First Few Days in Germany

Christopher Hylton, a wonderful friend and old co-intern, found a 1st generation iPhone for $50. He did a lot of work to it, got it ready to use, then popped his old phone open only to realize Sprint does not use SIM cards. On the other hand, that same morning, I had just been given a SIM card to use in Germany with no phone. Perfecto. Chris got $70 (He didn't want to take the additional $20 so I told him to put it towards Spain - can't argue with that!) and I got a phone. The best part? I can take pretty decent pictures with my phone when I don't have my fancy-shmancy camera around my neck.

Here's a little preview to my first few days in Tübingen, iPhone picture style:

Here's Tyler on the plane watching Despicable Me and eating dessert. We had Cheesecake and Ice Cream Sundaes - es war sehr lecker (it was very delicious)!

You saw my pictures from the previous post of all our luggage. Wednesday, we braved the cold and ice to see Unterwegs, the campus house. Here's the backyard covered in snow:

The bench had about 2 1/2 inches of snow and huge icicles hanging from the bottom! The picture doesn't quite do the size of the icicle justice, but you get the idea!

Tyler and I wanted a break from the cold so we thought we'd check out the inside of the house. Everything looks good - some basic house keeping needs to be done, but the house is in wonderful condition. Just yesterday we shampooed the carpet with a super-duper cleaning-carpet machine. It looks great!

And last but not least, the icy streets! Thursday afternoon, we met 2 students for lunch - Melli and Michael. Thursday was a holiday (Three Kings Day) so most of the city was shut down, but we were able to find a small dönner shop that was opened. This picture is outside the church in the old city - the streets were thick with about 1 inch of pure, slick ice!

Since then the temperature has been in the low to mid 40s, so all the ice and snow has melted. It's suppose to be rainy and warm(er) this whole coming week. I like the warm(er) weather, but I sure would prefer snow to rain! I guess you can't have your cake and eat it, too :)

As for other news, I had a wonderful lunch with Beth, our team leader, on Friday. We talked about the ministry, some expectations, jobs, etc. Monday I will finish the rest of the orientation. I also start language school tomorrow. I currently am possessed with laryngitis (no voice!) so language school might be extra interesting tomorrow! All in all things are going very well. Students come back to school tomorrow and our first event is Thursday - Learning From Larry (a student from Unterwegs and his band) is playing at the house. More to come, soon!