What? Wal-Mart?

Okay, so maybe I'm just too new to this whole thing. You know, living somewhere that is not the U.S. Or at least I was pretty sure wasn't the U.S. What do I mean by that? Well, when I got the opportunity to take this assignment, I thought to myself, "Hey this will be a great opportunity! Everything will be new, different, TOTALLY unlike life in the states!" Yeah, that was until this afternoon when on the way back to home from Heidelberg, we turned the corner to drive through town and there it was, looming large on the horizon: duh duh daaaaaaaah- a Super Wal-Mart. Hmmm. Well, I guess there's nothing quite like having a little piece of Arkansas right here in Germany!

Euro schmeuro

Boy did I pick the right week to move to the continent: last Friday, the dollar sank to a new low versus the euro. People here were already complaining about the situation here before I saw this article today: http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2004/11/29/euro/index_np.html. So, how do I have all this free time to fret about foreign currency? Today has been more of the ol' hurry-up-and-wait routine that the Army is famous for. The hurry up part I'm okay with, it's the waiting that is sometimes tougher to do. Fortunately, I am in Heidelberg today, and they left me with a computer at my disposal: hoo-ray! It has been a few years since I have been here, but surprisingly, I even recognized a few things as we drove into town. There are still lots of leaves on trees here, but it is pretty chilly today. No snow, though: that was last week, I guess. Overall, it's pretty much the way I remembered it...only now I live here: yikes! More to follow...

Deutschland

Well, I'm here! Despite the jet lag, I'm going to have to write quickly, because the computer lab is closing in a couple of minutes. The flight from Atlanta to Frankfurt went well, and M. and I arrived with all of our luggage in what could be considered one piece: yay! I'm hoping to be able to share some pictures from the trip soon, because my favorites are the pictures of the little back-of-the-seat video screens that show us flying in exactly the WRONG direction. Who knew you had to fly west from Atlanta to get to Frankfurt? Among other things, this was one of the features of the flight that M. and I found HIL-AR-IOUS while en route: there's much to be said for sleep deprivation as a mechanism to lower the bar for what can be considered really funny. Overall, though, we had a really good flight and even managed to sleep a little bit on the way. He was whisked away by the folks from the vet detachment that he's joining and I took off with the dental folks. From trading e-mails today, it looks like we probably crossed paths at least once, but the fact that we didn't see each other probably gives you some indication as to what a huge procedure it is to inprocess Europe, as I'm sure some of you reading this probably know far more about than I. Anyway, the main task for today has simply been to stay awake, and it's going pretty well thus far. My clinic non-comissioned officer in charge (who you call the "NCOIC" to keep you from going insane) made things pretty easy for me today, so I was able to go back to my hotel-type room in the temporary lodging building and take it easy for most of the afternoon. The temporary lodging for officers here is pretty similar to the place that I was living in San Antonio, for those of you who were lucky enough to see the posh accomodations that are the Bachelor Officer's Quarters (BOQ) on lovely Ft. Sam Houston. The only drawback? Yeah, I scored the only room in the place WITH NO PHONE. I must have looked like I didn't have any friends to call, eh? Overall, though, this particular post is small compared to most of the other European posts/bases, which is good in the near term because I'm going to be hoofing it around for awhile! In the future, though, it sounds like there are quite a few neighboring installations, so I'm going to have to do a little research on where to go for the best commissary, etc. Probably not a big surprise. I was also able to see my clinic this morning and meet some of the staff, which was fun. It was recently renovated and is really gorgeous. The rest of the post is probably what you would expect: all of the facilities are housed in pretty German-looking buildings (gee...I guess that would be because, they're, well, German), and, probably also not surprisingly, we're surrounded by a forest on all sides. Hopefully, I'll have photos to share soon. At this point, it's about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and Monday is just getting started for all of you in the states. I'll try to post more soon. Have a good one and take care!

Chez Molly Murphy

The tryptophan has finally worn off, the Diet Coke has kicked in, and this has turned into a late night of last minute laundry and deciding exactly how much stuff you really can squeeze into a suitcase and still meet the 75 lb. weight restrictions. M.'s mom and dad have graciously offered me the use of their computer here, so naturally, I thought I'd try to get one more post written before we leave for the airport tomorrow afternoon...I've got pleeeeenty of time to pack, right? Right. Anyway, this week has been a lot of fun, not the least of it was generated as a result of the road trip from San Antonio to M.'s mom and dad's house here outside of Atlanta. After outprocessing in Texas on Tuesday morning, we headed north to Dallas and I-20 which shoots across the southeast U.S. on a line through Shreveport and Birmingham, and then up to Atlanta. We hit really awful weather probably 45 minutes north of SanAntonio-torrential downpour, tornadoes, lightning: the whooole south Texas kit and caboodle. So needless to say, the remaining 7 hours of the trip to Shreveport were a little dicey. Anyway, on the way, we stopped at a Starbucks drive-through in Waco. By this point, it was raining so hard, that M. had to pretty much open the car window a crack and throw his coffee mug in to the lady working there. She was pretty much drenched by the end of the first part of this whole transaction, so when it came time for him to hand the money to her, she just waved him off after handing him the coffee: there was nooooo way she was sticking her hand back out the window into that cold rain! It was pretty funny: we were soaking wet inside the car...it was at this point that we were beginning to wonder just how important coffee actually is. Anyway, a mere 1,300 miles, two days and a bazillion cups of coffee later, I've colored in my map and I am now claiming that I have been to Louisiana and Alabama. And Georgia, of course, which has been really fun. M.'s mom and dad live outside of Atlanta on a lake, which is gorgeous. If you're inside, looking out, that is. M. and I didn't exactly realize the full importance of having a pane of glass between you and the water during the winter months until this past Thursday morning, when we decided to go running, which turned into a brisk walk as we encountered the coldest, wettest wind that I've ever felt coming off the lake, directly into our faces. "This is the south!" I said. "I thought it was supposed to be warm here!" Aaaah!

