C-17 Flight Out

Sunday morning, Feb. 18, found us once again at the terminal.  This time things looked positive, however--the flight to McGuire was releasing 53 seats, which is all of them on a C-17.  I assumed it must be an empty plane. 

Roll call was at 9:30, but it took a long time.  They would call off several names, and then have a period of waiting while those people went up and got their luggage weighed and received boarding passes.  Then they would call off more names.  We knew it would be iffy for there to be room for all of us, but still, we were happy so many people were being called, since we knew we would have an excellent shot at getting out on the next flight to Dover that evening.  There were several more flights to Dover the next day, so things were finally looking up!

FINALLY they called our name.  We were one of the last ones.  We made our cumbersome way up to the check-in desk to get all our bags weighed and our passports/IDs checked.  At the very last minute, I realized Micah was wearing crocs, which is a big no-no on military aircraft--"No open toed or open heeled shoes allowed".  Praise the Lord, I realized it when I did because I was able to grab his tennis shoes out of the suitcase for him to put on.  Whew!

We also bought 4 box lunches for the flight at the desk.  These cost $5.50 each, making the grand total for this leg of our trip $22.00.  It doesn't cost anything for the actual flight when you are on military aircraft, so we saved a lot of money by not getting on the Rotator!  I think that costs $36.20 per person for the flight from Ramstein to BWI because the airport tax is much higher than when you fly from BWI to Ramstein.

After we got our boarding passes, it was more waiting.  But at least we were excited about heading back to the US!  We started thinking about what on earth we would do once we got to McGuire, which is a little under 3 hours from where our van was at BWI.  I messaged with Joanna, a friend from Maryland, but we had no idea when we would take off, or when we would land.  In fact, the computer screen at the terminal said the flight was going through Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, so who knew how long that would take?! 

Finally we got in line to go through security.  It was there that we realized Caleb had packed his full-size tube of toothpaste in his backpack instead of his suitcase.  Oops!  Oh well--plenty  more of that at home!

This is what a C-17 looks like (although this is not the one we were on).  We had ridden on them before twice--once to Travis and once back to Dover in 2014 on our big Hawaii adventure.  They took us by bus out on the flightline to the aircraft. 

When we got on, I was surprised to see it was most definitely not empty!  There was a big pallet in the front, then 4 big propellers, then more pallets in the back.  On our previous C-17 flights, we had been able to spread out all over the middle of the plane, but that was not the case here!  It took awhile for people to move around to we could have 10 seats together.  I would have been happy to let someone else sit by Micah, Drew, or Verity, but apparently, no one wanted that opportunity.  Ha!

Better picture of all the propellers and pallets.  It is definitely a cavernously huge aircraft!

Verity fell asleep really quickly.  We taxied for approximately forever, and she might have fallen asleep before we even took off, lol.  No, I think she waited a little bit longer.  They provide plastic-wrapped bundles of blankets with pillows, which are nice because it's cold at first.  The door stayed open for a while, so it got pretty chilly.

We broke open our 4 box lunches fairly soon after take-off, since it was lunchtime.  I think we took off around 2:00 German time.  The lunches are pretty nice, which we remembered from our other trips and was why we didn't buy one for each person!  They included either 2 Uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or a submarine sandwich or a box of chicken tenders.  We also had the rest of our lunch meat and cheese, which some remaining brotchen, so the rest of us had sandwiches with that.  Then there were also chips, and various snack options like rice krispie treats, granola bars, bags of mini cookies, candy bars, etc (at least 2 options in each box) and a water bottle as well as either a can of pop or a bottle of gatorade.  Plenty of food to go around!

Faith had her Christmas headphones (a present from Anna and Grace) to listen too.  Everyone else had to wear ear plugs.  I had thought ahead and ordered of amazon squishier, nicer ear plugs than the ones they give out.  They worked great for those of us with more adult sized ear canals, but I still struggled to keep in Micah's, Drew's, and Verity's!  I wished I had thought to bring one of those stretchy hair headband things--something like might have helped the earplugs stay in Verity's ears.  I had even cut in half a bunch of pairs the night before so that I could use skinnier ones, but they still were not a perfect solution!

