Corpus Christi / Schnitzel

Today, we are going to do two days. Look out!

May 22nd, A German Holiday

Needless to say, a random German holiday falling on the first week we arrived kind of set us back a bit. Absolutely nothing was open on the holiday (and every Sunday) except for the Turkish vendor selling meat that grows on a stick (donair anyone?) and kebobs. We took the time to go to downtown Freiburg and explore for a bit. The old city has these little canals with supposedly fresh water running in them. I wonder how many intoxicated locals have relieved themselves after a long night of boozin'. Being ignorant as we are (ahh, bliss) the kiddies sure had fun (it's actually a common thing to do):

There is supposed to be this big, grand church - the Münster - in the middle of Freiburg (built in the 1300s) that Mom G. and I couldn't find on our last visit for some reason. So as we wandered around, we figured we should try to track it down. Turns out it wasn't that hard. It's rather large. It's funny though, even with a building that big, you have to have a break in all the other buildings to be able to see it because everything is so packed together. With the events of the past few days, it was really cool to see this building and walk through it. It's going to sound corny, but pictures just don't work to convey its structure and beauty and grandness. Seeing something like this kind of erases all the garbage we went through this week. Well not really. Sort of. It was neat. Here is a picture of us just after we spotted it through a narrow alley. We are definately showing the effects of the last few days. Jodi looks like she just wet her pants, and I am staring off into space/constipated. You can see the top of the Münster (barely) behind us.

And that's the extent of the pictures we got of the Münster. Better luck next time (I suppose you have to come see it for yourself). We did get a couple of the inside, but they do not do this amazing building justice.

This lady was nice enough to pose for us:

Erika lighting a candle for Corpus Christi:

And that was about it for this day.

May 23, Deutsche Bank/Arcor/Martin

Another day of smiling like the good Canadians we are and signing things we don't understand and leaving the kids with Grandma. In the morning, we opened up a bank account and set up our phone line. We couldn't believe how long it was going to take to have a phone - 3 weeks at least! But the guy was really nice. We also got a 24 euro broom. Don't ask. But it does have a nice ladybug molded on the bottom. "The envy of all brooms", apparently. The broom was soon accompanied by a matching toaster, for a modest 54 euro. You heard right, $80 CDN for a 2-slice toaster. We did do a lot of penny-pinching at Ikea... all for the toaster I guess (not shown). So, we picked up Grandma and the kids and went to Martin's for lunch, which was a good time, thanks to Grandma taking Erika for a 2 hour walk. Elizabeth (Martin's lady friend) sent us on our way with a large piece of coffee cake. We also got some directions to a large department store downtown, where we found a wash machine, electric teapot, hairdryer, and Grandma got Reese a little push car - "The Big Bobby Car" a.k.a. "Big Booby Car" courtesy of Erika. We ended the night with some delicious buns and meat and cheese, and I think we will sign off today and leave you with a movie starring the Big Booby Car. Voila:

Richard Wad

Back to the story...

May 21st, No more driving.

In the morning, we all went downtown to town hall, because we had to register our address with the local authorities (everyone does within a week). Then we all went to a cute little hotel restaurant where we enjoyed some nice schnitzel and some Hawaiian toast thing and good soup. This was also the beginning of trying to order a regular glass of water. This is actually quite difficult, because, for the most part, all of the water you order at a restaurant has "gas" in it. That's ok for me and Erika, but Jodi can't stand it, and it's a little 'spicy' still for Reese. Anyway, after lunch, we went back to town hall to get our visas renewed - the ones we got in Canada were only for entrance. This was very, very painful. The international office was a hallway of doors, and you were split into different groups based on the starting letter of your last name. There was two doors for S's but one was closed for the day so we all got lumped together. Of course, all the people with S last names had to show up on our day, or so it seemed. The hallway was stifling and small and crammed. We gave Mom a break for the afternoon and brought Reese with us, which wasn't the best decision, as the wait turned into about 2.5 hours. The actual visa process was pretty easy, but of course costed another 150 euros out of our pocket. We had to ski-daddle (yup, ski-daddle) over to the Budget rental to take our car back and meet our personal translator (thanks again Martin) so we could explain that only part of the car was being returned. The beefy (as in built, think stereotypical Arnold-German-woman) was really nice and Martin made the situation a breeze. And we just smiled and nodded. And signed stuff. This all after we showed up late and left Martin standing on the curb for 30 minutes while we drove back to our place to get an extra diaper or something. Actually I think it was for the police information that we forgot. It also gave us a chance to drop Mom off with the kids at home again. Thanks Mom! So, we were now car-less, and Jodi and I had a romantic walk back through the industrial area of Freiburg. We bought a coffee from some random wooden shack along the way and marveled about the past few days and how crazy things had been. Little did we know this was only the beginning... We then had some meat and cheese and buns for supper (spreadable meat this time, mm-hmm. Actually, no it wasn't). So ends Day 3 in Freiburg. Ahhh, home sweet home:

More updates tomorrow.

Jodi and Jeff

Uncontrolled Intersections

Now, back to the story...

May 20th, Polizei/Ikea/Polizei

We were hoping that if we took back the rental car that was late first thing in the morning, that maybe we would get lucky and not get charged for an extra day. So as soon as we got up (the mattress wasn't actually that bad on the floor) we all headed to Budget - after meat and cheese and buns for breakfast of course. It seemed like we got off with the rental being late, although the guy didn't speak any English, but I had a good feeling that we wouldn't have to pay extra. We piled into the tiny little EuroFiesta and I had my first taste of the sweet ride that Jodi had been driving for the last couple of days. The thing was pretty tricky to drive. Now, Budget was only about ten blocks from our apartment, and on the drive home, we were talking about the "yield to the right at uncontrolled intersections" rule - which is used quite a bit in Freiburg, and an uncontrolled intersection happens about every five meters in our neighborhood. I thought I was finally starting to get the hang of it when we side-swiped a station wagon in the middle of the intersection. Of course, he came from the right. Oops. Everyone was Ok, and the guy was pretty nice and 'told' us (he knew no English) that the Polizei were on the way. We had rendered his car completely un-driveable, and I was already making plans of how we could pack up and get back to Canada. When the police showed up, they took some pictures and then took the guy off for questioning. I thought they were going to decide our fate without us even being involved. After about 15 minutes, they came and got us and we went and sat in their police van. After a couple of questions in broken English, the very nice police lady asked if we had any money. We both immediately clammed up and remembered stories a colleague of mine had told us about the police in central America, and how they coerce people to give them money in exchange for their freedom. Of course, this is not Mexico we are talking about, but we told a large fib and said we had no money. (I had about 1900 euros in my neck-man-purse-passport-carrier-thing: Jodi's idea). Immediately after I said that, I thought - we're finished, they are going to find the money and then we will be enjoying the inside of a German detention cell. Over the course of an hour and a half of questioning, we finally figured out that the officer just wanted us to pay the fine up front because we weren't from Freiburg, and then we finally conveyed that we were from Freiburg. The whole ordeal was tremendously confusing. I am still confused. Well, not really. We ended up not giving them any money, but we had to come down to the station later for a statement that night with our own personal translator. They let us go and we met up with the kids who were hanging out with Grandma at the park, and we were off to Ikea again. In our broken car. When we finished the showroom proper and headed into the self-serve area to pick up all the stuff we had written down, Jodi started to hyperventilate and became a walking zombie. What was supposed to be a fun, purchase-your-new-home-in-one-trip was turning out to be far too much to handle under the circumstances. Mom G. pulled out an earlier speech from May 17th (mental breakdown day) about having to just get through our problems as there is no other feasible option (framed in terms of labor/transition/delivery). In the end, we bought absolutely everything we could think of for our place including the kitchen, and hoped they would take Visa again - and they did. By now, we were on the preferred customer list with all the stuff we bought. Next, we drug all of our purchases over to the delivery place. Then the poo-poo hit the fan. The gal went through every item on our receipt, checking to make sure the numbers/quantity/price or something matched what we had on our skids. Makes sense of course, but we had a lot of stuff and it took a painfully long time. The original cashier made a couple of mistakes - we quadruple paid on one item, but missed paying on three, but this was not all discovered at the same time by the delivery worker, and Jodi/Mom made three trips back to cash to settle. Apparently, they couldn't deliver everything - we had to take some of the loose stuff like dishes, garbage cans, kitchen utensils, clock, and a neverending pile of small house stuff. When everything was done, we got the really bad news that none of the stuff could be delivered until next monday (6 days)! As upset as we were we didn't have time to be phased by it as we had to cap off the seven hour Ikea outing so we could get to the police station and meet our translator for the statement. We drove home, raced the stuff upstairs, left the kids with Mom and then went to the station. We each did separate interviews/interrogations with the officer and Martin, our translator (a colleague from the klinik, a.k.a. the guy who found our apartment). The officer was an incredibly nice lady, but the whole process was kind of scary - the statements were recorded on audio tape, and the proceedings were very formal. Turns out the fella was completely intoxicated - 0.21. We just thought he was a nice guy. Perhaps a little bit of the language/culture barrier seeped into this one for us. Well, we are crossing our fingers that his drunkeness might take some of the blame off of us. I'm sure we will have to pay the deductible for the rental car though. Big deal, just a cool 750 euro. Yikes. Pass the offering plate around... We topped the day off with some buns and meat and cheese, and relaxed and rejuvenated on our mattresses on the cement.

