What happened to the Isaksons when they moved to Stuttgart, Germany
We woke up at 4:15am Mountain time. We got all of our stuff together, and had a taxi come pick us up at 5. The taxi driver of course had to tell us his life story and all that jazz. Anyway, when the taxis (it took two) dropped us off at the airport, we of course, had to carry the luggage all in, this took about 15 minutes. No joke-then of course check them which took another 15 minutes. Once we were done with the luggage part, we went of course, as all people do, through security. You’re probably wondering why I started with the boring part at the beginning now. Well, it just-so-happens that Elizabeth managed to bring along a pair of scissors in her carrying case that, of course, she didn’t know of. By some miracle, she managed to get through security without being caught. Then we waited for the plane. And waited, and waited. We realized we were 2 hours early for the flight, so we really had to wait and wait and wait.
Once we actually got on the plane we were pretty worn out. On the plane, I think we were supposed to have breakfast, which apparently they gave to us. All I got though was a few crackers and some cheese. (Editor’s comment: Phillip slept through breakfast on the plane and only awoke for the snack.) Now don’t get me wrong, I love cheese and crackers, but when you get up at 4:15 in the morning, and it's 9:30, you’re hungry for some food! I, by another miracle, managed to get through with my cheese and crackers.
About halfway through the flight, we were informed that the toilet was full. Of course, when you’re on a plane for 6 hours, you REALLY need to go. I hadn’t gone yet and was forced to hold it for 3 more hours. I once again managed to survive. When we got off in Atlanta, I took in the surroundings, of the bathroom. Wait a minute; shouldn’t that be “I went to the bathroom”? Oh well, it sounds better this way. Anyway, now to describe the part of the airport we were in.
When we got off in Atlanta, (haven’t we been here before?) I was appalled by the floor! It was covered in black electric tape. Apparently, we were in the dumpiest part of the entire airport (Editor’s comment: that part of the airport was in the process of being remodeled). Which I didn’t realize until the floor turned to the best quality tile I think I’ve ever seen.
We enjoyed banging around in the underground train in Atlanta. You could easily pick us out and tell we were new to it because every time it moved we went “Whoa!” and were tossed around profusely. Oops, I forgot to tell you about the stores and everything in Atlanta! Pause…rewind…
When we got off in Atlanta and had got onto the tile, there were stores on both sides of us. There was a hair-cutting salon, all kinds of restaurants, three video stores that I saw; a book store. And just about every store you can think of! Before we went on the train, we, of course, had to go down, way down. We found an escalator, and went down, further down and further down! It was the longest escalator I’ve ever seen!
Okay, fast forward now… When we got off the underground train, we found a food court and ate Arby’s for lunch. We went to gate E4 (There were about 38 gates in each section and the highest section was “T”!) 45 minutes later we found out we were supposed to be in E32, across the airport we went! Once again we waited for our flight, this time to Stuttgart. And this time the flight was 9 hours. *groan* This flight however had only one mishap.
When we got on the plane, we waited, and waited and waited, and waited. We weren’t moving! What was wrong? The pilot informed us that there were 26 planes waiting to take off and that it would be another 45 minutes before we could take off. It took an hour.
Yes, we did sleep on the plane, considering that the plane landed in Germany at 9 o’clock A.M. their time, it was hard not to sleep. For me anyway… I slept 4 and ½ hours on the plane, Grace slept 6 hours, Liz and Mariel 1, and I don’t think Mom or Dad got any sleep at all. Not that I knew of anyway. When we, at last, reached Stuttgart, we were pooped. I felt like it was 11:00 p.m. and that I had run in circles for an hour. Yeah, I had just awakened when they said, “We are now approaching Stuttgart, Germany.” So I was way tired still.
