Misty is here!

Guten Tag!

I know, I know, you have all been anxiously awaiting an update from us. Sorry! I have been putting this update off because my computer died, but I have a new Surface tablet and it has been super awesome to upload this blog on! There hasn't been too much excitement here. The big news is that Misty is finally here. Her arrival was delayed due to Sandy's destruction, but we are glad she is here with us now. Speaking of Sandy - our hearts go out to all our friends and family who were affected by the storm. I have talked to many of you, I know it was awful and hope for a speedy recovery.

So, Misty is here. She was not fond of the airplane and spend a decent amount of the flight scratching her belly (we know this based on the blood and irritation on her belly). She was pretty distressed, but survived. Also, we found out Misty is not fond of time zones - she was pretty much knocked out for two days straight! She has recovered now and her belly healed quickly.

Back to her favorite sleeping spot

Having Misty here has forced me to use some of the German I am learning. On our daily walk around the vineyards in our backyard, I have met many Germans and their dogs. Germans are vey eager to have their dogs meet so that means I stand there awkwardly hoping they don't say anything and if they do I respond mostly with the phrase "Enshuldegung, Mein Duetsch ist nicht so gut" (Sorry, my German is not that good.) This gets two responses - 1. The German immediately switches to English and we have a small, quick conversation, or 2. I am ignored. Luckily #2 does not happen too often, but it is very interesting when it does.

Part of our daily walk....beautiful even on a cloudy, cold day.

Misty loves our walks because she loves meeting the other dogs. Most dogs here are off-leash, which Misty is not trustworthy enough to do with her (its the hound in her). This causes a lot of questions from the Germans and I finally decided to try and train Misty to be off leash and respond to the "here" command which we use to make her come to us. We started this week practicing, I usually wait until we get to a field where I can see if people or wildlife are coming. She is pretty good, especially when motivated by treats!

Mike and I met a group of Germans and their dogs in this field yesterday on our walk and we let Misty off leash to play with the other dogs. She had so much fun! And sort of listened to us -haha. We were invited to join the group every afternoon for the dogs to play which is great for Misty and a great way for me to practice my German!

Other than getting Misty getting accustomed to Germany, we have been working hard to get the house set up. We took a trip to Ikea, spend a good amount of money, and almost couldn't drive the car home. This trip was extremely needed, because we now have places to store things! Yay!

Not recommended to drive this way on the autobahn :)

What I have learned from the unpacking process is that Mike and I have significantly different strategies. I unpack one box at a time, put it all away or in the pile of like items that need something in order to put away and then move on to the next. Mike unwraps all the items in 20 boxes, puts the items in piles or back in boxes, and then figures out what to do with all the stuff. Needless to say I have had my work cut out for me. This is what I accomplished yesterday:

This is one of our basement rooms - yikes!

After - not completely finished yet, but at least we can find things now :)

We finally decided to try some of the local vineyards. Wine tasting in Germany is not the same as in the states, although we haven't figured out how it really works. So we went to the two castles behind us - Schloss Johannisberg and Schloss Vollrads. The outcome of our tasting was that it is really hard to find a bad Riesling here, and when you are in the home of the Riesling grape, I guess that is expected.

Schloss Johannisberg - the one you can see from our house and the oldest Riesling vineyard in Germany!

If you walk down this path our house would be to the left.

Schloss Vollrads - also a very old vineyard, approximately 5 minutes from our house.

So old and beautiful!

Well, that's all we have here. Sorry for the poor quality pictures - I am waiting for my iphone case and still have the protector over the camera lense - haha.

We will be spending Thanksgiving with a group of friends which should be nice. The only thing that will be missing is the football (stupid time difference)! But the parade will be on during dinner, yay!

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Tchuss!

Katie and Mike