Christmas in Minnesota

We have a couple traditional things we do for Christmas in Minnesota. There's the present wrapping.

Then the events - first, we go to my Mom's house on Christmas Eve where we have fondue and open presents. Then we go to my Uncle Jim's for socializing and the kids get some presents.
Then on Christmas morning, we all open our stockings, which everyone has snuck some stuff into.This year we then went to Mom's house and ate Christmas dinner
... and played some Continental Rummy.

Travel to Minnesota

We went to Minnesota and spent Christmas with my family. The girls flew up and joined us there. Brad and I flew in, via Amsterdam on Thursday - the Stuttgart airport was backed up due to the weather - our flight was at 6:20 a.m. so we headed to the airport at 4 in the morning (yuck!). After we boarded, we had to wait over an hour to get the plane de-iced and were delayed some more waiting to take off. Then, when we arrived in Amsterdam to switch planes, we had to wait 30 minutes for them to bring stairs over to our plane so we could debark! The good thing was we had a 2-1/2 hour layover originally, so we rushed from one plane to the next, going through customs again and being some of the last people to board the plane - we both needed to go to the bathroom, but there wasn't any time for that even. We then flew straight to Minneapolis, flying over Scottland, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada - specifically the Hudson Bay. The flight was shorter than flying from Stuttgart to Atlanta, the joy of a great circle route to the north. And then we arrivedi n Minnesota around lunch - it's strange to be there at noon, but we've already been awake for 15 hours.

The girls flew to Minnesota on Saturday and they were affected by Mother Nature. In their case, a snowstorm hit Minnesota the morning they arrived and they ended up flying in circles overhead for over an hour while they waited to land. Brad and I had checked in since the girls were flying unaccompanied and were waiting at the gate. The grumpiest ticket agent ever came up to the gate for American Airlines. She was yelling at people one after another - I guess Northwest airlines had cancelled their flight to Dallas so they were rerouting their people to the American Airlines gate - but there were no seats available. I listened to here telling one person after another that they were out of luck, and those people arguing with her that the Northwest agent had told them it was all taken care of - most likely just to get rid of them. I was somewhat scared that the flight wouldn't be able to land since the time kept moving back and back and the ticket agent was telling people she didn't know where the plane was going to land since no planes were coming in at all. If we couldn't see the planes landing out the window at the same time, I would have been much more worried that the girls would get diverted to another airport due to MSP being closed - but as long as we could see them coming in, I knew they'd eventually get in. We were both greatly relieved when they landed :-)

Jessica's School

We're in Minnesota for the Holidays. It's great to be with my family and back together with the girls. Since we're living in Stuttgart, Jessica, my niece, asked me and Brad to speak to her German class about our experiences living in Germany. If you've been following the blog, you know we have lots of experiences to talk about! Here's some pictures of us "lecturing" the class - though I think it was closer to sharing sea stories :-)

Pictures of the Girls

Melissa, the Girl's mom, has been taking some awesome pictures of the girls. Here a couple of them...

Snow...snow...snow

It's been snowing steadily here for the last two days, with no wind and the temperatures right at the freezing point where the snow gets really sticky. Perfect snowman and snowball snow! Look at how beautiful this winter wonderland appears. Brad took these pictures today :-)

German Emergency Room Experience

Last week Brad and I got to experience going to the emergency room in Germany. (I had a urinary tract infection - real painful but needs antibiotics fast). We called the Patient Liaison Officer here on base, a German lady who gives you directions and then calls the hospital to smooth the way (there are two of them that work here).

We got to the hospital and walked in, it was 1:00 a.m. in the middle of the night. No one, and I mean NO ONE, was around. Following the Patient Liaisons directions we went to the room labeled in English Emergency Care (this is done just because of the number of English speakers here in Stuttgart). We couldn't find the place because the arrows pointed one way, which when you went there the arrows went away with no further directions. We wandered around for 5 minutes or so, backtracking repeatedly, when this German nurse comes walking up. Fortunately she spoke a little English - turns out that the intersection that we kept walking past was the Emergency Care center. There was a room to the side with glass windows which was the Emergency Care center. We never recognized it because there was NO ONE there and the lights were off!!! If the Patient Liaison hadn't called the German nurse wouldn't have been there either - she was looking for us!

She had us fill out some paperwork, I provided a sample, and then she left us there while she went and dealt with the sample. About 10 minutes later she came back and told us the urologist would see me. So we headed for the urology ward, which was empty, and waited for someone to come. A nurse and doctor finally came down the hall and took the sample from us (the nurse had given it back). After they agreed I did have an infection they finally let us in to the examining room where the Doctor asked some questions and then did a sonogram of my innards to check for infection. This was downright strange since I've had these infections before and the usually just give you painkillers, antibiotics and a wave on your way -- I've never even seen a Urologist before! After that, he gave us some sample pills - enough for a couple days - and sent us on our way.

The entire time we were in the hospital we only saw those 3 people, and the whole thing took under 1 hour. An American emergency room is guaranteed to take at least 3 hours and you leave with a prescription and another hour wait ahead of you.

The way the hospitals work in Germany is you go to the area for the symptoms you have - if your guts hurt you go to internal medicine, if you break a bone you go to orthopedics, etc. Some hospitals don't have certain wards and you have to go to a different hospital - one exact example is if you have a sick child and the hospital doesn't have a pediatric ward they send you to another hospital. And there is no general emergency room - the Emergency Care area is just for them to get our paperwork so they can get paid.

I have to admit, it was freaky - like one of those deserted hospital scenes from a horror movie!

I feel horrible because I haven't posted in so long!! I'm sorry everyone!!! Brad and I have not been doing anything terribly exciting lately, we're planning Thanksgiving, which is going to be just the two of us at home. Lately we've been doing our Christmas shopping, both online and in downtown Stuttgart. It's kind of neat, we were missing out on the whole downtown shopping. Latlely one of the things we're doing is searching for new winter coats. My bright red one isn't the fashion I want anymore - I would like a long coat that I could wear with a jeans or a dress.

Brad has been spending time online lately searching for the perfect hat and straight razor. Last summer I got him shaving cream and a brush to apply it - it works real good, so now he wants to go even more old school with a straight razor. He has also been looking for the perfect had, a newsboy cap or driving cap. He found a great hat store downtown and got two - I'll have to take a picture of him in one of them and post it!

I ended up working all weekend, planning for a contingency which I think is never going to happen - what a waste of time. Tonight, Monday, I got off early so Brad and I went downtown and got a hat for me, shopped around, and then finished up with a dinner at a nice Bavarian restaurant - I had a macaroni and cheese type dish with port and beef fried up on top; Brad had pork and steak with herb butter and french fries. It was all good.

This weekend the Christmas Market begins here - we'll make sure to take some pictures and post them afterwards.

And I promise I'll do better at posting!!!!