We promise these will start to get shorter. I think. See you tomorrow. Same Bat time. Same Bat channel.

Jodi and Jeff

Home for the Snyders

Ok, continuing on from yesterday:

May 19, Our new home

We woke up around 9 and showered, which felt great. The hotel included breakfast, which turned out to be plethora of... cheese and meat and buns, and other stuff too. But cheese and meat and buns for breakfast? The whole deal was actually quite good though, and it was a cute little restaurant. We had to pick up our keys and do the walkthrough for the apartment at 11. The walkthrough was quick and painless, thanks to Mom watching the kids, and one of our guides spoke english, so that made things easier. We did get a large lecture on the many different types of recycling/garbage. In total, there are 6 different disposables: glass (broken into green, brown and white, with a separate container for each), plastics (packaging), paper, compost, waste (all the stuff left over/garbage) and plastic recyclable bottles. Anyway, then we took off to Ikea to get some essentials, which included mattresses, pillows, etc. It was kind of funny, the day or so that we arrived, Ikea decided to change all the models/prices of the mattresses, so all of the pre-shopping we did in Canada was a waste. We did end up finding some of the older models in the self serve part, but I don't think they were the same. We pulled up to the checkout, and we saw a funny sign with the word VISA with a big 'X' through it. Hmmm..., that looked foreboding considering our temporary financier (thanks Mom) had arranged to pay for the stuff on VISA (she actually had pre-paid onto the VISA). After a weird, dazed conversation, we decided to use our Mastercard, which was supposed to be our living money for June. But it didn't work. We started to think we would be sleeping on the cement apartment floor. The next few minutes were a blur of Grandma and unpaid merchandise and kids and ice cream and some strange poster of a hot dog with brown and green garnishes on it. On top of it all, we were supposed to get one of the cars back to the rental place by 5, and we were cutting it close. So we cried our story to the cashier (turned our she spoke English) and she called her manager, and he pushed the magic button to make the VISA work. At any rate, we shoved everything into the two cars, and headed back to the apartment. We had to park fairly far away (I'm not sure why, we have a parking spot underneath the apartment), and after about 6 trips back and forth I had unloaded the car, and Jodi and I quickly took the car back while Mom kept the kids. We got to the rental place at 615, and it closed at 6. Oops. 125 dollars down the drain for keeping the car an extra day. We moped back to the apartment, and enjoyed a hearty meal of meat and cheese and buns, with the addition of Nutella and jam. It was kind of fun sleeping on the mattresses with nothing in the place, almost like camping or something. The cement walls made talking almost unbearable because of the very prominent echo, and the giggling, screaming and crying of the kids made it difficult to enjoy unfortunately. So this is our place...

Jodi and Jeff

Willkommen zu Franky

Ok. For the uninitiated, we are doing some flashbacks, so you might want to read yesterday's novel before you take a look at this one. So, where were we...

