Blogs from Ramstein-Miesenbach, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, Europe

Hello all, We are all doing great here in Germany. Apparently better than Virginia and Maryland, with all their crazy snow! Shovels are your best friends at the moment. Can't lie, kind of glad we got out before that. But, my heart is with you all. UPDATE: K and I are legal drivers in Germany. K passed his driving test last week and I just passed mine today. Wow was it hard. There was only 100 questions, but you can only miss 15 and pass. Let me just tell you a little bit about German driving. I am not lying when I say there are 160 different signs! That all mean different things. That is a lot of memorizing. But with a lot of hours of studying we are done! Woohoo. Thank goodness. Joshua is walking ... read more

The second trip to Germany for work was also to Ramstein, Germany. This time, there were about 9 coworkers assigned to the same location with me. As it turned out, there were about 6 people that were fun to be around/travel with/drink with, as well as three different coworkers I already knew that were nearby in Heidelberg, Germany. This trip was by far the best time I've ever had on a trip. All of the coworkers ate every meal together, traveled together, and drank together. While I was from the DC area, another coworker from Boston was the only person my age. As it turned out, within two weeks we were basically dating. Bill and I traveled every single weekend together and are still together today. All but one of the trips within this time period ... read more

Luckily, while on my first trip to Germany, my mom and step sister were able to fly over to visit me. Tickets at the time were super cheap - under $500 round trip! My mom's dream trip was to go to Paris. We originally booked a weekend trip through a travel agency on the base, however, not enough people signed up and we were left wondering what to do. The travel agency helped us set up a DIY trip via train to Paris. We were able to get on the ICE train and it only took about 2.5 hrs to get to Paris. The train was insanely fast - we tried to eat breakfast in the dining car (standing only!) with dishes flying everywhere. Once we got there, I had the minimal knowledge from the first ... read more

On August 17th after an all night MAC flight from McGuire AFB in New Jersey, my sponsor met me at the Rhein Main airport and drove the two hours to my hotel in Ramstein village. I checked into the hotel where I would stay until I found an apartment to rent. The village is next to the air base where I would work as a civil engineer and project manager for NATO Infrastructure projects at the headquarters of U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Housing was in very tight supply, but I used a local real estate agent and in about three weeks found a duplex in Glan Munchweiler, a small farming village about 16 kilometers northwest of the base. There was only one other American family in the village, Nan and Stacy, and we became good ... read more