Frank the Tank

I now have a car to go along with my German driver's license. It is a 1991 BMW 735, black. It is literally a German tank. Therefore, we are going to refer to my car as Frank the Tank. I would guess the car is about the same length/size as an Impala (that's the best/easiest comparison I can make). It definitely has some scratches, dings, dents, and rust... and I would be concerned if it didn't have those things after 20 years. Really, it just adds to the charm of the car. The entire situation makes me laugh, in a good way. Josh and I had decided we weren't going to ship his truck over to Germany (and thank god we didn't. With the price of gas and these tiny curvy roads... what a nightmare!) and figured we'd just buy some cheap "beater" cars to drive around. My best friend Jen and I had this vision of me finding an old, boxy, heavy tank of a Mercedes/Audi/BMW to rock. And... Frank is definitely this vision personified. I think I laugh because... what a better thing to add to my adventure than to say "and we drove around in this old beast of a BMW..." I am excited to have a car, but I'm very excited that it's an automatic. Josh is excited that it has A/C. I will post pictures as soon as I take some.

Our temporary/loaner furniture from the base got picked up... they sent three very LARGE German men to pick it up. Each man was at least 6'4", but I think the tallest one was probably pushing 6'6"... and they were all very burly/large. Their size at first was a bit shocking.... but what shocked me even more was watching them move stuff. They had to pick up a table, 4 chairs, a small stuffed chair, and a couch. I'm thinking of American movers and thinking this process is going to take probably about a half hour. They were here and gone in less than 10 minutes. The biggest German guy walked over to the couch, picked it up, threw it on his back, and then walked down two flights of stairs with it. One of the other Germans did the same thing with the table and followed the guy with the couch. Josh and I were standing there wide eyed, jaws flapping.Our neighbor downstairs told us when he moved in the German movers literally strapped the washing machine to his back and huffed it up the stairs. I love the visual image I get from that. It makes me both curious/excited and a bit nervous to think of watching them move my stuff up the stairs in another month.