Day 21: Kaiserslautern Day 3:

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I guess its obvious from the title of this blog entry that we didn't catch either of the intended flights. This morning we were going to pack up and head to the base, but when I checked the 72-hour flight schedule again, both of the originally scheduled flights were still listed, but Tuesday's schedule had a Charleston AFB! So, we said heck with it and decided to go for that one. Much less hassle upon arrival in the states, since we just walk to our car and drive home, and most likely much less expense without the car rental and overnight stay near either of the other bases. The car's rental agreement isn't up until Tuesday at like 1pm, but we needed to see if we could stay in this apartment another two nights. I sent the owner an email asking for 2 more nights and went online to see what else was available, just in case. Well, it turned out this apartment is already booked for the night. I didn't hear from the owner for a couple more hours, but when I checked his booking page it showed no vacancy, so I looked elsewhere. We ended up having to pay a bit more, but found another apartment in Kaiserslautern. We had to leave one apartment by 10am and couldn't check into the next one until 1pm, so we decided to head back to the base to hopefully do some Sunday shopping and make sure all is well for our new return flight.

After loading up the car with everything for the move, we drove back to the base, almost not needing the car's navigation this time. We weren't sure whether the Exchange and/or the Commissary would be open on Sunday, but as we neared the Exchange, there was little doubt. When we left Kaiserslautern the town was dead with almost nobody in sight, but as we approached the Exchange, the place was hopping, with the parking lot almost full! Unfortunately it had started to rain and didn't seem to stop all day. Manoli wanted to check out the Commissary, so after getting directions, we decided to head there first. The Commissary was also open and quite busy. We took our time wandering around the commissary, buying only af few things, such as water snacks and such. I had noticed a few cans of Dr. Pepper when we went in, but wanted to find a 6-pack of bottles instead. Well, today was not my lucky day. When I didn't find any bottles, except the big 2-liter bottles which lose their fizz pretty quickly, I went back to the refrigerated section near the entrance to pick up a few cans, and ... they were all gone. This phenomenon continued throughout our visit to the base. We looked at the Quick Stop and the Exchange, but in both cases they were also sold out! I guess they'd underestimated the demand for Dr. Pepper. Anyways, after the Commissary, we drove back to the Air Passenger Terminal to make sure all was well with the Tuesday flight. We got checked in so that all we have to do Tuesday is let them know we are present.

From there, we walked across the street and browsed the stores in the Exchange Mall, one of the biggest I'd ever seen. By this time it was lunch time, so after checking a few of the eateries they had, we opted to try the Ramsteiner Hofbrau that had an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch for 9 bucks, and Manoli bought a potato soup, and nibbled on some of my found. The food was pretty good, and quite filling. After lunch, we browsed around the Exchange for a bit, then headed back to find our new apartment for the next two nights.

We followed the email instructions to find the lock box, using the provided PIN to open it, but found four sets of keys in the box. At first, we thought the directions were to use the lock box at Hummelstrasse 2 to get to our apartment across the street at Hummelstrasse 11, but none of the keys worked in the street door. After reviewing the directions, we realized they were just telling us that Hummelstrasse 2 where the lockbox is located, is across the street from 11. I looked at the reservation again and realized the apartment was technically on Lutzerstrasse, but the door was around the corner on Hummelstrasse. Our key opened the outside door to the courtyard and the main door to the building. Manoli wasn't sure about the "1st floor" bit and tried the key in the door on the American 1st floor, just to have the person inside get all upset and wave us away, or maybe upstairs. We then realized it was the second floor and our key worked there. The apartment is much bigger than the last one; with two bedrooms (rentable to two customers), a large kitchen/dining room, and a large bathroom with nice shower and tub.

We unpacked our stuff and tried to sign onto the WiFi, with no luck. Since WiFi was so important to us, we went back out, in the rain, to find someplace that had free WiFi. After a while the rain started coming down in earnest, and my umbrella was coming apart, so we stopped in a cafe/bakery just to warm up and dry out a bit. While we were there, the rain started blowing hard and the cafe had to close their folding doors to keep it out. Finally, the rain let up and we continued our search. We finally stumbled onto a mobile phone store that was open and kind enough to let us use their WiFi. I sent a message to the owner that the WiFi didn't work, and waited as long as I could for an answer, but to no avail. We returned to the apartment and chilled out for a while, reviewing the photos and email the owner had sent and still couln't figure out what was wrong. I had noticed the name on the email, so when I went out again to see if anyplace nearby was open, and to check on the car, I thought about the original place where we got the keys from the lock box, I realized the name on the mailbox matched the name of the apartment owner. I went back and told Manoli and we both went back down and rang the doorbell(s). A guy finally answered and turned out to be the owner. He had sent a reply to my email but it had been after we'd lost the WiFi hotspot at the mobile store. He showed us the photo again and told us to use what was the network VPN, not the password. We went back to the apartment and sure enough, that worked.

After eating dinner in the apartment, Manoli and I watched some TV on NetFlix. I had just told Manoli we'd be the only ones here tonight, to which she said she'd bet someone else would show up, at 9pm, and sure enough, someone unlocked the apartment door just a few minutes later. It turned out to be a young Italian guy that had rented the other bedroom, but would be leaving in the morning. We moved our stuff into our bedroom and continued watching TV. Tomorrow there is no rush, so we'll just wander around town some more.

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