Germany - Homecoming Part 3 (finally!!!)

Remember that time I started writing about homecoming and my trip to Germany...back in April? Remember how I never finished those? Whoops, life got a tad busy. Anyways, I have had this written for a long time, just never finished it, and here it finally is. Part 1. Part 2.

The guys were expected home late late on April 6th, or very early morning on the 7th. Amy had been told at an FRG meeting that the activity center would be set up with the banners and podium once we got the 5 hour call that they were on their way home. (When I woke up on the morning of the 6th, Amy told me that she had gotten a call that trail party was arriving at 10:30 am and our guys would be after that). We took Sarah to her play group at 9 AM, which was in the activity center, and found that it already decorated with banners, signs, and the podium. We looked at each other in shock that it was already set up and wondered where our phone call was. We worried that they had called the house phone, not her cell phone like she instructed, but we continued on with play group instead. We killed time that afternoon by hanging out with the wives of the trail party, waiting with them for a little bit, going to lunch on post, me buying some beer for Seth to put in his room, putting the sign on his door that Sarah and I made and very anxiously awaiting our phone call. We would be in our own little world, dreaming of the next few hours, and one of us would just suddenly say a number, or hold up fingers, indicating a countdown of hours until they were expected home.  We talked about if we didn't get a phone call by a certain time, would we give up hope it was happening that night? When should we go to bed? Or should we pull an all nighter? Should Sarah go down for a nap, or should we keep her up and then put her to bed really early, only to wake her up a few hours into her sleep? Our heads were completely spinning with possibilities as we debated this very serious stuff! My heart would literally skip a beat when the phone would ring. We would turn our heads so fast to look at each other, and our mouths would drop and we'd say OMG! THIS IS IT!  Of course, it wasn't THE phone call, but we'd still get super excited.

Finally, after an agonzing day of waiting and thinking, at 7:30 pm on April 6th, we got our 5 hour warning phone call. We were told they landed in Germany and were going through customs. We were told we'd get another call back when they cleared customs and they were on their way to post. This is what I wrote in my vacation journal about getting that phone call: "All afternoon, every noise sounded like the phone ringing. It finally did for real at 7:30 pm and both of us jumped and she ran to get it. I called Sarah and she had a huge smile on her face. When Amy got off the phone, we both screamed and we got Sarah to scream in excitement and I felt like I was going to puke (from excited nerves) and she got a bloody nose (from excited nerves)."  She put Sarah down for bed, so she would have a little bit of a nap before being woken up in the middle of the night to go get her daddy. We tried to stay calm until we received the second phone call, which came at 8:45 pm. They had cleared customs and were really on their way home!! We were told if we got to the activity center at 11:30 pm, we would be there in plenty of time before the guys. We had planned earlier in the day to trade cameras, so pictures of me and Seth would be on my camera, and pictures of her and her husband would be on her camera. (We did have a girl who offered to take pictures for us; her husband was in the field training for a few weeks so she was free. But since it was midnight that that guys were expected home, we didn't ask her to do it after all). We spent the night getting ready and finally left her house at about 11 PM to head to the activity center. (We headed towards the main gate to exit, only to find that it closes at 10, so we had to back track, go further out of the way to exit the other gate to walk to the post that the activity center is on). She got Sarah up just a few minutes before we had to walk out the door, dressed her real quick and we headed out the door. We were practically running to the activity center, because we couldn't get there soon enough. It was pitch black out, a few street lights, a cool night, a car here and there, and us. Amy stopped to get a daffodil, and put it in her hair and kept one for Sarah. As we were getting to the primeters of post, I heard a diesel engine and looked back and said OMG MAYBE THAT'S THEM!!! Then we speculated, and walked/ran faster then determined it wasn't them. As we got closer to the entrance gate, we heard soldiers being loud and said maybe it was them, they had gotten there early, and they were waiting until 11:30 when familes were expected to be there. Amy said she wasn't looking, because she didn't want to ruin the surprise if it was them.

