Jameson's invade Germany

And now the moment you have all been waiting for...The Jameson Family has arrived in Deutchland.  The flight was good.  It didn't seem to take nearly as long as last time.  Maybe I'm getting used to it (like the turnpike)  We had 4 seats across the middle of the plane.  Erin didn't freak out like I thought she would, so that is a good thing.  We did get the kids to sleep a little.  Erin slept between us and Ryan slept on the floor.  It worked. 

We arrived and the car guy was there waiting for us at the exit with his "Mr. Mike Jameson" sign.  Erin and Ryan were extremely impatient to get going while he explaied everything about the car.  We managed to fit all 9 of our pieces of luggage in the car, which is good news.  It is like a station wagon, black with the coolest licence plate in all of Dusseldorf. 

 

 

 

We easily found our way to the house and dropped off our suitcases in the driveway.  Our handover wasn't until 10:30, so we had some time to kill.  We drove around, found a nearby bakery and an ATM.  Almost no one takes credit card here, only EC debit cards. As we drove through a neighborhood near our house, my phone (which was only operating on WIFI, which there is no of free around here), woke up and I got tons of email and facebook notifications. Someone has a open WIFI at their house and my phone picked it up.  (Right now I am siting on a bench outside the person's house 'borrowing' their WIFI to write all of this.)

The handover was good.  Our landlord doesn't speak a word of English, so that should be intertesting.  The rental furniture movers showed up promptly at noon and (I'm told) were done by 2.  I don't really know because I didn't think I was tired, but sat down in a chair, and immediatly fell asleep.  Mike later sent me up to our bedroom, and I didn't even bother to make the bed, just laid down in the middle of all the blankets and pillows.  He took a pic of me, which I don't appreciate and emailed it out.  Thanks. 

Thursday night we made our first trip to Ikea.  Picked up a few things, shower curtains and the like.  Nothing too exciting.  Followed by dinner at McDonalds and grocery shopping at Aldi. Nothing I couldn't have done on any given day in Robinson! 

Friday morning, Mike had an appointment with German officials to declare that we were here.  We took the train into Dusseldorf. We also opened our bank account and did some shopping.  My cell phone is now figured out.  I do have a German number, but you can still text me at my old number.  Also, email, skype and facebook messanger are all good ways to get in touch with me.  We also bought a new washing machine.  Fun!

We did another trip to another Aldi.  And I cooked my first meal in Germany.  Spaghetti.  Go with what you know. 

At night we took the train 3 stops into our little town of Kaiserswerth.  Very cute little town.  The kids were playing on a playground near a pizza place.  I heard a little boy run over to his parents who were sitting having dinner and say "Those kids are Americans!".  They all started playing together and we sat and had drinks with their parents.  Fabulous people!  The kids will be in school with Erin and Ryan, both one year younger.  At that point we were low on cash and had had two bottles of wine.  We didn't know it, but we had ordered  2 $22 bottles.  Brian and Stephanie were nice enough to front us the cash instead of finding an ATM.  We have plans for drinks next Friday night too, we'll bring the cash!

We did some school and household shopping at the German equivalent of Walmart today. 

Tonight we are heading into Dusseldorf for dinner.  Sorry no pictures attached to this post.  I'm on Mike's computer.  I promise I will add some as soon as I can.