May 18th, Frankfurt Airport and Arrival in Freiburg

Customs at Frankfurt airport was pretty easy. It was no where near as hard as I thought it would be, they just asked us how long we were going to stay. We had to get 3 of those luggage cart things for all our beautiful Rubbermaids, and we still had to carry backpacks and Mom G. pulled her suitcase while pushing Reese in the stroller. It took about half an hour to get about 100 m with the current setup. Apparently, the carts have an automatic braking system, and you have to push down on a lever to get the thing to move smoothly. Too bad we didn't figure that out until after we wore grooves into the floor. Just kidding. But the brakes were hard to figure out. All the luggage was intact, which was incredible considering the pack job. At the end of the gauntlet, we picked the "nothing to declare" exit (not sure if that was the right one) and breezed right through. And then the fun began. We went to pick up our cars at the Budget rental place, and it turns out that the Budget rental place where we actually reserved the cars was in the other terminal. So me and Jodi and Erika went looking for the other terminal while Mom and Reese guarded the mountain of luggage. Now, I am not so great with instructions, so the 20 min return trip turned out to be about an hour and a half. That also included making a wrong turn somewhere and taking a tour of the Frankfurt airport after picking up the cars. When we got back to the original terminal with Mom and Reese, I was pretty fed up and strung out, so I quadruple parked on one of the busiest roads at the airport, tossed Jodi the keys and took off to get Mom/Reese/luggage. Needless to say, it was a stressful 20 min for Jodi managing the two cars, keeping angry Germans at bay for the crazy park job, and listening to Erika wail from the backseat. By the time I got back, she had them both parked properly, one behind the other. All our stuff fit well into the larger rental car, and Mom picked up some lunch/supper/breakfast/snack for us to eat. Things were finally going a little smoother. Then, as I put Reese into his deluxe 1975 rental car seat, I heard the beautiful clicking sound as the buckle was secured into place. Except it wasn't secured into place. It was snapped in half. So I went back to the Budget rental place, and they inquired with a couple of the rental companies nearby, and the representative gave me the deluxe 1956 baby bassinet (sp?) model. I was a little unsure about this one but I was a little desperate so I picked it up and ran back to where we were parked. In the meantime, the airport Polizei informed the women they needed to pay for the parking in the arrivals area. Mom tried to talk some sense into him about our situation, and it was actually a long talk, so I hear, even though he didn't speak English. As soon as Jodi caught sight of the atrocity I was carrying, she started shaking her head and pointing me back inside. So, I did the right thing and sent her back inside to deal with it. After a short conversation, we were promised a seat would be delivered to our car in the arrivals lane. We had a leisurely supper in the car with kids (buns with meat and cheese, coffee), and as time ticked away, we got some more food to keep Reese happy. An hour later, Jodi went back in to see what was going on, and we were assured it was on its way. Another hour later, I went inside, and the sales rep phoned the guy who was supposed to drop the seats off. Around the same time, he showed up with a choice of three seats for Jodi to pick from. She quickly picked out the newest model, installed it in the car, and we were off to Freiburg, about 4 hours behind schedule. We felt assured with securing Reese in the car and it slightly made up for the lost time and foggy experience on no sleep. Perhaps it was a good thing we waited it out and got a good seat...? The drive to Freiburg was pretty tricky - for Jodi anyway. I took the lead in our sporty rental car followed by Jodi in a Ford Fiesta equivalent with the kids and Mom, and we were going to go nice and slow on the autobahn. I guess I had a heavy foot that night, and I lost them in a matter of minutes in the blinding rainstorm. It was crazy to see all the drivers flying past us at incredible speed. After about an hour of white-knuckling and sweating, Jodi's Mom convinced her to stop trying to follow me. Oops. We did meet up at a gas station about half way there, and then we got to Freiburg at around 12:00. And then I took a wrong turn, and we had a quaint midnight tour of Freiburg on a couple hours of sleep and both kids awake. At around 12:30, we finally pulled up to our hotel (the same one me and Mom G. stayed at in December for the interview). The room was actually incredibly nice, and exactly what we needed. Erika and Grandma bunked on the pull out bed couch thing, and we put Reese in the playpen. Within about 15 minutes and only a couple of tears from Reese, we were fast asleep. Ahh... lovely hotel Lowën. I definately recommend it. So ends the 2nd day.