I made the little kids wear their hats, since that was all I had, to try to keep the earplugs in, but they were not incredibly successful.  Next time, I'll have a better plan . . .

Right above the girls' heads was the only set of plugs on our side, so people kept plugging things in there to charge them.  Again, a perk of military flights!  On previous flights, people brought aerobeds and blew them up with the electric outlets!

There was no room for aerobeds here.  You totally can't see in this picture, but we actually did spread the 2 sleeping bags out in the aisle right by our feet.  The kids liked to lay down there, although no one slept there!  The good thing about the C-17 is plenty of leg room for everyone!  The seats really aren't too uncomfortable, although 9 hours is a little bit long.  When people were in the sleeping bags, that opened up extra seats, so I laid across 2 seats with a pillow in the gap.  I fell asleep a few times, but boy, I must have been interrupted 20 times by various people and various complaints!  Very trivial ones, I might add.  Plus, It was pretty much impossible to hear anyone since the plane is so loud and we all had ear plugs in, so I would be awoken by violent shaking, and then someone would lean over me and move their lips.  Eventually I would sort of understand what they were saying (usually things like, "I need to poop, but I don't want to go to the front of the airplane by myself" or "I can't sleep" or something earth-shattering like that).  I made many trips to the tiny bathroom up front with people because I was the favored escort.  How special, lol. 

You can see that the lighting is different in the above picture.  At some point (cruising altitude maybe?) they turn off the nice bright lights that run along the sides of the aircraft and just have this green lighting.  I had thought before it was because it was night time, but it turns out that is just what always happens!  It made reading hard for me, but I persevered.  I was able to finish Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, about making good snap decisions.  It was very interesting, as I have found all his books to be, and I really enjoyed it. 

Verity did fall asleep again, and she stayed asleep until we landed and taxied in.  She had pulled her hat over her eyes in a sort of "do not disturb" sign.  She was not real happy about being woken up!  

By the time we got into the McGuire terminal, it was 5:15 eastern, which is 11:15 PM Ramstein time.  We got our passports stamped, got our bags, and went through customs (which consisted of a guy standing in the middle of us all and asking us if anyone had anything to declare?  No?  Okay, free to go.)

So . . . where to go??  Since it was after 5:00 on a Sunday afternoon, all the rental places were closed.  Someone told us we could take a train down to BWI, but that would be very expensive, and we would have to get ourselves to the train station in Trenton.  But Joanna came to our rescue!  She drove up to McGuire, which was 4 hours from her house, to pick us up!  We were SO thankful!  While we waited for her, we had a lovely chat with some of the other retirees that had been waiting with us for the week at the Ramstein terminal.  Space-a travelers are so nice!  

Finally they left, and we had the terminal to ourselves, except for a few guys who work there.  We were just thankful it is a 24 hour terminal!  We ordered Dominos Pizza, since they were allowed to deliver on base, and they brought it right to us.  It tasted so good!  The kid played in the big kids room, which was really nice.  

Joanna got there about 10:45, and she drove us to BWI so we could pick up our van.  Words can't express our relief when she drove up!  She is an angel!  She and I had a lovely visit on the way to BWI, and then we each got home around 2:45 AM.  Bob and I had been up for about 26 hours, and we were so tired!  It was so good to be home and in our own beds!

Funny afterthought--when I was helping Drew write a birthday letter to Luke, I asked him to tell Luke what his favorite thing was about the trip.  Drew said . . . his snack bag.  Yes, the gallon size ziploc bag I filled with snacks (a gallon bag for each person!) was his absolute favorite thing!  I guess they were really amazing snacks . . . even better than palaces and Roman forts!  Haha!  I hope that's not the only thing Drew remembers about this trip!

