The first full week has passed since we landed in Germany, and it has been a whirlwind of bureaucracy, back and forth, clouds, and really excellent food.

The flight from Albuquerque to Denver was short, but late, and cut into our shorter layover. Craig and I powerwalked from one terminal to another, cat in bag, to try to make our international flight. We were one of the last ones on, and everyone wanted to see the kitty. Sensi, for her part, was remarkably collected and just watched the world pass her by. Stowed safely underneath the seat in front of me, she never uttered a single meow the entire 10 hour flight. The other passengers were unfortunately not even close to that well behaved, and we suffered from much jostling and many screaming children.

Arriving in Frankfurt, I clearly made a mistake when renting my budget car. We got Toyota’s version of a rollerskate, an Aygo X. It barely fit all of our luggage. It almost fit Craig. Driving from Frankfurt to Ramstein was dreary, fog dominated the landscape, and it took half the drive before we got any music going. It took about an hour and a quarter to get to the hotel. Since we landed on Sunday, most things were closed, so after checking in we found a Greek restaurant that was open.

What is a Gyro? We were pretty sure that a Gyro was a particular type of meat, on a pita, like a sandwich. It would appear that Gyro refers to just how the meat is cooked. Our Gyros were extremely tasty, smoked and spiced ham thin shaved after roasting on a spit for some time. No Pita though. The salad was extremely good.

The first full day we had to run to Kaiserslautern to get cat supplies for Sensi, and while we were there we got a few extra pillows and a couple soft blankets for our hotel room, along with some travel adapters cause mine mysteriously disappeared amongst the chaos of getting ready to come here.

It took a while to get a sense for where to go for good food, but once we did, we really hit gold. Trulli’s Italian restaurant was very kind to seat us without a reservation, but they let us know we would need to clear the table in about 90 minutes for the actual reservation. No problem! One great bottle of wine, two amazing entrees and a tiramisu later, and we were out of their way.

Another gem we found was Hamit’s Döner. Duolingo tried to warn us, early on, by teaching us all kinds of vocabulary around Döner, or Donner Kebab if you are Sprechen Englisch. an astounding meal, large portion, great leftover.

We spent a good amount of time walking to various places near the hotel. It stayed mostly cloudy or raining the entire week, with maybe a few minutes of the clouds breaking here and there.

In the background to all of the wonderful food and walks we took, I got most of my paperwork done, and have found a place to rent, a car to buy, and even a few appliances to get us started out once our lease starts. For now, until the place is available, I am in the hotel and enjoying the company of my lovely and remarkably calm cat.