These first couple of days are pretty long, so we are going to have to pack it in for now. More to come tomorrow.

Jodi and Jeff

Hello..., is it me you're looking for?

I think we will tell our story about the last couple weeks starting with our first day (May 17th) and then working our way to the current stuff. Or else we might spoil the drama. And there is a lot of it. So, without further ado, here it is:
May 17th, 2008: The Flight

Last night we tried to pack all of our containers. Thanks to Laveryne we are still on our way to Germany, after Jodi almost had a mental breakdown and I sat around with my head up my rear and generally acted like the proverbial third nipple. We now have everything we think we are going to need in the next two years in 5 Rubbermaid tubs and two suitcases. (Plus 500 lbs of carry-on, we'll get to that later). The main problem is the actual weight of all of our stuff. In total, we are allowed to have 200 lbs as checked baggage (including Mom G.'s amount). So, if 199.5 lbs is taken up with kids' books, as Jodi wanted, that leaves enough for a pair of briefs. And this is where the wailing and gnashing of teeth began. It was very difficult to cut out some of the stuff we thought was essential to have, so it just felt like - maybe we shouldn't be going at all. Clearer heads prevailed, and we strategically packed all our stuff, leaving behind the xbox, wii, clothes, and 1 more kid book to be brought later. We didn't sleep well last night, we were just to wrought with despair about the coming days. Anyway, so the beginning of today I went to pick up some duct tape and luggage straps to secure the Rubbermaids, and visited with Ryan and Elyse at Peters'. We packed up my Dad's truck and Mom G.'s beetle, and basically wallowed around for the rest of the evening, before leaving for the flight check-in. After one return to Mom G.'s to pick up the forgotten flight tickets, we were off. God sent us our first angel at the check-in counter, and things went pretty well. Turns out we were 80 lbs. over weight (we're not talking about my paunch) - we actually expected this - not to mention the blind eye the check-in lady turned to having about 3 too many carry-ons (which each had about 200 lbs of kid's books and toys. Oh yeah, and the desktop computer. And monitor.) She was a pretty nice gal. It was also really nice to have my parents watching the kids during check-in. So, 350 CDN later for the 80 extra lbs and we were off to play in the family area for about an hour with the kids. After that, we went to security, and you can imagine how easy it was to go through that with two kids and 1000 lbs of carry-on (mostly books). Can you bend over please sir? A little further? I don't get it, everytime I go through security, they have to strip me down. Hmmm. Anyway, Jodi blubbered good-bye (a common theme in the past couple of days, just Jodi, of course not me) to my parents, and we went to the boarding gate to wait for an hour. The kids actually did surprisingly well for being up 3 hours past their usual bedtime (it was 11 pm by this point). Onto the plane we go, after a generous shot of Motrin for Reese (he's teething...). The first little bit wasn't so bad, but it got really bad at about the four hour mark. This is when AirTransat decided to finally turn the lights out. Or so Jodi tells me. The entire flight for me is a blur. After waking our kids up repeatedly for the last three hours, with 'Can I get you this?', or 'Can I get you that?', we finally got some peace (although not quiet, Reese made sure of that). The original plan was for him to sleep on me because I thought I could take his weight for 9 hours, but he had to have mommy. I do remember at one point, Erika was sleeping on me, and Reese was sleeping on Erika's seat between me and Jodi with his head hanging off the side. I think me and Jodi both woke up as he started to roll off (Jodi's one and only hour of sleep). Quality parenting. The meal at the end was kind of fun, and watching France appear beyond the ocean. The flight ended with the best of all of Erika's comments, in a very chipper voice, as we touched down: "That was a quick trip Mom". Everyone in earshot giggled. Needless to say, they left their kids at home. Stay tuned for more updates, next is our travel to Freiburg, and the fiasco at Frankfurt airport.

Jodi and Jeff

Ok, bye for now.

