Acclimation

Our first weeks in Cologne were cold, wet, busy, and tiring. We were jet lagged, still abuzz and reeling from selling our house and cars, putting our important things into storage, selling what we could via Craigslist, and giving away the rest, as well as working to finalize details for our arrival in Cologne. After working tirelessly for many weeks, we had a mad dash to the airport (thanks, Mis!!) and boarded our plane. I vastly underestimated up until the last second how long it would take us to be ready for take off...or I was in denial of what was really going on...I'm not sure. Without the help of so many of our friends leading up to our departure I am sure we would have missed our flight...by something like a week! (I really could have used another week to get everything situated!) It was all really very surreal and I'm not sure that even 6 months later it has hit me....we moved to GERMANY!!

P loved the autonomy of her own headphones and picking her own shows on the plane (with Dad supervising over her shoulder). 

Bringing Everett's car seat was very smart as I don't know how we would have kept him seated for the flight. Still crazy to think about this as we took off for Deutschland. 

This was dinner at 7pm the night after we arrived. Hello, jet lag. 

One of the many trips to Starbucks for the use of the wifi. We were without wifi for many months before we had it installed at our apartment at the end of July. It is amazing to me just how reliant I have become of things I took for granted...wifi, cars, and reliable, quick, customer-based customer service. 

Right outside of the Starbucks in the city center is THE DOM!

The stairs in the train station were a big hit...

painted to look like the sides of chocolate bars.

To be able to ensure we could get all of the luggage we brought with us to our next residence...we rented a "REALLY BIG CAR" to get from Frankfurt to Cologne. So big and costly that we had to turn around the next day to bring it back to the Cologne airport to get something more reasonable for our day to day driving from here on out. Even exahusted, I laughed out loud at the sight of our rental. And cried a little. You guys, we barely fit. Maybe it was a good thing we didn't make the airport with the recommended 2-hour lead time. P's suitcase didn't make it on board our flight when we left from Houston but we would never have been able to fit it into our car "giant SUV." 

I thought I has taken a picture of the more reasonable car, sadly, it appears I didn't. Trust me...it looked almost the same as this one. A cute little VW Golf Plus. 

Like I said, it rained a lot that first few weeks.

 Umbrellas and rainboots were top priority to ensure we got anywhere even slightly dry.

All those puddles!!! On rainy days one must factor in a few extra steps so as to not miss an opportunity to splash in each puddle as they present themselves :)

The main shopping street here in Koln. When we left Houston P's suitcase didn't make it on board the plane, it was delivered a few days after we arrived. We did some shopping so she could have some fresh clothes, mostly here in this shopping area.

There were lots of naps and "rests" for all the kids. Two legged as well as four.

Just before we left, as in the week of....we were informed that there were some communication errors and the flat we thought we had rented for temporary housing was no longer available. As well as ALL the others we were considering when we were looking for a place to stay for the first month or so while we looked for a more permanent place. *Please keep in mind I was still trying to pack our things, close down our life stateside, sell our vehicles, and start to say good bye to all my darlings across the country* I had very limited time to search for a new place to stay and with a few days left to find something it looked like we would either be homeless or shelling out some serious funds to have something reasonable for our family. Just when I thought it was going to be the latter...

our amazing friends came to the rescue and offered to let us crash at their place while we looked for something, anything that would fit the bill for housing. What I thought would be a few weeks at most (maybe even one week!!) to find something turned into 6 weeks. SIX WEEKS! We crammed all our belongings and 6 of us into a 35 square meter living room. Four people and 2 dogs.  

I could not have imagined it would be so difficult to find housing here.

We are forever grateful for their generosity, patience, understanding, and thoughtfulness. 

They too had only been in their new apartment for a few short weeks so most of their things thankfully were still in boxes. This gave us a little more room for the beds and kept their things mostly safe and tucked away from the curious 2-year-old hands :)

Right across the street is a really great park that the kids just loved. We spent a good amount of time here when the weather allowed. 

The kids had fun making friends and playing outside.

We also shared many meals and breakfasts while we were together with Jen and James. It was actually very nice to be able to acclimate to some of the new culture and changes with our friends there to help ease into new things and show us around.

A week after our arrival, it was time to start putting in time at the job that is allowing us to have this adventure. 

Mr. RosieQ started right into his training to work console for the European Space Agency, some of which included simulations supporting astronauts on the International Space Station.

I hope to throw out a bunch of posts this week to get caught up a bit. So heads up!
 Happy Monday, friends!