Last Day

We woke up thinking that Saturday was fairly likely to be our last day in Germany.  There was scheduled on Sunday a flight to McGuire mid-morning, and a flight to Dover in the late afternoon.  There had actually been a flight to Andrews with roll call early Saturday morning (as in 0300).  We had been debating whether we should try for the Andrews flight, but then it came out with 0 seats being released, so we figured we shouldn't even bother.  As it turned out, it ended up releasing 10 seats, but only 2 people were there to get on, and we *might* have been able to get on (sometimes they will release another seat or 2 if there were just a few more needed), but it was a pretty big risk and would have messed up the entire next day if it hadn't worked, so I was glad we didn't worry about it.

We had been planning to visit the ruins of Nanstein Castle Saturday for one last hoorah of sightseeing, but when we woke up, it was cold, gray and snowing.  So walking around ruins sounded particularly miserable, lol.

Instead, we decided we should go out to a German restaurant, since we had never actually done that.  It was intimidating with such a big group, which is why we had never done it before.  I got to work googling restaurants in Ramstein, and we decided on "Maxi's".  There wasn't a huge selection right in Ramstein, but neither of us really wanted to drive into Kaiserslautern.  We ate a big breakfast and went for a late lunch--around 1:00.  We figured the restaurant wouldn't be busy then, and we were right.  We were pretty much the only customers, except for a big table of what looked like regulars right by the door!

We ordered 2 plates of wienerschnitzel and 4 plates of jagerschnitzel.  They all came with salads, so we divided those up among us all.  We got fries with the wienerschnitzal and yummy potato croquettes with the jagerschnitzel.  Everyone tried some of everything, and they were big platters, so we had plenty!  Everyone like the croquettes a lot.  I think it was Jonathan who said they tasted like pierogies with a crunchier outside!  The only bad thing was paying 3.50 euros for each carafe of water.  I had a water bottle in my backpack, which I used to refill glasses so we didn't need to buy anymore carafes.  I love my free water!

You can see the snowy landscape outside.  The restaurant was all windows--very bright and airy, even on a really cloudy day!

Afterwards we drove further into the small town of Ramstein to Venezia Eiscafe, which got great reviews on yelp.  And it definitely lived up to the reviews!  One scoop of amazing gelato in a cup or a cone was just 1 euro!  There were lots of different flavors including strawberry (which was SO delicious--like a fresh strawberry but even better!), hazelnut, coconut, cookies and cream, mint chocolate chip, and chocolate (and more that I can't remember, lol).  With so many of us, we were able to taste a wide selection of flavors. 

I personally had chocolate, which was also absolutely delicious.  The older boys went back for another scoop since they had brought their own money!

That night we went back to a grocery store Bob and I had been to by ourselves--Globus.  It was definitely the biggest grocery store we had been in over there.  It was more like a Super Walmart or something because it had more stuff than just food.  It also had some little shops like Super Walmarts do in front of the cash registers, as well as some food places.  We bought pizzas there, and Bob also bought half of a rotisserie chicken. 

We also bought a beer!  Since the legal drinking age in Germany is 16, Caleb had been dying to try some.  Here was his big chance!  He was not impressed.  We actually let all the kids try a sip, and none of them liked it.  They were actually astounded that some people struggle with drinking too much it  I guess it is an acquired taste, lol.  I think we left it 3/4 full on the table when we left.  But it was an experience!

Then we headed back to the TLF to finish packing our stuff up (again)!  Maybe for the last time??

On Base Living

The temporary living facilities, or TLFs, are housing units that families can live in for up to 30 days (longer if they need to and there is room) when they are PCSing into or out of a duty station.  There are 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units.  For space-a people to stay there, they are all the same amazing price--$63 a night!  We definitely could not have fit 10 people anywhere else for such a price!  Because they are actual housing units, they have a full kitchen, washer and dryer, and pretty much anything else you would need if you were having to live there for a month.  Housing units on Ramstein are wired with both 110 and 220 electricity, so we could pick which outlets we wanted to use because there were both in each room!