This is it. 4 hours until we leave for the flight. We might be a little cut off from the rest of the world during the traveling and the first while until we get an internet connection and phone. So, wish us luck!

Jeff

No More Teachers...

Well, today is my last day in my office at the university. I finished getting all the thesis documents to the faculty office this morning, which was quite the chore. Eight copies of the thesis at 200 pages per copy, what a waste of trees. Needless to say, my office is a complete sty, so the rest of my last day will be spent sorting through stuff, copying stuff off my computer, and running some errands in town. Nothing like a relaxing last day. Only two and a half days left in Canada. I really wish we would have had some down time before the flight on Saturday. Everything has been such a rush in the past six weeks I've barely had time to eat and sleep. Seriously. I'm starting to get scared and think maybe this wasn't such a good idea. I mean, who in their right mind says 'Hey, lets go to Germany for a couple of years, and ditch any chance at normalcy?' Still so much left to be done...

Jeff

That Was a Close One...

After we thought we had paid the damage deposit on the place in Freiburg, we received a large foreign exchange wire transfer yesterday for almost the same amount. So, we figured it could be one of four options:

1. The place is rented to someone else, and they returned our damage deposit to us,
2. The money got transferred to a bad account (wrong account number),
3. Someone in Germany wanted to give us money for the deposit (like my work, highly unlikely, I know), or
4. A random bank error.

We went to our bank, and they told us that the account we wanted to transfer to was closed, so it turns out it was no. 2. Banks really make me mad. We paid around $150 in exchange when our bank bought euros to transfer, plus a $25 administration fee. Then, when the money came back, the bank exchanged the euros to Cdn dollars at a lower rate, and made another $100 or so. So, our money went no where and we lost $300 to foreign exchange transfers because our bank wanted to make money off of us for nothing. I realize this is how they make their money and euros are kind of scarce in Canada, but the least they could do was make the exchange at the current rates so that we wouldn't lose so much for a service that didn't work. Apparently, they are supposed to confirm too if the transfer was successful, which might have prevented this mess, and of course they did not. I think I am going to file a complaint, even though I know it won't do anything.

At any rate, after explaining the situation to our new landlords (through German translators at my work, which can be crazy in itself), they have agreed to let us pay the deposit when we get to Freiburg, which is a really nice thing to do. I think we will have to go through all this foreign exchange stuff again to get our money into a German bank account though, so we will have to find someone with the lowest rate, and I sure don't want to give more money to our garbage bank. Any ideas?

Jeff

What's Left?

The defence is done. After five years, I can't believe it is over. Thanks to mom and dad for the great celebration/get-together on the weekend. We have kind of found an apartment too, and we actually put a damage deposit down on it. That's the first time we did the damage deposit thing, so I am thinking this is the real deal, but of course, we are still keeping in mind it could fall through. We also got our visas/passports back this week. Things are looking up. There is a huge amount of things to be done before we go though, like finishing up work stuff (thesis corrections, packing up my office, training the new guy), repacking our containers we are taking on the plane, booking the rental car and hotel, selling our car, and a whole pile of little things like getting more passport photos (who knew?), buying voltage transformers/plug adapters, etc. We have ten days left in Canada and we could probably use an entire month and still not have enough time.

So, the new plan is:

1. Reese's party on the 16th, in Red Deer
2. Pack on the 17th, leave on the 23:59 flight
3. Clear customs/immigration in Frankfurt (May 18, 17:30 local time), get our car rentals (we are getting 2 cars, one for the stuff, and one for the people - cheaper than getting a van)
4. Get to Freiburg around 23:00 (it's a 2.5 hour drive, so we are giving ourselves some extra time here)
5. Enjoy hotel in Freiburg
6. Get keys for our apartment around 11:00 (May 19)
7. Go get some mattresses and essentials from Ikea
8. Return car rentals.

The apartment has no furnishings, like we thought. No kitchen (not even a sink), no light fixtures, maybe not toilet seats. All we will have is some clothes, blankets, and a computer, so it is going to be pretty crazy with a completely empty apartment. But, it is going to be great to have our own place for the first time in almost four months.

Jeff