Visit the eastern hemisphere!

K: Bon voyage and safe travels to Africa! And, welcome to the eastern hemisphere! If anyone else reading this is headed this way (preferably landing several hundred miles north of, say, Africa, although I'm willing to travel!) chez Molly Murphy is theeeees close to throwing the doors open. And when I say theeeees close, I mean that I need to get to Ikea on the double becuase I am refusing to make an Army issue bed as part of my decor. Why is this important? What could be so bad about Army furniture? Well, nothing, unless it's the Army issue bed that you're talking about. Now, I know what you're thinking: is this bed a field cot? The good news is that no, it's not a field cot. I'd say it's probably, oh, a full step better than a field cot, which isn't saying much. We newcomers quickly learned that the Army issue bed consists solely of a mattress that I'm fairly confident had a previous life as a cushion on a piece of lawn furniture. The comfy yet pool-furniture-ish mattress is then laid on top of a low platform of 2 x 4s. Mmmm...comfy! Way back when we arrived, most of my friends ordered the Army-issue bed to use in their apartments thinking, "Hey! This is great: free furniture!" Quickly, however, crippled by the lounge chair mattress, most threw in the towel, and spent the money for real mattress and box spring combos and are sleeping peacefully as I write this. So what happens to all of those discarded Army issue beds? Will the Army move them back out of your apartment for you? Uh, no. Thaaaaat's right: you just move it into your spare bedroom, of course! M. and I think that the Army issue bed is the furniture that says to your guests, "Don't get too comfortable!" Have a good Wednesday!

Ooh...is this a bad sign?

I finally signed a contract for an apartment in a little town bordering Darmstadt. It's a cute, 3-bedroom affair with a little terrace 10 minutes away from work. Lovely, lovely. So lovely in fact, that M. and I have taken to making mini-road trips, just to look at it and survey the neighborhood at different times of day. Okay, okay, basically, we're just nosy and we want to see what's going on out there. I mean, I'm practically a Griesheim local, so I really should know what's going on, right? Well, anyway, we were making a trip out there last weekend, driving through the middle of town on the way to my block and M. was like, "Since when do you live next to the HO-tel?" What? Oh yeah, sure enough, right down the main drag of downtown Griesheim is the HO-tel. How do we know what it is? Oh, because it SAYS so in 6 foot high orange letters. Hmm. Now, is this simply convenient lodging, or a bad, baaad sign for my cute little neighborhood? I think funny coincidence or more likely bad translation probably covers the situation, but M. and I must be fighting off the last vestiges of sleep deprivation because we still find the HO-tel hilarious whenever we pass by.

Things that Shouldn't Make You Homesick

The funny thing about living somewhere new, is that you don't even realize how different things are....until you watch American tv. Now, I will admit that driving back and forth is still a bit of a surreal experience, these days. Instead of road signs directing me to turn right to get onto I-90, to head to Sheridan, WY or even directing me to Austin, TX, these days, as I drive, I'm much more likely to see a road sign that will take me to Munich or Stuttgart than to anywhere that I'm actually familiar with. It's still a little strange, but feeling a little weird about being closer to Budapest than Belle Fourche is understandable, right? But nothing to be homesick over, for sure. Except for the following. While watching American television last weekend, M. and I saw a highway scene in which the characters are driving. So, what's remarkable about that? Well, visible outside the windows of the car are green signs for nearby towns and highways. I instantaneously felt homesick...all of the signs here are blue. I know, I know: it's probably something that you wouldn't think would even register on your radar, but it's the little things, that you don't even realize that you noticed before, that you miss a little bit.

Hoopty-ize

A little note about this post: originally written on January 4, 2005, it has been wandering around on the internet, lost for the better part of two weeks. Until today, when I found it meandering around in the north forty. Just when you thought that Molly Murphy didn't have any adventures over the holidays... Back to our previously scheduled programming:

So, our Christmas celebrations went off without a hitch. Well, almost. Upon arriving in country, a lot of soldiers sans transportation will purchase what is affectionately referred to as a "hoopty"...I'm sure a lot of you reading this are nodding in acknowledgement. M. is among this group, having procured a lovely late 90's BMW M5 from a guy who we're pretty sure was formerly part of the Russian mafia. That's the word on the street, anyway. But I digress. Anyway, M. got some wheels. Sweeeeeet. And the car that he found actually looks pretty nice too. Which brings me to the hitch part of the holiday weekend. We decided to spend Christmas night making/eating dinner with a few friends that we've made since arriving, and friends of friends, and so on. So, after gathering at the first stop of the evening, the home of a signal battalion friend we've made (a girl who is also western South Dakotan-born-and raised: yay! I'm finally not alone!) we did a little last minute food prep before piling into aforementioned South Dakotan-friend's BMW to head to our ultimate dinner destination, the home of yet another newcomer to Germany. Anyway, as soon as the food prep was finished, we packed everything up and all five of us piled into the car. At this point I should probably also add that all of the cars driven by friends to this house are parked side-by-side with our hostesses' in the barnyard that serves as her, uh, front entry. You've just got to love the German countryside. Anyhoo, we're all chattering away, excited about Christmas, and the night ahead when our hostess puts the key in the ignition and throws the car in reverse. With lightning fast speed, she proceeds to simultaneously give the wheel a hard crank to the left and stomp on the accelerator....hard. You guessed it: Whammo! She smacks right into the broadside of M.'s car. Yes, my friends, if you want to kill a party, load everyone into your car, put the key in the ignition and then proceed to drive it directly into a parked vehicle, the car preferably being owned by the person riding shotgun. Which is, conveniently enough, where M. was sitting at the time. Now this, this is not good. So, our hostess, flustered as can be says, "I can't really see what happened..." proceeds to put the car in first and DRIVES FORWARD running back into the car A SECOND TIME! Oh, good grief! Now this takes the REALLY NO GOOD CAKE, people! Here's the really hard to believe part: up until this point in the story, there was absolutely no drinking involved! Scary, but absolutely true! So, we piled out of the car to survey the damage. We were all standing there, when a buddy of M.s' and mine from San Antonio breaks the awkward silence with the following: "Well, at least it was just a hoopty." To which we all looked glared back at him and said, "Oh NOW it's a hoopty!" Poor M.! Anyway, to his credit, he bucked up and put on a very convincing party face. So, despite the damper that property damage seems to always throw on a party, we managed to have a really good time despite the, uh, bump in the road! Or in the barnyard, as the case may be. And the rest of the holidays, well, they went off without a hitch! Hope you had a good holiday season, too!

Mobility rules!

My Blazer has arrived in Germany! It came off the boat last week, and was delivered to Wiesbaden on Monday. It's funny imagining that my little truck has been out on the open ocean for a few weeks...and now it's got these funny license plates on it and the whole deal. Altogether, though, having been on foot for the last five weeks, it is a huge relief to be, once again, able to get around all myself: it's like Christmas all over again! I've even had the, ahem, opportunity to take it out on the open road as I am traveling to work at a clinic 45 minutes from my home post this week. It's a bit of a surreal experience, my big American SUV on the autobahn, being easily passed by the much speedier (and smaller!) German-spec Benzes and Beemers out there. One of the other cars that is popular here is something called the Smart car, which looks scarily enough a bit like a multicolored rollerskate, in most cases. Go to http://www.thesmart.co.uk/ to take a peek: they're actually really cute, but definitely not for the faint of heart: I think a collision with an errant snowball might be enough to do it in, but ANYWAY, they're everywhere here. So, I'm off to drive again: wish me luck! And have a good Tuesday!