This is the back of our unit.  Bob is on the back balcony.  We had a front balcony too in this unit.  Four buildings made a square around a big grassy playground area with picnic tables, a shelter, benches, etc.

Our family room.  You can't see the TV in the left corner, but everyone was thrilled that we could watch the winter Olympics on it, both in English on AFN, and in German!  Sitting there watching them brought back memories of our stay in the TLFs at Travis, where we got stuck there on our way back from Hawaii 4 years ago.  We watched a lot of curling because that always seemed to be on when we were ready to watch!  I guess I have a better understanding of the game, but I'm still no expert, lol.

The couch pulled out to a full bed, and the 3 girls slept on that.  Down the hallway, there was a master bedroom with bathroom (that's where the washer and dryer were too--it was a pretty big bath room!), and a room with 2 twin beds where Micah and Drew slept, and Verity slept on the floor in a sleeping bag we brought on the 2 cushions from the couch.  There was actually a pack-n-play in the master closet we could have used, but she did fine.  There were also 2 rooms with one twin bed in each where Caleb and Jonathan slept.

This is looking over towards the table and the kitchen.  They had 5 place settings of dishes and silverware, so we had to eat in shifts, lol.

This is the playground area.  There were several other families in the TLFs, and so there were plenty of kids around to play with, which was fun.

Micah, Drew, and Verity LOVED the playground!

Wednesday was Valentine's Day, so we went out to lunch at the Chili's on base.  We really NEVER go out to restaurants like that as a family, so that was a big treat for the kids.  Kids meals with drinks!  Woo-hoo!

Celebrating over 25 years of being Valentines!

Verity was appropriately dressed in her red Minnie Mouse outfit she got for Christmas and loves to wear.

When we were stuck at Travis, there were not many food options on base--Burger King and a few choices at the BX food court like Anthony's Pizza and a sub place.  Ramstein, however, had a lot of food options besides just Chili's.  In fact, I am happy to report that we did not once have to eat at Burger King this entire trip!  I don't think I have eaten there anytime in the past 4 years, once we got back from Travis either!

But I digress . . . there was also a free-standing Subway by the bowling alley, a "Pizza Galleria" that we never tried, and a "Flying Pig" BBQ place that we got take-out from Thursday night.  We liked the pulled pork the best, but we also tried the sausage, and the brisket because we got 2 big sampler plates.  Lots of food!

At the KMCC, they also have a smaller Chili's, plus a Macaroni Grill, and then a huge food court by the BX with Taco Bell, Subway, Popeyes, a fish place (like Long John Silver or whatever), a Chinese place, the ubiquitous Anthony's Pizza, and a Johnny Rocket's.  Lots of choices for everyone!  I think we ended up eating there 3 different times because there was something for everyone, and it was pretty cheap!

The KMCC also has all these little shops outside the BX, like a little mall, and we were happy to find some more souvenirs there--2 beautiful Christmas ornaments.

Thursday was another disappointing day at the terminal as we waited for flights that were moved or didn't take many passengers, or just didn't have room.  The last flight to BWI for the week was that day, and it wasn't a 747, so there just weren't very many extra seats.  Again, they didn't even get down to CAT V, which are dependents of people stationed over there trying to get back to the Sates without their sponsor.  Caleb and Jonathan did more Potters classes at the terminal.  Wi-fi was spotty there, and very spotty at the TLF, so that made it challenging.

When we knew we didn't get out, Bob trudged back over to the lodging front desk, and fortunately we were able to get another 4 bedroom unit for 2 more nights, since the next scheduled chance for flights looked like Sunday.  It was exactly the same as the first one, except the dryer was wonky and would only run for about 5 minutes before shutting off.  We finally just ended up spreading out our laundry over all the radiators, and things dried quite nicely, although it looked incredibly messy with clothes strewn everywhere!