Yeah! We were finally done flying! We had got our passports stamped back in Atlanta, so we didn’t need to go through that, but we had to get our bags still. (Editor’s note: This shows how truly half-asleep Phillip was at the time. We stood in line for quite some time at the passport booth, then had to have each and every one of our family’s passports inspected and stamped before moving on down the walkway and then through the airport to find our luggage. We did have to show our passports back in Atlanta to board the plane but they were not stamped there.)
We had to hire someone with a cart to haul all of our stuff to the car. One of my dad’s friends, (the one probably all know as the reason we didn’t get to Germany 3 years ago. Yeah, this was the one that “stole” dad’s job) drove us to our hotel and helped settle us in. Of course, this, as all things, didn’t go perfectly either. I got stuck in the car that had my dad and Grace in it. You know how parents like to talk? Well, my dad’s friend got distracted with talking to my dad and, you guessed it, missed the turn.
We still made it though; it just took…a little bit longer to get here. We got a peek at the autobahn, and a few other things we wouldn’t have gotten to see, but still, it’s funny how nothing goes as planned! Part of getting us settled in was getting us our military IDs so that we could go on-base. Once again, this didn’t quite go as planned. *eye roll*
We got on-base using my dad’s friends’ ID and went to activate my Dad’s P.O. Box. We realized though that this required an ID, so we went to go get the ID. My dad (Cory) got his picture taken, he filled out 15 minutes of paperwork, and then we were done, well…almost done. Then we had to get the ID activated which was next door, the lady that was supposed to do this was not there, and we waited, again, for 5 minutes *phew* this time. Once that was dealt with, we had lunch on-base, which was full of surprises. We had a choice of “Subway, Taco Bell or McDonald's” no kidding! We chose Subway.
We walked into Subway and I was totally surprised that there was 90’s music playing, and it was EXACTLY the same as a Subway back in Idaho! I once again was blown back. Oh yeah, I forgot, everyone on-base speaks English! Yeah!
We got a tour of the base. The base, has two haircut places, three restaurants, a general store, a clothing store, the three fast food places I mentioned before, and hot-dog stand, and chicken stand; five baseball fields, a track, two tennis courts; tons of people, 1/6 of which are in full military uniform, a piece of the Berlin wall; the list goes on.
We got a lecture on taking out the garbage, because, in Germany, they recycle everything, well, almost everything. Also, you can’t put the trash out from 12-2 o’clock p.m. and you can’t after 9 p.m. because that’s “quiet hour.” Another strange, errrr…different, thing is that on Sunday you cannot mow the lawn, you cannot do any noisy yard work, almost everything’s closed; You cannot hang clothes up to dry outside on Sunday. And, once again, the list goes on.
When you’re driving down a road, a lot of the time you’ll all of the sudden find yourself in the forest, with CDs hanging off of trees, “To keep the animals away from the road.” I think that my favorite thing so far is “the walker’s rule” when you’re walking, you can go anywhere, you can walk through farms, through the woods, anywhere, and no one cares! And the best part about it is that say you are walking through an orchard; you can reach up, pick an apple, and eat it! And no one cares! Everything here is automatic; another cool thing.
Keep in mind we’re still in the middle of day two here, and we’re not yet finished. Unfortunately, though, there are no more mishaps to speak of. After the tour and once we “learned our way around” my dad filled out more paperwork, I’m not sure what for, but I think it had to do something to the effect of “Americans don’t have to pay German taxes” because so far as Germany’s concerned, we’re in America. Because the base is separate from Germany altogether; even though we’re not living on-base.
And that is the end of day two…
Hope you had a good laugh!
By Phillip Isakson (age 13)
Monday, April 19, 2010
Chapter One: Leaving on a Jet Plane
Our adventure began in the summer of 2006 when we received the official offer for my husband to work overseas. We spent the next two to three months organizing and itemizing our belongings into three groups; the air shipment, the sea shipment, and the storage items. We were to be living out of suitcases for several weeks in a hotel in transition. Thus, the air shipment included our winter coats, hats, gloves, school books for the kids, and my son’s keyboard. The sea shipment was to include most of our important everyday household items minus the electronics. And the items to be stored were garage items, photos, a few antiques, and most all our household electronics since they couldn’t be used in Europe. We contracted with a property management firm, sold one of our cars, and began to itemize, describe and price every single item we owned for insurance purposes for the moving company.
