Happy Halloween!

M. left this pumpkin in my care shortly before he left country...he wanted to make sure that I had one to properly celebrate Halloween this year, so it rode in the backseat of my car all the way from Bavaria to Hessen with me. Granted, my dining room looked like a crime scene by the time I was done cleaning it out (maybe M. will help me with that part next year!), but it was fun...I don't think I've carved a pumpkin since elementary school! Hope you have a very happy Halloween, too!

Molly Murphy: La Femme Dangereuse!

I love Kevlar in the springtime...I love Kevlar in the fall. Wait, what? No, I don't! No! I don't love Kevlar at any time of the year. However, if it's going to protect me from the notorious pediatric dentists at the firing range, by golly, I'm wearing it! That's right, folks: the world's most dangerous orthodontist rides again! Wish me luck as I head to the range to qualify. And, as I will be face down in the sand for the better part of this exercise, your prayers for no rain over central Germany will be gladly accepted here!

"The Mol-leeeeee family!"

Okay, so it's been awhile since I've been able to sit down and reflect on the wedding week, but a quick recap of one of the funny things that happened. The day after the ceremony, M. and I set out on a wedding trip with our wedding guests, his parents and my mom! The first day, our destination was Garmisch for dinner and the plan was to get to Reutte, Austria, by bedtime. Reutte is a great launching spot for trips to Neuschwanstein Castle, where we'd planned to go early the next day. So, while introducing the fam to their first doner kebaps at Kebap King (verdict: delicious!) I got on the cell phone to reserve rooms at a hotel that M. and I like in Reutte. The place is huge and I know the owner speaks English well...this is going to be toooo easy! Or not: they were booked solid! Okay, trying option #2 in Reutte...booked. Completely. So now, I'm starting to get a little worried...Reutte isn't exactly a metropolis, and we were starting to run out of options. Alright, you can always pull out the ol' Rick Steve's, right? Which is how I found the Hotel Maximilien. It's in Ehrenbichel, AT...just around the corner from Reutte, according to my good friend Rick. So, doners finished, we headed down the autobahn, and hit a nice looong stau (short for staugefahr, or "traffic jam") and we sat, and sat, and sat. It was even starting to get dark! A little concerned that I'd booked us into one of the mom and pop guesthouses where they roll up the carpet and lock the door at 8:00 PM, I call back to the Maxilmilien. Gabi, the proprietor, answers: "Gruss Gott!" (the customary greeting in Bavaria...literally, "Greet God".) "Uh, Gruss Gott!" (I can get at least that far in German on the phone!) I ask Gabi, rather tenatively, how late we can check in because, well, we're gonna be late. She says, "Oh, keine problem: we'll be here until 11 o'clock!" She pauses and then says, "Is this Molly?" Um, uh, yeah. This is Molly. "Okay, see you before 11 Molly!" Such a nice lady, that Gabi. Anyway, we continue on down the road, stopping in Garmisch for a bite to eat, and this is where mom learned firsthand that when you order "meatloaf" you might actually just get a big hunk of grilled...baloney! Mmmm! If only we had pictures, I would share them: it was hilarious! I guarantee, though, that the dining experience is seared on mom's brain. ANYWAY, stuffed full of good German food (well, mom's might not have been good...), we jumped in the car, over the Austrian border, through Reutte and down the road another 15 minutes to Ehrenbichl. Situated right below several castle ruins high on the mountainside, it's a tiny village in a beautiful alpine valley. Anyway, we find the Hotel Maximilien, pile out of our vehicle and head for the lobby. We could see a woman coming down the lobby stairs. I said "Hallo!" and she held her arms out wide and said, "Ah hah! This must be the Moll-leeee family!" And we laughed. Yes, indeed, we are the Molly family! She got us settled in our rooms and we returned to the lounge for a drink. Gabi came back a few minutes later to give us information on the area and chat a bit. She introduced herself, and we told her that M. and I had just been married. And she pointed back and forth between the two of us and said, "Sooo...you two are just married?" She cast a suspicious eye at the parents, and said "...and these are your parents?" Um, yes... And then she whispered behind her hand to M. and me, "And you brought them on your honeymoon with you?!" And we laughed. Again. Hey, what can we say! It was a great trip. And Rick Steves was right: Gabi is a wonderful hotelier and we, the Mol-lee family, had a great time during our stay!

The Perils of Swimming au Naturel!