Friday we went bowling.  Usually we only bowl in Ohio when we are visiting my parents, so (most) people were pretty excited by this bonus bowling opportunity!  Bowling on base is really nice because it is quite a bit cheaper than bowling off base, and since it was work hours, it was almost empty!

If you look closely in the picture at the back of the chair behind Drew, by Bob's arm, you can see another figure who was there with us:

Sebastian the Rubber Ducky.  Apparently rubber duckies like this are a big thing, and Jonathan picked this guy up when we were in Wiesbaden.  He participated in all our activities after that.

After we got back, some of the kids and I went to yet a different playground just a block away.

This one was really neat--like an obstacle course or something, but you really could climb all over it.  It was very challenging, and there were ways to make it challenging or easy for all levels.

If it hadn't been so cold, I am sure the kids would never have wanted to leave!  We stayed there a good while anyways, and Faith even ran around in short sleeves, but don't be fooled--it was actually pretty chilly!

While we were at the park, Caleb and Anna walked over to the base library to see if the wi-fi there was better than that of our room (yes).  Everyone really loved how safe the base was, so they could do things like walk somewhere by themselves, and how close by everything is too.  It's totally like a small town.  Anna came back saying, "When I grow up, I want to live on a base like this!'

I told her, "Well, just marry someone in the Air Force!"

She just looked at me and said, "Why would I do that?!  *I'M* going to be in the Air Force!"

Haha!  I remember having those same thoughts when I was her age, though, and look at me now, lol.  We shall see!  I was really glad the kids could have this experience of life on a base, since it is very different from life in northern VA.  It was also a surprisingly restful time for me--there was really nothing to do, since I wasn't really cooking, and we simply didn't have that much stuff there to mess up the place!  Bob's back was still really bothering him, so that is why we had to take a break from sight-seeing.  

I did drive to 2 different German grocery stores, and it was just my car,  not Bob's!  I can definitely say I have done my fair share of Autobahn driving now--hours and hours of it!  And I finally became somewhat comfortable with the speed limits in kph instead of mph.  (Cool trick I learned:  drop the 0 from the end of kph speed limit, then multiply by 6 to get an estimate of MPH speed.  So 30 kmp is like 18 mph, and 120 is 76.)  I still felt like I really had to concentrate while driving, especially at night.  There were just too many unfamiliar signs out there, plus I was always struggling to read the GPS!

We became quite adept at finding our breakfast and lunch favorites in the grocery stores.  Everyone loved the German yogurt ("joghurt") with this chocolate muesli mixed in, and we also bought several varieties of cereal during our time there.  We did have to buy a bunch of milk cartons because they are tiny there--a liter, I think?  We rationed milk very severely while we were there!  Caleb in particular fell in love with "golden toast", and we actually went through 3 jars of jam to put on the many loaves of "golden toast" that we bought, lol.  That bread made the most perfect toast . . . yum!  For lunch it was lunchmeat--ham (schinken) or chicken (hanchenbrust) with good Kerrygold cheddar (or good old American processed cheese, which we surprisingly found in both Hit and Lidl, for the philistines among us) on brotchen.  Siri told us they don't really eat turkey over there, but it was okay, because I just called the chicken "turkey", and the younger, pickier, non-readers were non the wiser, lol.  

So we hung out on the base for a total of 5 days, by the end of it, and it was really pretty fun.  Once, when Anna, Grace, Faith, Verity, and I were coming back from Lidl, the gate guard told me there was a problem with my ID card because it wasn't "registering in the system".  I got all panicked--but then I realized what he meant was it wasn't registering because I am not stationed over there--of course I am not "in the system"!  He obviously didn't look very clearly at my ID card, which very clearly says "retired" on it, but he did carefully peer into the car to see several young kids, and he just assumed we were stationed there!  From then on, I made sure to tell the guards we were there on vacation, "hoping to space-a out soon", and no one said anything else.  Fun times!