ANYWAY, M.'s family had their big Thanksgiving celebration on Friday this year. Other than arriving on time to greet them as they arrived around noon, our only task was to drive my car into Atlanta and drop it off at the port Friday morning. Sounds simple, right? So, we set out with PLENTY of time: it was only going to take an hour to process my car, according to the ladies at the port office. We get to Atlanta, no traffic, things are good. Unload my car, they pull it into the processing area, inspect the whole works: smoooth. Things are STILL good. All they need me to do is to review the inspection, sign it and drive away. Great! No problem there! So, M. and I are literally just about to get in the car and drive off when one of the inspectors comes running down the ramp, waving his arms to stop us. I roll down the window and he says, "Ma'am? Did you know that your car won't start?" What? Okay, now, it started that morning. It started when they pulled it into the garage....good grief! I wound up having to go to Auto Zone, buy an overpriced battery (my favorite kind!) and then they helped us put it in. Okay, so this battery replacement, well, it had to be done, and that's okay, but here's the really important part of the story: this whole escapade took an hour and a half. By this time, M.'s three older brothers and their families have already arrived at his mom and dad's house, and are waiting, fully aware that we're late. Really late. Add to this the fact that, thanks to some phone calls that M. had received from his brothers in the weeks since they'd found out that I was coming to Thanksgiving, I'd gotten a sneak peak at the kind of teasing, etc. that was in store for me. Any of these suspicions that I'd had were thoroughly confirmed for me when 10 minutes into the car ride back to his parents house, M.'s cell phone rang. It was his brother, B., and I could hear him say the following: "The loooonger you stay away, the more we're going to embarrass Leigh, so if you know what's good for you..." Oh geez. Anyway, we finally arrived, and, true to their word, the boys did their best to run me off, but I hung in there, thanks in part to M.'s three sisters-in-law who did a lot to cushion all of the teasing pointed in my direction! They're a really fun group, and we had a great time hanging out together for the day. Oh, and eating waaay too much, which was definitely fun, too.

Today, we drove to Athens, GA, to tailgate before the UGA-Georgia Tech game with one of M.'s brothers, B. and his wife. If you haven't been there, Athens is a really cute college town, and the UGA campus is very pretty: the leaves are even still on the trees! Unbelievable! We drove back up here this evening to do some last minute, pre-packing shopping and now it's off to finish that laundry. Anyway, thanks to everybody who's called and e-mailed before my departure: I'll try to keep posting as soon as I have access to a computer again, and calling just as soon as I have a phone. Have a great rest of the holiday weekend, wish me luck and see you all in Germany, as Chez Molly Murphy will be opening soon!

Goodbye, South Texas!

Today is my last full day in south Texas, and it's going to be a doozy: there's plenty of thunder, lightning and buckets of rain to go around. Who knew that tornado season could last until Thanksgiving? Anyway, it's now time to eat the last meal at Taco Cabana (the Texas version of Taco John's), drive by the Alamo one last time and say goodbye to Ft. Sam Houston...at least for awhile (you usually wind up coming back here for more classes eventually). It's still hard to process that I'll be in Germany in only 8 days...it still feels like that's a loooong time from now, although with the movers coming to get my stuff today, it's definitely feeling a little more real. I'm looking forward to the adventure, though, and hopefully, bits and pieces of it will be deemed blog-worthy, so stay tuned! Plus, I have a feeling that the culture shock of my first trip to the south later this week for Thanksgiving is going to make for some interesting moments, as well! With any luck, I'll be able to snag some time on a computer here and there to post some more excerpts from the journey. Have a good week and a great Thanksgiving! And mom: Have a great birthday! Love you!

Molly Murphy rides, ahem, writes again!

Hopefully, if you're reading this, you haven't given up on me yet! It's been a busy couple of weeks, finishing things up here in San Antonio and getting ready for the next stage of the big move. So, what's the step of the adventure, you ask? Well, it's shaping up like this: I will be moving off base next Tuesday and driving my car to Dallas where I will drop it at the port to be shipped. A port? In Dallas? Yes, yes, I know. Dallas is land-locked. You would think that it would make more sense for the port to be in say, Houston, being nearer the Gulf and all, but no. They will actually put my car on a truck in the big D, ship it TO Houston, and THEN it will be put on a boat and sent overseas. This is a good example of the kind of idiosyncracy that I just don't even ask about anymore. So, what happens after Dallas? I was originally scheduled to depart for Frankfurt from Dallas later this week, but when I got to the Transportation office, my plane ticket had been totally goofed up...shocking, I know. The headline read something like this: ARMY GOOFS UP TRAVEL PLANS: well there's a first! ANYWAY, when the ladies at the Transportation Dept. finally figured out how to fix it, the only solution that they could come up with was to send me out of Dallas on 28 November..after Thanksgiving. Conveniently enough, M., is also being stationed in Germany, not too far from me. FORTUNATELY, M. is also smah-ter than I am, and he conned me into going on his Turkey Day cross-the-south road trip to Atlanta where he will drop his car off at his folks' house, and then I will fly out with him from Hartsfield after Thanksgiving, instead of Dallas. Now THIS could be quite the adventure! Acutally, it should be a really good time: his whole family will be there, and I have a feeling that if the road trip doesn't kill me, getting teased by his three older brothers might. I'm already getting a hard time from at least one of them, long-distance, so, it should be a lot of fun, and I'm definitely looking forward to having at least one more week in the U.S. before we go.