We got to the activity center at about 11:30 and Toby Keith's American Soldier was playing on the sound system. There were red, white and blue balloons everywhere, kids were running around with pure excitement, throwing balloons, chasing each other, jumping up and down. Soldiers were getting the podium in place, there was a slideshow playing on the wall with pictures from Afghanistan and the level of excitement in the room was awesome. Toby Keith's American Soldier song gets me every single time, and now when I hear it, I have the memory of walking into the activity center, getting ready to welcome home my love from his deployment. My heart swelled with an enormous amount of pride and excitement when I walked into the room. Considering it was midnight...and getting later into the middle of the night as the waiting continued, the kids did extremely well. There were no major breakdowns, the kids all played well, and were extremely excited knowing that their mom or dad would be home SOON. The garrison commander walked around and introduced himself and asked who we were and who we were waiting for. He was pretty nice, but I was nervous as hell to talk to him! Finally, around 1:30 AM, the white buses drove by and we could see them through the open doors. Amy and I sat down on the bleachers, switched cameras and tried to remain calm. The fog machine started generating the fog, the lights were dimmed, the music stopped and everyone got quiet and sat down. Suddenly the guys broke through the big red banner that said, "welcome back, Bravo!!" and everyone started screaming and snapping pictures and looking for their loved one. I scanned every face as they walked in and into formation and didn't see Seth. I saw Lee (Amy's husband) and Bubba and recognized a few others, but couldn't find Seth whatsoever. Amy is lucky that Lee is over 6 feet, so he stood over everyone and I got some good pictures of him. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking and I couldn't find Seth. Plus, the fog machine was fogging everything up, so that was blurring the faces. All of them were in, but I still hadn't seen Seth and was getting terrified that he didn't make the flight for some reason. I started re-scanning the faces. I finally found him, in the last row, about 5th from the last! There were a few very short (thankfully!) speeches, and then the soldiers were released and Lee came right over to Amy and I waited to get a few pictures of them before I went and found Seth. Then Amy was right behind me and she got a few pictures of Seth and me. Within minutes, we walked out of the activity center, holding hands, reunited, finally. We walked with Lee, Amy and Sarah and then the guys got their bags from outside, and Amy and I congratulated each other that we finally made it, hugged each other, then went off with our guys. They went home and I snuck into the barracks with Seth for the next few nights.

The next few days consisted of soccer games, in-processing, hanging out with Amy and Sarah, and eating German food. I finally had a chance to meet the soldiers that Seth had talked about so many times too. Seth got a really dirty room and the shower was full of mold. So while Seth was doing his in-processing stuff, I cleaned the hell out of his shower. We had a picnic/bbq with Lee and Amy on a gorgeous, warm, sunny German afternoon. Seth also taught Sarah how to fist bump and it was the cutest thing ever!! Seth accompanied me to the Frankfurt airport (the train was packed for some reason, and I'm pretty sure we walked the whole length of the train cars to try to find a seat...and found nothing. We finally sat down in an area where the doors open and close, because it was a long ride. We hung out at the train station for a little while and then stayed the night at the Sheraton. (That place is really expensive in Euros!)

Ok, if you made it through that long of a post, here are some pictures!!! 

<3

welcome home!!!

waiting to be released!!

armed with tilex to take care of the mold in the shower. i used a clean sock as a face mask and one of those stretchy things to hold their uniform pants up on their boots to tie it to my face. a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do...

german soda

soccer game. or football as they call it. 

walk back to post from lee and amy's

so this banana here? when seth got his stuff delivered from storage,  he got his favorite black backpack and it had mold all over it. he couldn't figure out why and was getting pissed that they ruined it....and then he found a banana sitting in the front pocket. it was so old and gross and hairy and nasty, it didn't even smell bad (thankfully). but he hosed it off the in the shower and it's good as new, as he would say. it's sitting on our living room floor right now. i would have thrown it away if that happened to me.

frankfurt train station

Germany & Homecoming: Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

Amy and Sarah (our God-daughter!) picked me up at the train station and we walked back to their house. We played with Sarah a little bit before Amy put her to bed. We had dinner and we proceeded to talk until midnight. I loved our late night chats, talking about literally everything. I loved talking to her, to be able to have a conversation (in real life!) with someone who understands what the last year was like, and talk about our excitement of the guys coming home. I admit I was a little nervous to stay at their house since we'd only met once before, over a year ago. But it was awesome staying with her.

