It Can Only Get Better

During May we took a hiatus from blogging.  The month was simply just too busy and we barely had time to catch our breath nonetheless blog. Please forgive us.  May was quite a month. 

Let’s see.  We started the month on a high note as my basketball season came to an end.  Our final game was in Dortmund and I stayed in Dortmund after our game that night in order to celebrate BVB Dortmund’s Second German Bundesliga Championship in a row (if you recall, I was also at the celebration last year). 

The following week, I completed an experiment consisting of 284 participants and 26 sessions.  Hopefully, I get some good results and before too long something shows up on Google Scholar when you type my name.  

We spent 6 days in Munich during the middle of May.  The timing of the trip couldn’t have been worse.   Right before we left we found out that we needed to be out of our current apartment a week earlier than expected, even though we still didn’t have a solid date on a moving van, plus our new apartment didn’t have a kitchen installed yet.  Our friends really came through for us and we were able to get a large moving van on Friday night and loaded it up with as much furniture as possible and drove to Münster on Saturday morning to unload.  We didn’t have time to unpack anything in our new apartment.  In fact, Dana and Dylan didn’t even go on this trip to the new apartment and instead stayed home to pack for our trip to Munich the next day. 

After seeing all of our large furniture moved out of our Borken apartment, Dylan wasn’t in the mood to travel.  Although he enjoyed the train rides, he heavily protested the first 3 days we were there.  He was intent on not having fun and kept saying that he wanted to “go back to the number 9 house” (referring to our address in Borken).  Thanks to Dylan and our pending move, we weren’t able to really relax during vacation.  After that trip, we won’t be making any plans for travelling in the near future.  Here are some pictures from our trip:

Dylan loved the pretzels, big and small

Tom Arnold is not as popular as David Hasselhof in Bavaria, but he was in the Englisher Garten taping a segment for Fox's Champions League coverage. 

Champions League Festival with the Cup.

Once we got home, it was time to really pack things up and get out of Borken.  It was strange living in our Borken apartment without any furniture for nearly a week.   We expected to have the van all day on Friday and intended on taking 2 to 3 trips, but at the 11^th hour we were told we could only have it until noon on Friday, drastically cutting short the amount of time we had to get everything out.  Needless to say, we were stressed.

We were able to make two trips to Münster on Thursday and Friday.  I dropped off van in Borken on Friday at noon, met Dana, Dylan, and a terrified Oscar, and we all took the SprinterBus together to Münster.  Hopefully, my last Sprinter Bus ride ever!  I couldn’t stop smiling at the prospect of not having to make that long journey/commute again. 

We arrived in our new house in Münster on Friday evening.  Unfortunately, some very important items weren’t quite ready, making for a very interesting (read: sucky) living situation.   These items include: a kitchen (hopefully coming in the next week or two…factory that was making our countertop was backed up evidently), hot water (yes, we have been taking cold showers.  Not pleasant.), and no phone or Internet connection (possibly the worst out of the three).  I signed up for phone and Internet service 3 weeks ago and it took the company 2 weeks to call us back and the first available appointment for an installation still wasn’t for another 2 weeks after that! 

Our first weekend in our new apartment was a long, three-day weekend.  It was great to be home for an extra day and get settled in but no kitchen, hot water, phone and Internet does make for a long weekend.*

*Dear American readers, when you have a holiday in Germany, EVERYTHING closes except for ice cream shops and bakeries.  Shopping and any other type of service are not an option. 

But we still have our health, right?  Not exactly.  Dana had what looked like a painful rash show up on her right underarm /back area on Friday afternoon.  It was so painful that it kept her awake all night Saturday and on Sunday it looked like it was getting infected so she walked in to the emergency room on Sunday morning.  By Sunday afternoon, after being examined by three doctors, they told her she had the Chicken Pox.  She had it as a child, but evidently in rare cases it is possible to get it again. The entire hospital didn’t have medicine to treat it (some things in Germany never cease to amaze us – how is it possible that a hospital has no medicine for something as common as Chicken Pox?)  Dana was instructed to make an appointment two days later on Tuesday with her normal Doctor who can give us medicine.  Unfortunately, we don’t have a local Dr. after only living in the city for 3 nights, so she needed to walk in without an appointment at on of the local practices. Like I said, things can only get better.

Dylan had a chicken pox vaccine, so he should be okay.  I had it when I was 9, so hopefully I stay in the majority of people who only get chicken pox once. 

Aside from our kitchen, all of our stuff is unpacked and put away.  We really like our new place and our surrounding city even better.  We are really excited to live here.  After this experience, I think we will be staying here for the next 30 years…the same year as our next vacation.