We had three separate moving companies come into our home and give us a bid on packing, shipping, and storing our things. Then, my husband’s company picked the winning bid and we awaited the appointed day of chaos. Actually, it was three days of chaos; the first day for packing our sea shipment and air shipment items, a second day for loading our sea shipment items into the shipping container, and finally, the last day for packing and loading our storage items. Then we had to clean the empty house and get on an airplane for a really long ride.
Following is my 13-year-old son’s account of the airplane trip from his perspective:
What happened to the Isaksons when they moved to Stuttgart, Germany
We woke up at 4:15am Mountain time. We got all of our stuff together, and had a taxi come pick us up at 5. The taxi driver of course had to tell us his life story and all that jazz. Anyway, when the taxis (it took two) dropped us off at the airport, we of course, had to carry the luggage all in, this took about 15 minutes. No joke-then of course check them which took another 15 minutes. Once we were done with the luggage part, we went of course, as all people do, through security. You’re probably wondering why I started with the boring part at the beginning now. Well, it just-so-happens that Elizabeth managed to bring along a pair of scissors in her carrying case that, of course, she didn’t know of. By some miracle, she managed to get through security without being caught. Then we waited for the plane. And waited, and waited. We realized we were 2 hours early for the flight, so we really had to wait and wait and wait.
Once we actually got on the plane we were pretty worn out. On the plane, I think we were supposed to have breakfast, which apparently they gave to us. All I got though was a few crackers and some cheese. (Editor’s comment: Phillip slept through breakfast on the plane and only awoke for the snack.) Now don’t get me wrong, I love cheese and crackers, but when you get up at 4:15 in the morning, and it's 9:30, you’re hungry for some food! I, by another miracle, managed to get through with my cheese and crackers.
About halfway through the flight, we were informed that the toilet was full. Of course, when you’re on a plane for 6 hours, you REALLY need to go. I hadn’t gone yet and was forced to hold it for 3 more hours. I once again managed to survive. When we got off in Atlanta, I took in the surroundings, of the bathroom. Wait a minute; shouldn’t that be “I went to the bathroom”? Oh well, it sounds better this way. Anyway, now to describe the part of the airport we were in.
When we got off in Atlanta, (haven’t we been here before?) I was appalled by the floor! It was covered in black electric tape. Apparently, we were in the dumpiest part of the entire airport (Editor’s comment: that part of the airport was in the process of being remodeled). Which I didn’t realize until the floor turned to the best quality tile I think I’ve ever seen.
We enjoyed banging around in the underground train in Atlanta. You could easily pick us out and tell we were new to it because every time it moved we went “Whoa!” and were tossed around profusely. Oops, I forgot to tell you about the stores and everything in Atlanta! Pause…rewind…
When we got off in Atlanta and had got onto the tile, there were stores on both sides of us. There was a hair-cutting salon, all kinds of restaurants, three video stores that I saw; a book store. And just about every store you can think of! Before we went on the train, we, of course, had to go down, way down. We found an escalator, and went down, further down and further down! It was the longest escalator I’ve ever seen!
Okay, fast forward now… When we got off the underground train, we found a food court and ate Arby’s for lunch. We went to gate E4 (There were about 38 gates in each section and the highest section was “T”!) 45 minutes later we found out we were supposed to be in E32, across the airport we went! Once again we waited for our flight, this time to Stuttgart. And this time the flight was 9 hours. *groan* This flight however had only one mishap.
When we got on the plane, we waited, and waited and waited, and waited. We weren’t moving! What was wrong? The pilot informed us that there were 26 planes waiting to take off and that it would be another 45 minutes before we could take off. It took an hour.