Among my colleagues this year was a dentist, Dr. D. She's German, but has worked for the Army for many years. She was very gracious after we arrived, taking M. and I on a walking tour of the city this spring...that lasted for 7 hours. This will probably make more sense if I tell you a little bit more about Dr. D: despite having just turned 65, she's a devoted half-marathoner and an all-around fitness enthusiast. Okay, so it was no surprise when at a clinic picnic this summer, she mentions that she likes to do lap swimming at a lake near her apartment complex in the center of town. The surprise part? She's prefers to do her laps in the buff. Another clinic employee says, "Well, Dr. D., when you have a body like yours, you can do that...I would never!" She's German, she explained. "Bathing suits? Unnecessary!" We laughed, embarassed of our American-ness, our attachment to bathing suits, and well, modesty in general. But then she said, "Well, would you like to know something funny that did happen once?" Dr. D. says she has a routine: she gets up early in the morning, leaves her apartment building and walks though town to the lake. There are lots of trees near the swimming area, so she just piles her sweatsuit and keys on one of the large rocks near the water and starts her workout. So, she's done this routine for months. Until one day last year, when she hopped out of the lake to find...that someone had relieved her of her clothing! Thaaaat's right! Her neatly folded sweatsuit? Right: no longer in its place on the rock. How considerate, though: the thief had left her housekey in its place! At this point, we're absolutely in hysterics listenting to our sweet colleague, Ms. 65-year-old Dr. D. tell this story. At which point, I decided to ask the obvious and I said, "Well, Dr. D., what did you do?!" She said that, well, there wasn't much she could do, so she just grabbed her house key and took off as fast as she go running stark raving naked, mind you, through greater midtown of our lovely city! Wow! Between peals of laughter, somebody managed to say, "How awful!" She replied, "Well, ja, but can you imagine if I would've had to take the strassenbahn (streetcar) to get home?! And where would I have kept my money?!" Oh. Well, yes: naked on the streetcar. Now that might have required some explanation...even in Germany!

Missing M.

Although it's true that every day brings you closer to the end of separations like this, today, the idea of the next 51 weeks without M. feels very, very long... It's that feeling that you get at the beginning of any task that you don't want to do, or race you don't really want to run. And, sometimes, you just wish that you could be at the finish line already.

Fa-moose in Heidelberg

I travel to Heidelberg for work periodically...I'm there often enough that the doctors that I work with know me, but not so much that everyone there even recognizes me...or so I thought! Not so much the case now: I opened the hospital's conference room door the other morning to a chorus of "Congratulations!" taking me totally by surprise. Guessing that this was probably related to the wedding, I thought, how did everyone know? I'm not in Heidelberg that often... Turns out that M. and I are a little more famous in Baden-Württemburg than we realized: our wedding details were published in the wedding section of the local paper, where it caught the eye of a couple of the assistants at the hospital clinic. It was sweet of them to notice....so little does he know, M. is now famous in another dental clinic here in Germany!

Blaze destroys Wallace and Gromit's history

Oh no! My beloved Wallace and Gromit have encountered some bad luck today: a fire in London has apparently devoured the warehouse which stored the Wallace and Gromit archives! Yikes! http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=18728 Perhaps the evil penguin is to blame? Poor Wallace and Gromit!

Goodbye, Rhein-Main

So, it's been a long time coming, but today marks the final good-bye to Rhein-Main AFB near Frankfurt. I might have flown commercially to Germany, but for me too, Rhein-Main was my first stop upon arriving, as it had been for thousands of personnel before me. And with the goodbyes come the recollections of Rhein-Main's role in the Berlin Airlift (1948-1949). Up until its ultimate closure, Rhein-Main was a place to grocery shop, to pick up a can of paint at the BX or something to eat at Subway...but the historical significance of these places aren't totally lost on me: every once in awhile, it gives me an eerie feeling when I realize that the places I take for granted every day, like my neighborhood (which, ironically, is about 20 minutes from where the Hindenburg made it's final departure) they were all part of a war, once, not too long ago. It's amazing to live here now, so long after the war, when many of the physcial reminders of the war have been covered: cathedrals rebuilt, airfields renamed. And Rhein-Main, too, will be changed. The bases' ultimate fate? Following its handover to the German government, it will become an expansion terminal for Frankfurt Airport. To read more about the final goodbye to Rhein-Main, click here: http://stripes.com/article.asp?article=32131

Letters from the Sandbox

An excerpt from the new blog: check it out by clicking on this post's title!
"...in an effort to separate out posts having to do with life in Iraq from the original incarnation of the Adventures of Molly Murphy, I present The Sandboxian Adventures. I am happy to report that I have doubled the size of my writing staff to two, having acquired the skilled services of M., who will serve as the official correspondent reporting from Iraq, as Molly will not actually be able to travel there herself. Enjoy!"
However, Molly will continue to post here, same times, same place, too, so stay tuned and thanks for following the adventures!

Godspeed, M.!

The call forward has come. With M. scheduled to depart imminently, posting time has been limited. But hang in there for the wedding roundup, which will hopefully be coming soon! Thanks again to everyone for keeping us in your thoughts as M. begins his travels and with them, the adventure that is the coming year....We love you, M.: be safe and come home soon!