Chapter Two: Cashless First Weekend

When we first arrived in Germany, we walked off the plane into the sunshine on a new continent after flying all night to get there. After collecting our mountains of luggage and piling it into three separate cars, we headed to the hotel. This was to be our new “home” for the next several weeks. After dragging all our belongings into the large, quadruple room, I practically collapsed onto the hotel beds. I knew the quickest way to adjust to the new time zone was to stay awake all day and go to bed early, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. So after all our helpers left the hotel room, I lay down and napped with my two and five year olds for a couple of hours.

Thus we didn’t have an opportunity to get to a bank before they all closed that Friday afternoon. We didn’t have any Euros and no way to exchange our dollars. While I napped my husband took off with one of his co-workers to go pick up the rental van and get his military ID at the nearby Army base. These two tasks took him the entire afternoon, so he also didn’t make it to the bank before closing time that day.

Therefore, we were left without any useable cash for our first weekend in Germany. Luckily, our airport greeters had stocked our hotel room with some very basic and necessary items such as bread, milk, cereal, lunch meat and cheese. We just didn’t realize that most small shops and markets in Germany still close on Saturday afternoon and don’t reopen till Monday morning. We also had grown accustomed to our American cashless society and it was a bit of a shock to us that we now needed cash (Euros) for most everything, everywhere we went; museums, markets, grocery stores, bakeries, post office, etc.

On Saturday we slept late, ate breakfast, got dressed and then walked to town in the late afternoon. By the time we reached, what appeared to be the city center, everything was closed. There was one small grocery store still open but they were cash only. And there was one Schlecker store open (a German drugstore chain) but again, they only took cash. So we enjoyed our walk and seeing the small town center and the fresh air, but everything was closed.

Back in America, I could write personal checks at most all places but Europeans had already removed most personal checks from their banking and commerce at the time we lived in Germany. Now that we are back in America, our country is also moving that direction. Most places in my hometown that use to accept checks, now remove those funds electronically, on the spot, and then hand my paper check back to me. Thus, it now makes a debit card a better choice for payment at those places.

So I learned in Germany to always, always, take my keys, cell phone and cash (Euros) before leaving the house. Large department stores and highly touristy places would take credit cards and especially on large purchases but most places still wanted and preferred to use cash.

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)

Preface

“Flight attendants please prepare for departure,” boomed the familiar expression over the loud speaker on the airplane. We taxied around the last corner and then came to a halt as the jet engines began to roar louder and louder. Then in an instant, we were all pressed back into our seats as the plane raced down the runway, shaking and rattling as it lifted quickly into the early-morning, pink, autumn sky. Spread out below us was our home town of the last nine years, Boise, Idaho. As the buildings and cars grew smaller and smaller below, I looked fondly and a bit sadly on the home we were saying good-bye to for at least the next two years. As the city turned into farms and then merged with the endless desert below, I turned my head back to the front of the plane and relaxed as the plane leveled off in the sky.



I realize that most Americans would not pack up their household goods and fly on an airplane across the ocean to relocate their lives to a foreign country. But then, we’ve never been “most Americans.” Almost everything in our adult lives has been a bit unconventional or a little to the side of “normal.” Not that being different is the goal within itself. We’ve never set out to be different, just for the sake of being different. No; it is that this life of faith has led us down a different path than most others.

My husband and I fell in love and got married before we finished college. We had a child within the first year of our marriage (10 months afterwards—to be exact). I chose to stay home full time with my newborn son , even though I was the one with the college degree, at the time, and my husband was working a job that paid less than $5 an hour; a pretty meager wage even back in 1993. And when our son turned five years old, we began homeschooling him. He’s sixteen now and we are still home schooling him as well as his three younger sisters. We have now been married to each other for seventeen years which is also something of an anomaly these days.

So, we are used to being a bit different and to taking risks. For us, it is a life of faith and a wonderful adventure. Not that we expect everything to work out wonderfully or even as planned, as you will see in the following pages, but we do expect to learn and grow along the way; to learn about this great, big wonderful world and the great, big wonderful God who created it and to grow closer to Him and to each other throughout our lives.

I think the dream of taking our kids to live in another culture began a long time ago for me, probably in high school as I had considered being an exchange student even then. But for my husband, Cory, it began with our trip to Italy in 1999. Cory came home from work one day and while he was in the kitchen putting together a salad for dinner, he casually asked, “So, how about going to Venice for Valentine’s Day?” He had a slight smirk on his face and I thought it was a joke. Now, I know of Venice, California but I was thinking, ‘Is there a Venice, Idaho?’ because if there is, surely that is what he is thinking about.

I questioned, “Venice?”

And Cory replied almost laughing now, “Yes, Venice.”

“Venice, California?” I said still not catching on.

“No, Venice, Italy, you silly.”

“Well, yeah! I’d love to go to Venice, Italy for Valentine’s Day but how exactly would we afford that?” I replied.