Yes, we did sleep on the plane, considering that the plane landed in Germany at 9 o’clock A.M. their time, it was hard not to sleep. For me anyway… I slept 4 and ½ hours on the plane, Grace slept 6 hours, Liz and Mariel 1, and I don’t think Mom or Dad got any sleep at all. Not that I knew of anyway. When we, at last, reached Stuttgart, we were pooped. I felt like it was 11:00 p.m. and that I had run in circles for an hour. Yeah, I had just awakened when they said, “We are now approaching Stuttgart, Germany.” So I was way tired still.
Yeah! We were finally done flying! We had got our passports stamped back in Atlanta, so we didn’t need to go through that, but we had to get our bags still. (Editor’s note: This shows how truly half-asleep Phillip was at the time. We stood in line for quite some time at the passport booth, then had to have each and every one of our family’s passports inspected and stamped before moving on down the walkway and then through the airport to find our luggage. We did have to show our passports back in Atlanta to board the plane but they were not stamped there.)
We had to hire someone with a cart to haul all of our stuff to the car. One of my dad’s friends, (the one probably all know as the reason we didn’t get to Germany 3 years ago. Yeah, this was the one that “stole” dad’s job) drove us to our hotel and helped settle us in. Of course, this, as all things, didn’t go perfectly either. I got stuck in the car that had my dad and Grace in it. You know how parents like to talk? Well, my dad’s friend got distracted with talking to my dad and, you guessed it, missed the turn.
We still made it though; it just took…a little bit longer to get here. We got a peek at the autobahn, and a few other things we wouldn’t have gotten to see, but still, it’s funny how nothing goes as planned! Part of getting us settled in was getting us our military IDs so that we could go on-base. Once again, this didn’t quite go as planned. *eye roll*
We got on-base using my dad’s friends’ ID and went to activate my Dad’s P.O. Box. We realized though that this required an ID, so we went to go get the ID. My dad (Cory) got his picture taken, he filled out 15 minutes of paperwork, and then we were done, well…almost done. Then we had to get the ID activated which was next door, the lady that was supposed to do this was not there, and we waited, again, for 5 minutes *phew* this time. Once that was dealt with, we had lunch on-base, which was full of surprises. We had a choice of “Subway, Taco Bell or McDonald's” no kidding! We chose Subway.
We walked into Subway and I was totally surprised that there was 90’s music playing, and it was EXACTLY the same as a Subway back in Idaho! I once again was blown back. Oh yeah, I forgot, everyone on-base speaks English! Yeah!
We got a tour of the base. The base, has two haircut places, three restaurants, a general store, a clothing store, the three fast food places I mentioned before, and hot-dog stand, and chicken stand; five baseball fields, a track, two tennis courts; tons of people, 1/6 of which are in full military uniform, a piece of the Berlin wall; the list goes on.
We got a lecture on taking out the garbage, because, in Germany, they recycle everything, well, almost everything. Also, you can’t put the trash out from 12-2 o’clock p.m. and you can’t after 9 p.m. because that’s “quiet hour.” Another strange, errrr…different, thing is that on Sunday you cannot mow the lawn, you cannot do any noisy yard work, almost everything’s closed; You cannot hang clothes up to dry outside on Sunday. And, once again, the list goes on.
When you’re driving down a road, a lot of the time you’ll all of the sudden find yourself in the forest, with CDs hanging off of trees, “To keep the animals away from the road.” I think that my favorite thing so far is “the walker’s rule” when you’re walking, you can go anywhere, you can walk through farms, through the woods, anywhere, and no one cares! And the best part about it is that say you are walking through an orchard; you can reach up, pick an apple, and eat it! And no one cares! Everything here is automatic; another cool thing.
