Life in the new village

Pin It Now! After more than 10 hours of driving, consumption of more calories than I care to admit and a week of very little sleep I think I'm starting to feel a bit more calm and settled.   I did have some, ok a lot, of anxiety about moving to a new town.  Especially since it's not even a town we now live in; it's a village of maybe 100 people.  I think the village is probably a 5 mile radius.  I'll have to confirm.  Though it is tiny, there are several villages within miles of us and other houses too, just more spread out.

I had anxiety about how far things would be and what I would do if there is an emergency.  Which btw I have decided take a CPR class (finally!)  I also was afraid of how people would treat us.  We are the only Americans in this place and not many people speak english.  So far we have gotten lots of curious stares, friendly waves and nothing but warm and sincere friendliness. 

My anxiety wore off after we realized we are actually only 12-15 minutes from a large biomarkt(natural/organic foods store) and all my favorite German stores for that matter.  We get the prettiness of the country, but are within reasonable distance to things without feeling completely isolated.  After unpacking most of our things today, it really and truely feels like home.  My most favorite part of the new house (besides the fact everything inside is all brand new and the big trees and the privacy) are the stunning views.  I have never lived anywhere where I could keep windows open all the time and not worry about who's peeking in.  Here's the view from one of our living room windows:

 

See....no one around.

The biggest con is a temporary con.  Apparently there is no internet out in the boonies until this summer.  We get good coverage on our cells, but there is only so much you can do on a cell phone.  We have wifi sticks too, so hopefully they satisfy my internet addiction. On the plus side hopefully this means I'll be more productive and spend more time learning my german. 

Here are some tidbits about our new area:

When driving into our village there is a hill with what appears to be bunkers from World WarII.  Though I'm no historian, I can only say they look just like the bunkers in Heidelberg. 

Very interesting to imagine what happened here if indeed they are from World War II.

There is a delicious bakery (as there seems to be in every single German city) that makes happy face doughtnuts.  Little Wright likes this bakery:

Jesus is everywhere.  On the corner of just about every street and at nearly every yield and stop sign is a cross with Jesus.  I am pretty certain this means there is a strong Catholic presence.  I honestly haven't had much experience or interaction with the Catholic faith, so it will be interesting to learn more.

I can't wait to learn and explore more.  Though we have lived in Germany going on two years, I never experienced culture shock.  In Heidelberg 90% of the people speak english, listen to American music and there are a lot of American and english speakers everywhere you go.  Heidelberg is also extremely diverse with a mixture of turks, indians, russians, muslims, christians, etc.  It's an international city and a melting pot of cultures. 

Now that we're in the country and in a place where english isn't spoken as often, I see how we will be forced a bit more into the culture.  Today we had our first real conversation in German!  We ordered lunch, the guy understood us, we understood him and not a single english word was spoken.  It's amazing how much we have actually picked up, but since we never really had to converse, we didn't.

Still have a long week ahead of us.  Staying in a hotel in Heidelberg the next 2 nights while Mr. Wright finishes up work here and then officially have our first night in the new house Friday.   Hope to share some new things soon :)

xoxo

B