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!