Keep in mind we’re still in the middle of day two here, and we’re not yet finished. Unfortunately, though, there are no more mishaps to speak of. After the tour and once we “learned our way around” my dad filled out more paperwork, I’m not sure what for, but I think it had to do something to the effect of “Americans don’t have to pay German taxes” because so far as Germany’s concerned, we’re in America. Because the base is separate from Germany altogether; even though we’re not living on-base.
And that is the end of day two…
Hope you had a good laugh!
By Phillip Isakson (age 13)
What happened to the Isaksons when they moved to Stuttgart, Germany
We woke up at 4:15am Mountain time. We got all of our stuff together, and had a taxi come pick us up at 5. The taxi driver of course had to tell us his life story and all that jazz. Anyway, when the taxis (it took two) dropped us off at the airport, we of course, had to carry the luggage all in, this took about 15 minutes. No joke-then of course check them which took another 15 minutes. Once we were done with the luggage part, we went of course, as all people do, through security. You’re probably wondering why I started with the boring part at the beginning now. Well, it just-so-happens that Elizabeth managed to bring along a pair of scissors in her carrying case that, of course, she didn’t know of. By some miracle, she managed to get through security without being caught. Then we waited for the plane. And waited, and waited. We realized we were 2 hours early for the flight, so we really had to wait and wait and wait.
Once we actually got on the plane we were pretty worn out. On the plane, I think we were supposed to have breakfast, which apparently they gave to us. All I got though was a few crackers and some cheese. (Editor’s comment: Phillip slept through breakfast on the plane and only awoke for the snack.) Now don’t get me wrong, I love cheese and crackers, but when you get up at 4:15 in the morning, and it's 9:30, you’re hungry for some food! I, by another miracle, managed to get through with my cheese and crackers.
About halfway through the flight, we were informed that the toilet was full. Of course, when you’re on a plane for 6 hours, you REALLY need to go. I hadn’t gone yet and was forced to hold it for 3 more hours. I once again managed to survive. When we got off in Atlanta, I took in the surroundings, of the bathroom. Wait a minute; shouldn’t that be “I went to the bathroom”? Oh well, it sounds better this way. Anyway, now to describe the part of the airport we were in.
When we got off in Atlanta, (haven’t we been here before?) I was appalled by the floor! It was covered in black electric tape. Apparently, we were in the dumpiest part of the entire airport (Editor’s comment: that part of the airport was in the process of being remodeled). Which I didn’t realize until the floor turned to the best quality tile I think I’ve ever seen.
We enjoyed banging around in the underground train in Atlanta. You could easily pick us out and tell we were new to it because every time it moved we went “Whoa!” and were tossed around profusely. Oops, I forgot to tell you about the stores and everything in Atlanta! Pause…rewind…
When we got off in Atlanta and had got onto the tile, there were stores on both sides of us. There was a hair-cutting salon, all kinds of restaurants, three video stores that I saw; a book store. And just about every store you can think of! Before we went on the train, we, of course, had to go down, way down. We found an escalator, and went down, further down and further down! It was the longest escalator I’ve ever seen!
Okay, fast forward now… When we got off the underground train, we found a food court and ate Arby’s for lunch. We went to gate E4 (There were about 38 gates in each section and the highest section was “T”!) 45 minutes later we found out we were supposed to be in E32, across the airport we went! Once again we waited for our flight, this time to Stuttgart. And this time the flight was 9 hours. *groan* This flight however had only one mishap.
When we got on the plane, we waited, and waited and waited, and waited. We weren’t moving! What was wrong? The pilot informed us that there were 26 planes waiting to take off and that it would be another 45 minutes before we could take off. It took an hour.
Yes, we did sleep on the plane, considering that the plane landed in Germany at 9 o’clock A.M. their time, it was hard not to sleep. For me anyway… I slept 4 and ½ hours on the plane, Grace slept 6 hours, Liz and Mariel 1, and I don’t think Mom or Dad got any sleep at all. Not that I knew of anyway. When we, at last, reached Stuttgart, we were pooped. I felt like it was 11:00 p.m. and that I had run in circles for an hour. Yeah, I had just awakened when they said, “We are now approaching Stuttgart, Germany.” So I was way tired still.
