Deutschland at last!

So here I am finishing my first week in Germany, otherwise known as Deutschland! I have had more jet lag this trip than I remember from any other...however, this may have something to do with the week long marathon of paperwork and training meetings. I have never sat around so much at the start of any trip.

There are 6 other girls living and working with me here on Katterbach Base and 6 more girls working on another base about 40 minutes away. We trained together all week and had a pretty good time getting use to the base. We hope to travel together on weekends even though we are now apart! My roommates are Kelly, from Missouri; and Erin, from California. Yes there will be two Erins this semester! I'm the only Iowa girl this time around. There are three girls living above us all from California, they are Janeel, Ally, and Rebecca.

Today I observed all day at the CDC and had a really great time. I started my day with the an Infant room, the babies were really lively and happy. Then I went to a Toddler room and watched the chaos that is Lunch. Then I had my own lunch, it's so nice to be able to spend your hour break at the apartment! After lunch I looked in on a Pre-School room, another Toddler room, and I ended the day in another Infant room. It was a LONG day, but it was fun to visit the different age groups!

After work our Camp Adventure "leader" took my roommate and me to the local German grocery store. Long story short we are supposed to shop on the Economy (AKA Germany); but will probably be able to beg privileges to the Commissary from our co-workers. But since I never really felt like I was LIVING in Germany last time around I decided to embrace the rules and head out...I may have been completely out of food with no other options at the time as well. It worked pretty well, I got mostly basics, but nothing that is going to last forever or anything. I tried German mayonnaise, which turned out okay, as well as some pre-packaged lunch meat. Both were better than expected; however the meat only came with two servings and no way to re-seal to I had two sandwiches for dinner along with some delicious tiny green grapes and Pepsi Light!!! We are supposed to be able to get a weekly ride to German store, I think I'll be able to live with that!

I'm digging in and starting work right away tomorrow. They have a special thing going on and needed extra help and since both my roommates volunteered I thought I should too! It'll be a short day only 4 or 5 hours, THANK GOD! I think after that we'll head into Ansbach to check things out and get a feel for the place. On Sunday we are thinking about going to Wurzburg for a wine festival! That whole plan could change, but I'm pretty excited to be getting off base.