Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday season!! We are back in Germany after a couple weeks in Italy; it was a nice break from everyday life, and was great to see everyone. Actually, the past month has been by far the best month we've had since moving here, despite my last post's air of desperation. Alessandro is doing a bit better, although it's a day by day thing. He's enjoying his school and "new friends", as he's still calling them. We finally got internet, after 10 weeks!! I would say that it was a time of rediscovery, or something like that, where I learned to not depend on the internet, but that would be pretentious and a lie. We are grateful to finally be in the 21st century. Anyways, the best news is that Paolo has been offered a full time, permanent position with Daimler! Daimler is the company he's been interning with, headquartered here in Stuttgart. If you don't know, it's a huge company, housing several brands, the most famous being Mercedes-Benz; he works for the financial branch of the company. All of this to say, it's an amazing opportunity to launch his career with a global company, so I'm super proud of him.
Aside from bringing financial stability, this job is also a big deal because it means we're here until at least April 2018, which is good news. The past several months have been a bit uncertain as far as where we will be, and what we will do, which has made it hard for me personally because I am tryin
g to find my next step. I have been looking for jobs here, but it is quite hard without speaking German and/or being a student. I have been putting off taking a German course until I was sure we were staying. That being said, I'm beginning an intensive German class next week, which is 4 days per week, 4 hours a day. I will be doing that for the next few months, and then will enroll in the university here, and go back to school to get my master's in October. It's something I really never considered doing before, but the opportunity is right in front of me, and school is free here for foreigners, so why not?
In other news, I am also learning to drive a manual car. To my non-American friends, we almost exclusively drive automatic cars in the US, so I have never had to learn before now. I've always gotten by in Europe using public transportation, but if we're going to be here long term, it's something I need to learn. Paolo has taken me out driving a few times now, and I'm making improvements, although I'm really terrible at getting the car moving without the engine dying. I was happy to find out that Alabama is one of the states that Germany allows to apply for a license without having to retake any tests. It's actually difficult to get a licensed here otherwise; they require driving school, first aid training, and both a written and practical test. I will still take some driving lessons; I am nowhere near comfortable driving here in general, much less with a manual transmission.
I actually like not being completely dependent on a car. Of course, there are times when it would be nice and convenient to just hop in and go somewhere, but without that ability, it forces you to walk a lot more. I walk almost 8,000 steps each day (according to my pedometer app), just dropping Ale off and picking him up from school. It's not always super fun, since it tends to be cold and rainy here, but you get used to it after a while. Germany has actually been having a mild winter, from what I hear. It's much colder in AL right now than Stuttgart.
Oh! Another update on Alessandro: he has learned how to climb out of his bed. We've actually had him sleeping in a playpen with a full mattress (our apartment is 1 bedroom, 540 square feet), so it's a bit deeper than crib would be. It's quite impressive to watch him climb out; he's kind of a ninja. Anyway, we will be transitioning him to a bed in the next week, and are slightly nervous about that. Ale has been a bad sleeper since Day 1, so any change to sleeping arrangements always brings back memories of the days when he refused to sleep unless he was being held, or when he woke up 50 times a night. We can't go back to that place, it was a dark place. Happy thoughts.Ciao for now,
Kathleen
