'll try to summarize everything we've done since Friday!

Saturday morning Joshua and I hunted down a phone kiosk near the Karlsplatz that sold refurbished smartphones and Lebara prepaid phone cards. We got Maggie a basic phone and Lebara plan and headed home. Later in the afternoon, we used the car to go to the OBI Markt across town. OBI is sort of the German version of a Home Depot or Lowe's but on a smaller scale. I was hoping to find some fans since it's been quite warm and we could use the white noise at night to drown out the street noise, but no luck (we'd heard Europe is basically sold out of fans due to the sustained heat wave they've had). I also had a list of other random household stuff, so I got most of what I needed, loaded the car and then drove to the Aldi and loaded up on groceries and bulkier items. The girls had come along and we passed the Oktoberfest grounds. We can actually walk quite easily from our apartment to the Oktoberfest area, but the girls hadn't seen the scale of this yet--it's quite a bit bigger than the Rockingham County fair grounds and there are already tents and buildings being set up for the fall festival. All over town there are now "pop up" stores selling discounted Oktoberfest clothing: Dirndls and Lederhosen!

After we got back to the apartment J told me he'd made a reservation for us at the Frauenhofer, a restaurant and Biergarten that features theater productions throughout the year and was highlighted in our guide book. So we got the girls settled and took a walk... We followed the canal that runs along our apartment building and goes under the Kapuzinerstraße, then crossed up into the Glockenbachviertel neighborhood.

I love how Germans insert greenery into everyday spaces. Even on sidewalks destitute of trees, the locals grow vines up their drain spouts!

Google maps was showing a street festival happening between our location and destination, so we detoured slightly in order to walk through it. The street fest, Schwule Straßen Fest Hans-Sachs-Straße, is the second largest street fest in München celebrating the LGBTQ community (which explained why the road closure on Google maps was rainbow-colored!). Very colorful, lots of food trucks, and music. It was a loud, joyful and fun walk-through. We are not in Kansas anymore...

First date night! A quick selfie while walking through the Hans-Sachs-Straße gay street festival.

The restaurant was surprisingly quiet even though our reservation was for 7--late for Americans, but apparently more like a 5 p.m. reservation for Germans. J ordered the Matjes fillet, recommended by our German friend, M. I had a vegetarian plate with roasted red peppers stuffed with sheep's cheese, and a salad.

After dinner we meandered back, taking different streets and exploring.

On Sunday we planned to have a restful morning at home after all the running around we'd been doing. In the afternoon we took a bus into the Altstadt to explore. We entered via the Isartor, found the Neues Rathaus with its famous Glockenspiel (we missed the noon show by 12 minutes and the next wasn't until 5--bummer!) in the beautiful Marienplatz, explored the Frauenkirche and Peterskirche, climbed the tower of the Peterskirche for a view of the city, and wandered through the empty stalls of the Viktualienmarkt. We exited the Altstadt via Sendlinger Tor and took the subway home.

Entering the Altstadt via the Isartor.

"Really? It's like a giant cuckoo clock?"

Street musician!

Inside the Rathaus is a courtyard with a restaurant.

Gargoyles!

Fountain! Can we get in?

Too cool to get wet these days... (She was also grouchy that she'd forgotten to take her new Canon camera with her.)

Flower boxes... How do they keep these watered?!

The Frauenkirche tower under renovation in the background.

More street musicians... How did they get the piano out here?!

Window shopping! German trinket shop.

Ice cream makes it all worthwhile.

Peterskirche in the reflection.

At the top of the Peterskirche tower.

View of the city with the roofs of the Viktualienmarkt in the foreground.

Frauenkirche in the center and a corner of the Rathaus in the bottom right.

Rathaus

The green space in the distance is the Englischer Garten. J's workplace at the Max Planck for Innovation and Competition is just south of the garden, so only a few minutes walk from where we were in this picture.