So, Cory finally revealed his poker hand and handed over the day’s mail which included an offer from our frequent flyer program of not one, but TWO round trip tickets from ANYWHERE in the US to several locations in Europe for $199 roundtrip plus 10,000 frequent flyer miles. You just had to call and book the tickets in the next few weeks and you had to use them by the end of March or something like that. I had been flying the same national airline since my college years when I would go visit my grandparents in Oklahoma or on other trips and had never used up all my frequent flyer miles. So, we immediately picked up the phone and called Cory’s parents to see if they would be willing to have their grandkids come visit for a week or so.

We ended up flying from Seattle to Bologna, Italy and then took trains to Venice, Rome and Florence before returning to Bologna and then back to Seattle 10 days later. It was wonderful. We loved Italy and the Italian people. We loved the fresh food, walking everywhere and exploring old churches and neighborhoods and we loved their open, public plazas. And so the dream began, “We have got to come back and bring the kids.”

Fast forward seven years and two more kids later and we still hadn’t gotten there. But, neither had we forgotten. And so, when the fateful call or email job offer came in the mid-summer of 2006, we immediately said, “Yes! We will go.” Actually, at first, I didn’t believe it was really going to happen, but if it did, the answer was a resounding yes!

To Dream a little Dream

Well, I've been meaning to post about our week-long Mexico mission trip for a couple of months but time just keeps tick, tick, ticking away on me. Now we have already been there and are back home again but I just had to share a couple of thoughts.

It is amazing to me that just a few short months ago this family mission trip idea was just that; an idea. And as I began to research about our options and Cory and I began to pray about the opportunity, I just stand in awe of how it all came together and God provided the money for us to go. I just couldn't have made it all happen if I had tried and yet God did put it all together for us.

It is just a great example of Psalm 37:4
"Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart."

God is good!
http://www.truelightministries.net/

Another great poem by Taylor Mali now with kinetic typography.

 This is short but EXCELLENT. My older kids are taking Speech and Debate
this year and I had them watch and listen to this video. They loved it!
Just had to share.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Christmas and the holidays are much on my mind these days. We are heading north just before Thanksgiving to visit Cory's family. And then back to Boise for Thanksgiving with my side of the family. So I would like to have much (if not all) of my extended family shopping done by then. But, of course, what to do for everyone. That is always the question.

And I have especially been considering trying to make gifts using some of my photos since
A. I already have them and
B. They bring back such great memories.
I've been perusing some digital photo album websites and trying out different software just to see if there is something quick and easy AND looks great (more like a scrapbook and less like a photo album). Haven't found the perfect thing yet but I will keep looking.

One year we did custom photo calendars through Costco for Cory's family and our German extended family and they turned out great! They were quick and easy and only about $10 a piece.

And I did get this idea in my email inbox and I might try to make one of these photo notepads and see how truly easy or difficult it is:

http://photojojo.com/content/diy/photo-cover-notepad/

It looks cool.

I thought the kids might like to each have one of these in their stocking this year. And I already have the photos and the paper and glue. So, we will see...

Grandma Rose's obituary

Here is Cory's Grandma's obituary. She lived a long life. Cory flew up to Coeur d'Alene this morning to be with his family for the funeral and burial this weekend.
(And, of course, while he is gone the battery died in one of the vans. Why do these things always happen when he leaves town? Funny, huh?)


Nita Rose Witherup, 95



Nita Rose Witherup, 95, of Post Falls, Idaho, passed away Sept. 9, 2009, in Post Falls. She was born Feb. 3, 1914, in Slater, Mo., to James and Catherine Allen.

As a teen Nita moved to Kansas City, Mo., where she met and married Mervyn, the love of her life. She followed him west when the Hanford project was birthed and spent many happy years in Richland, Wash. In 2000 she moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, to be near her daughter and son and live independently until 2004.

Nita was an avid tennis player and an accomplished bowler. She enjoyed pinochle, gardening and baking. She spent most of her years as a homemaker but in mid-life worked in retail sales in the music, jewelry and clothing industries.

Nita is survived by her children: Sandra Hankins (partner Ted Granger) of Seattle, Wash., Mervyn Witherup Jr. (wife Linda) of Spokane, Wash., and Connie Isakson (husband Ron) of Post Falls, 12 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren.
Nita is preceded in death by her beloved husband of 53 years, Mervyn; son William and five siblings.

The family would like to thank her wonderful caregivers and friends at The Loyalton in Coeur d'Alene, Moran Vista in Spokane and Life Care Center in Post Falls. You are truly our kind of heroes and heroines. She felt very loved and "special" throughout her years of assisted living and skilled nursing care.

Memorial services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, at Life Care in Post Falls and graveside services will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, at Sunset Memorial Gardens in Richland, Wash.

Please sign Nita's guest registry and view her online memorial at www.englishfuneralchapel.com.