We moved to Germany in November and on December 17th we moved into a rented house in a little village in Rhineland-Pfaltz, just a little north of the Kaiserslautern area where I will be working.

The house is pretty interesting.  It is a three story house, but each floor was originally built as a separate apartment.  We rented the whole house, so we have three kitchens, eight bedrooms, and two dens (or living rooms).  The main den and “winter garden” (what Americans would probably call a “Florida Room) and kitchen, and a few bedrooms are on the middle floor, and our three kids claimed the upstairs apartment as their own floor.  Each floor is not very big, but when one considers the whole house it’s quite big by German standards.  We are setting up the basement as a visitor’s apartment for friends and relatives since it has its own den, kitchen, bathroom, and separate entrance.

Here’s the moving truck, which arrived on a bitter, icy day with a crew of happy Germans.

Here is the most precious box–the box with all my HO freight cars.  Looks good so far…

After opening, I found this…which was good…

And upon opening the individual boxes, I was pleased to find that everything made it okay.  Not bad.

Now is a good time to mention that I bought eight of these transport boxes in the early 1990s and I have used them for seven or eight cross-US moves and now one inter-continental move, plus I’ve used them to transport models to about 25 RPM meets.  Not only have they protected my models well, but the boxes themselves are still in excellent shape.  They are now made by Axion Technologies at http://www.axiantech.com/ModelRR.html.  I highly, highly recommend them!

The photo above is my “train room” which is on the third floor.  The third floor has a large den, about 21 x 35, and I’m taking half of it for my hobby area.  Total space about 21 x 15.  The other half of the room will have a TV, computer, and crash pad for the kids.  It’ll be nice to play trains in an area where the kids have their crash pad–that way I am not isolating myself from them in a basement or other room.  All of you who have kids know that the kids like to hang out in the kitchen so I really don’t know how much time they’ll spend on the third floor–especially in the summer since our house has no US-style central AC.  If they do come upstairs, maybe they’ll be motivated to help me dream, plan and build, so to speak.

The photo above shows most of my train stuff that I shipped over.  I packed most of the boxes myself and labeled them as you can see, and cataloged what was in each box.  I shipped two boxes of scenery items, several boxes of structures, and several boxes of rolling stock, tools, kits, and other items.  I was also able to bring over quite a lot of “hobby paint” but had to get rid of most adhesives and a lot of other liquid items we modelers normally use.

We were also fortunate to travel around Germany during our first few months here, mostly thanks to our children’s participation on the Kaiserslautern Swim Team.  We also went to Luxembourg and France since they are close.  Just about 90 minutes away is the Lorraine US Military Cemetery in St. Avold, France, where we visited our fallen brothers from World War II.  The cemeteries are breathtaking.  My son Jacob took this wonderful picture which I thought you would appreciate seeing.

Psalms 130:5  I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.