I went to bed past midnight, which was really late considering the time change and traveling. I wanted so badly to take a shower, but I had no clean clothes and felt gross putting on dirty clothes after a nice hot shower. The airline had given me a consolation overnight kit, which consisted of a t-shirt, deodorant, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shoe polish and some other random little things. Oh, and my feet stunk really bad. My feet never stink (except in high heels!) but they were hot and sweaty from running around in airports and train stations for the last 30 hours. I didn't have any clean socks or underwear and felt extremely nasty. (Note to self: pack a pair of clothes in my carry on luggage!) I slept until 9 AM the next day and it felt amazing. It was a super comfortable bed!!! I checked the status of my luggage and had no idea when it would be delivered so I decided to go to the PX and get some clean socks and underwear, so at least I could feel a little refreshed. We went to another wife's house for dinner that night and I wanted to look half decent, even if my clothes didn't appear so and I had no makeup. I also bought two shirts at the PX.

We spent our days talking, playing with Sarah and taking her to play groups, running around post to post, back and forth, talking and dreaming about what it would be like for the guys to actually be home, going to the commissary to get food for our baking extravaganza, getting on Facebook to see status updates from a particular soldier who was en route home and torturing ourselves with when they'd be home. (I know, he shouldn't have done that, but he did and I'm not one to ignore and not analyze what his posts meant!!) She showed me the ins and outs of Army life and what living on post is like. Most nights we stayed up until midnight talking. I remember one particular conversation we had while we were walking back from a German grocery store. We were talking about how much we had talked to the guys over the course of the year, how they told us they were deploying (she knew for a year beforehand...I found out about 4.5 months before). I told her how the conversation went for us and she said, "see, you were meant to be a military wife!" For some reason, it just was nice to hear. I never, ever pictured myself as a military wife, but somehow this is where I ended up and I like to think I'm doing well so far.

I was there 5 days with Amy before the guys returned. I'm so glad I was able to spend that time with her, get to know her, learn from her and share the excitement with her. She is a true friend and I'm excited to meet more women like her, who understand the lifestyle and will be a lifetime friend.

The next part will be the actual homecoming ceremony :)

March 22, 2011

As this deployment was ending and I was getting ready to go to Germany, I wrote a few blog posts, but didn't post them for security reasons. Here is one I wrote in March.

March 22, 2011

It's a week and a half before I leave for Germany and I'm getting anxious. I still haven't gotten the paperwork that was sent at the end of January though. That's adding to my anxiousness. I got one letter that he sent, but not the rest of the paperwork. I told my boss the dates I'll be gone today. I was kind of nervous to do that because we have a big on going project and I'm a big part of it, but oh well, they're going to have to deal with out me. I have 10 vacation days and I'm taking 11 off and I told him I didn't care if I had to take a no pay day and I suggested maybe I could take a sick day? My heart will be broken after all. He said I can use a comp day, which I am a-okay with!

I meant to get my luggage from my parent's house the other day but forgot. I have to pack clothes for Seth too. He has lost at least 10 lbs since he's been deployed and he's gone down a size and when he was home for R&R, we bought him new clothes. All his clothes in Germany will be too big, so I have to bring him clothes that fit. I'm excited for this, but this also means less room for me in my suitcase! I need all the room I can get! I'll be there for two weeks and I want to pack 10 pairs of shoes, but I know that's not the smartest idea. I ordered a few tops from macys.com and I'm waiting for those to get here. One of them will hopefully be what I wear to the homecoming ceremony. Assuming I get it in time.

In other news, I lost (hid?) my iPod from myself back in December. I hid it when I was going to my parent's house for a few days because after I was robbed in September, I was...still am...paranoid that the robbers will come in and steal my small electronics, which they were looking for. So I hide things like my camera, Kindle, iPod, etc while I'm gone. Well I hid the hell out of my iPod and have yet to find it. I've searched high and low in my bedroom and my car and can't find it. I'm beginning to think I really did lose it because I can't find it at all. I really would like it to use on the 9 hour plane ride to Germany, but I really don't want to spend the money on that. I thought about buying an iPod shuffle for $49.99 (I have $35 in coupons), but I want a touch screen. But for $15 out of my pocket, it would probably really be a good thing to buy. I probably will do it.