Yeah! We were finally done flying! We had got our passports stamped back in Atlanta, so we didn’t need to go through that, but we had to get our bags still. (Editor’s note: This shows how truly half-asleep Phillip was at the time. We stood in line for quite some time at the passport booth, then had to have each and every one of our family’s passports inspected and stamped before moving on down the walkway and then through the airport to find our luggage. We did have to show our passports back in Atlanta to board the plane but they were not stamped there.)
We had to hire someone with a cart to haul all of our stuff to the car. One of my dad’s friends, (the one probably all know as the reason we didn’t get to Germany 3 years ago. Yeah, this was the one that “stole” dad’s job) drove us to our hotel and helped settle us in. Of course, this, as all things, didn’t go perfectly either. I got stuck in the car that had my dad and Grace in it. You know how parents like to talk? Well, my dad’s friend got distracted with talking to my dad and, you guessed it, missed the turn.
We still made it though; it just took…a little bit longer to get here. We got a peek at the autobahn, and a few other things we wouldn’t have gotten to see, but still, it’s funny how nothing goes as planned! Part of getting us settled in was getting us our military IDs so that we could go on-base. Once again, this didn’t quite go as planned. *eye roll*
We got on-base using my dad’s friends’ ID and went to activate my Dad’s P.O. Box. We realized though that this required an ID, so we went to go get the ID. My dad (Cory) got his picture taken, he filled out 15 minutes of paperwork, and then we were done, well…almost done. Then we had to get the ID activated which was next door, the lady that was supposed to do this was not there, and we waited, again, for 5 minutes *phew* this time. Once that was dealt with, we had lunch on-base, which was full of surprises. We had a choice of “Subway, Taco Bell or McDonald's” no kidding! We chose Subway.
We walked into Subway and I was totally surprised that there was 90’s music playing, and it was EXACTLY the same as a Subway back in Idaho! I once again was blown back. Oh yeah, I forgot, everyone on-base speaks English! Yeah!
We got a tour of the base. The base, has two haircut places, three restaurants, a general store, a clothing store, the three fast food places I mentioned before, and hot-dog stand, and chicken stand; five baseball fields, a track, two tennis courts; tons of people, 1/6 of which are in full military uniform, a piece of the Berlin wall; the list goes on.
We got a lecture on taking out the garbage, because, in Germany, they recycle everything, well, almost everything. Also, you can’t put the trash out from 12-2 o’clock p.m. and you can’t after 9 p.m. because that’s “quiet hour.” Another strange, errrr…different, thing is that on Sunday you cannot mow the lawn, you cannot do any noisy yard work, almost everything’s closed; You cannot hang clothes up to dry outside on Sunday. And, once again, the list goes on.
When you’re driving down a road, a lot of the time you’ll all of the sudden find yourself in the forest, with CDs hanging off of trees, “To keep the animals away from the road.” I think that my favorite thing so far is “the walker’s rule” when you’re walking, you can go anywhere, you can walk through farms, through the woods, anywhere, and no one cares! And the best part about it is that say you are walking through an orchard; you can reach up, pick an apple, and eat it! And no one cares! Everything here is automatic; another cool thing.
Keep in mind we’re still in the middle of day two here, and we’re not yet finished. Unfortunately, though, there are no more mishaps to speak of. After the tour and once we “learned our way around” my dad filled out more paperwork, I’m not sure what for, but I think it had to do something to the effect of “Americans don’t have to pay German taxes” because so far as Germany’s concerned, we’re in America. Because the base is separate from Germany altogether; even though we’re not living on-base.
And that is the end of day two…
Hope you had a good laugh!
By Phillip Isakson (age 13)
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