Ahhhh Germany, I can't wait to be reunited with you and my lovemuffin!!!!

Germany & Homecoming: Part 1

It’s now been almost 2 months since this deployment ended (holy crap, it’s been a really fast 2 months!) and I haven’t even blogged about getting to Germany, homecoming and all that good stuff. So I’ll start it now, with part 1, getting to Germany. Future parts will be coming in a few days.

I had my whole trip planned out. I left from my town, which has only two terminals at the airport and then I had one layover only, in Detroit, where I have been many times – it was going to be an easy trip. I was going to go to the USO when I got to Frankfurt the following morning and take the shuttle to Seth’s post, and get dropped off at Amy’s house, who I was going to stay with until the guys got home. Sounds super easy right?

In reality: I had a little puddle jumper plane from my town to Detroit. Except little puddle jumper plane was coming from Detroit and for whatever reason, the pilot wasn’t there. (It was decent weather out, so in my mind there was no reason for any type of delay). I had about a 90 minute layover in Detroit, which was kind of cutting it close for an international flight. When I found out that my flight to Detroit was going to be delayed, I asked about changing it. I walked up to the ticket counter, cut some guy off because he was about to get in line before me, and he cursed at me. But hey, I got the nice lady (who also waived my $150 overweight luggage fee – yes, I am not ashamed to play the military card in situations like this) and she was very nice and helpful in getting me rebooked. First, she said she could send me to Chicago, then Amsterdam then to Frankfurt, where I’d be getting in the following afternoon. She also said that it would be a first class flight because that’s all that was available. I, looking back very stupidly, turned that down because I was scared to go to an international airport alone. Yep, I turned down a first class flight across the ocean. STUPID ME but I wanted as direct flight as possible. So she rebooked me to Chicago to Frankfurt. My plane leaving my town was delayed a little bit and it was nearly impossible to get to my next gate and get my seating arrangement in time for my flight to Frankfurt. I didn’t know this at the time, but I didn't even have a chance of making that flight. It was like a scene from a movie: running so fast with my carry on bag through the very warm Chicago airport, dodging people left and right, hopping over pieces of luggage sitting on the ground, screaming, EXCUSE ME, PARDON ME, COMIN’ THROUGH. MOVE IT OR LOSE IT, LADY! Ok maybe I wasn’t really saying that out loud, but I was in my mind. Running and hopping over luggage did happen though. Anyways, I hop on the tram – my gate is literally on the other side of the airport and realize I have 5 minutes before my flight takes off. And my tram ride was 3 minutes. I was dripping sweat because it was so hot in the airport and I was wearing a fleece jacket. But I couldn’t stop and waste time to take it off. I got to the ticket counter and the lady tells me the doors to my flight have already closed and I can’t get on that flight. I started to cry. She tells me not to cry, it’ll be OK. I tell her, I’m going to Germany to go to my fiancée’s homecoming ceremony from Afghanistan and I don’t know exactly when he’ll be there, so I need to get there immediately. She says to another lady at the ticket counter, oh crap, we don’t have any more flights to Frankfurt tonight. I started to cry harder. She tells me again everything will be OK. She throws some possible flight times out there and I tell her none will work, I need to get to Frankfurt ASAP. She finally says she can send me through London/Heathrow then Frankfurt and I’ll get in at like 5 PM the following day (I was supposed to be in at 7 AM). I say, fine, I’ll take it (not happily). I text my mom and she says: Oh how exciting! You get to go through the busiest international airport! I text back: yeah, I’m really excited. More opportunities for me to get lost. I was assured my luggage didn’t get put on my original flight to Frankfurt, because luggage does not get put on an international flight if the passenger is not on the flight. Good news, right? Yep, until you're rebooked a billion times and your luggage really has no chance of getting to your destination when originally scheduled. I eventually got on the plane to London/Heathrow and only sleep for a few hours in an uncomfortable seat. I got London/Heathrow (thank God they spoke English – that was another fear of going through an international airport) and walked around for a while, like a sweaty, nasty American who has had no sleep. I found this internet café place with free internet access and computers to use so I gchatted with Amy to let her know my new flight info and what time I’m expected in. She informed me that the USO shuttle doesn’t run past noon or something, so I’ll have to figure out the train stations myself or sleep in Frankfurt and get on the shuttle the next morning. I told her I’d call her when I get to Frankfurt and let her know what I decide. I finally got to Frankfurt, go through customs, go to the baggage claim…only to find my luggage is not there. So I fill out the paperwork for lost luggage. I ask where a payphone is, so I could tell Amy that my luggage was lost and I’d be attempting the train stations alone. I find one payphone and couldn’t figure it out for the life of me, using my trusty calling card. I decided I needed to get on a train to get to post and go buy my ticket. It was getting late and I didn't know when the sun went down and I didnt' want to be in train stations alone in the dark. Train ticket lady gave me a ticket to a train that left in 7 minutes from then! So I run again to the train track. Train isn’t there yet, and I see another pay phone right by my train track and attempt to use that. This time I gave up using my calling card and tried using my credit card, and didn’t care how expensive it was going to be. That didn’t work either. I spotted a girl with a big ‘ol backpack, who looked to be my age, American and I kinda kept watching her, wondering if she was getting on the same train as me, if she was nice and if she had a cell phone I could maybe borrow… and if I should talk to a stranger in a foreign country. She got on the train before me and I discreetly followed her. I sat in the seat in front of her. And after a few minutes, I start to cry and couldn't stop. Because I didn’t know how to get in touch with Amy, I didn’t even know Amy’s address so I can’t take a cab from the train station to her house (you know, and kind of surrrrrprise her I’m there), I was extremely tired, jet lagged, gross and sweaty, pissed off my luggage was lost and just frustrated. I cried for a good 10 minutes, alone on a train in Germany. It was a beautiful sunset on the German country sides though. The girl behind me pulled out a cell phone and she makes a call…and starts talking fluent German. Damnit! I can’t speak German to ask if I can borrow her phone! She looked American! I cried again, because I can’t use her phone. I talk some sense into myself to stop being a baby, put on my big girl panties, and tell myself that everything will be fine. Somehow. A few minutes later, I turned around and asked the girl if she spoke English. She said yes, and I nicely asked if I could borrow her phone, to call my friend who is expecting me. I told her I was supposed to call at the train station, but I couldn’t figure out the pay phone (dumb American I am). She said she only has one bar left of battery, but I can use it and I tell her I’ll make it quick. She dials Amy’s number for me and Amy says, Oh thank God! I have been calling the Frankfurt Airport and the USO to see if you checked in!! I told her quickly what happened and then the phone died. We were going in and out of service area and we lost service. Nice girl behind me dialed again and I quickly tell Amy what time I’m expected at the train station in town. She said she’ll meet me there. I profusely thanked nice German girl for letting me use her phone and we chatted for a little while. I had one train station change to figure out. German girl got off the train at the same station and pointed me in the right direction for my train track. I got on a train and hoped to God it was the right one. All the announcing on the trains for the small towns are spoken in German. So I listened for the one key word that I know, which is the name of the city I was going to. I heard them say the town name, but the train station signs above the tracks say a different city and I was really confused. I asked someone if we were in the town I was needing to be in, and she spoke German and we didn’t understand each other. I looked out the windows to see if I recognized any buildings or the train station… and I didn’t. I panicked. But for whatever reason, I got off the train. I started walking around the train station and saw a sign that says the correct city I’m supposed to be in (THANK GOD!!!!) and the train station and other buildings start to look familiar. I started walking around, looking for Amy. I couldn’t find her, and I started to walk around the station and then I heard her call my name. I'd never been so happy to hear her call my name.

Thank God, I somehow managed to make it to Army town, Germany. It was the worst flight and travel experience I’ve ever had.

If you read through that, thanks for sticking around! Here are some pretty pictures (a little blurry because the train was going fast!) of the sunset on the German country side:





(Next post will be the agonizing wait we endured before the guys got home!!)