The Smoly Adventures

Like all good stories, the time has come for us to close the current chapter and move to the next.  At the end of February, I was notified that I had been selected for a new job and that, despite our assignment extension late last summer, we'd be moving in Summer 2020 (subject to COVID-19 delays of course). 

This news has been bittersweet for us. We've genuinely loved living in Germany and Europe as whole. The location, pace of life and the amazing travel opportunities have been such a blessing for our family. Yet, all the while, we knew that this was a temporary assignment. Yes, there are thousands of Americans who have made Europe their permanent home, but we have never felt such a calling. This has been an amazing season of our lives and we will miss our life here in our corner of SW Germany; but we are excited for our next chapter. 

As we've written in previous posts, we love the mountains. We loved their proximity when we resided in Colorado, longed to be closer to them when we lived outside Washington, D.C., and have relished exploring sections of the Alps--even if we didn't do as much of it as we wanted to. The dramatic peaks of the Alps are a sight that won't be easily forgotten. How do they compare with the grandness of the Rockies? 

We'll let you know in a few months once we move back to Colorado. 

March was a fairly busy month of travel and exploring. After having been waylaid by the flu and other bouts of illness, we were finally able to break away and get out to a number of places we've been wanting to get to.

After months of trying to make it happen, we finally made the short one hour journey North to Trier, Germany. Trier is one of the oldest cities in Germany and was founded during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Three centuries later, it would temporarily serve as the Imperial residence and court of Constantine the Great, prior to being relocated east to Byzantium (later Constantinople, and now Istanbul). Today, Trier is home to some of the best preserved Roman ruins outside of Italy. Our visit was primarily to check out the Easter Market, but were also able to see a few of the Roman sites.  The  Basilica is a protestant church that was originally designed to serve as Constantine's throne room and audience chamber. As you can imagine, the building was cavernous, and surprisingly experienced relatively little damage since its completion in the 4th Century.


My personal favorite was the Porta Nigra, the massive gate complex on the northern side of the old city. Massive doesn't properly convey the enormity of the gate; The second photo of Will (who's maybe 40" tall) looking up at the gate puts the Porta Nigra's size in context. We didn't pay for entry into the gate during this particular trip, but it along with the Imperial Baths warrant the expenditure on a later date.


Rounding out our walking tour was the High Cathedral of Saint Peter, an expansive complex that was originally commissioned by Constantine the Great. The complex has been destroyed, rebuilt and restored no less than three times between 329 and 1041 A.D. The final exterior touches were finally completed in 1196.





The following weekend, we opted to stay closer to home and explored the St. Wendel Easter Market. St. Wendel is known primarily for their impressive Christmas market each December, but their Easter Market was equally a draw. Arranged in their downtown area, there were easily over a hundred booths, vendors and static displays of bunnies engaged in all sorts of activities. The only downside to our visit was the arctic front that had descended on Central Europe along with a very strong northern wind. There's not much more to say other than it was incredibly cold. 

We have been living in Germany now for a little more than three months and in that time we have been blessed to get plugged in a number of ways. The reality that I hope to impart in this blog post is that there is so much more to living overseas than simply traveling. While most of our blog posts have centered around our outings since we arrived, I would like to take this opportunity to briefly digress. 

Tonight we had the opportunity to have some friends over for dinner and it is hard not to be awestruck by the many ways that God continues to bless us.  We literally arrived knowing no-one three months and a couple weeks ago, but shortly thereafter got plugged into our church (Trinity Reformed) as well as the Kaiserslautern Hospitality House (KHH; a ministry of Cadence International).  

Trinity was an easy choice for our regular church attendance and membership since it is a member of our denomination (Presbyterian Church in America).  Prior to our arrive, we had friends from our home church in Colorado Springs attending and were looking forward to reconnecting with them upon our arrival. Unfortunately, they were reassigned to Hawai'i a few months prior to our arrival, yet that connection and relationship has opened numerous doors and relationships with Trinity' current members. Trinity has been a welcome home on Sunday mornings where we have been consistently fed from the Word as well as been able to serve our fellow congregants. 

On the hospitality house front, we were connected to it through acquaintances at our church in Northern Virginia.  Our acquaintances were preparing for an overseas tour in Europe themselves and connected Janet with the missionaries running the KHH. The Scott's have a humble heart to serve those of us who are fortunate to have been assigned to Germany and our entire family looks forward to attending each Sunday evening. Through the hospitality house, we have been able to initiate several  relationships.

While the course of tonights conversation started with a trip to another country and concluded with a fire parade by our combined kiddos, the key enabler is the willingness to dive in and live life with one another from the start. This is something that Janet and I  have a wealth of experience with stemming from our home church. Community is everything.  It is living the good, the bad, the mundane, and everything in-between with one another. Absent it, life will be significantly more difficult.  

However, community in our case is much more than our American counterparts living overseas with us. We have been blessed to have the kindest neighbors across the street from us here in Homburg. Theirs is a relationship that we are actively pursuing and one that we are looking forward to seeing where God will take. 

Having resided in Germany for a month, the one thing that continues to amaze and astonish is the sheer depth and breadth of history that everything carries. Coming from the US, we tend to think that things are old after a hundred years. A little older still is the Civil War at just over 150. The nation was founded 241 years ago, and the first English speaking colony at Jamestown dates to 1607. For Americans, this is old for our context. As our anniversary dinner this week illustrated to us, this is a mere drop in the bucket.

Dinner this year took us to La Brocca, a family-owned and operated Italian restaurant run by a native Sicilian. La Brocca is less than 100 meters from St. Michael's Church, takes pride in serving generations-old recipes in a great atmosphere. Having the boys with us, we opted for an outdoor patio table and quickly ordered meals for them. While we were waiting we were brought a bruschetta salad appetizer and we both ordered a glass of wine--Janet a pinot grigio and I selected a Lambrusco which is a sweet red. For our dinner Janet and I both opted for the lasagna. The portions at La Brocca are enormous and the flavors were unforgettable. Just writing about it makes me long for another slice.  

We opted for gelato from Gelat!oh which offered the authentic Italian dessert--yes we do enjoy our Italian food offering.  In addition to speaking German, I overheard them speaking Italian to one another, so I was looking forward to a great treat. We initially got 3 single scoop cones for 3 Euro. Mine was quickly claimed by Sam, so while I went back to get a 4th cone for myself, Janet and the boys made their way to the end of the pedestrian zone and were admiring a bronze statue. Now, bronze statues are seemingly everywhere here in Germany--there were three in the market square alone as we headed for the gelato. 

By the time I caught up to them, Will was walking around the statue and I attempted to read the commemorative text. My German skills are still elementary at best, but some key concepts immediately jumped out at me. Awestruck by what I thought I had read, I quickly jumped to Google Translate to confirm my suspicions. The city of Homburg, while known in the modern era as the home to the Karlsburg Brewery and a fabulous medical center, was in actuality founded by the Roman Empire over 2000 years ago during the reign of Ceasar Augustus.

"Genius Populi Romani

A life-size replica of the 2000-year-old bronze statue of the Roman god of protection, found in the present Roman museum in Schwarzenacker.

Donated by the Homburg [Utility Company] on the occasion of their 100 years of existence to the jubilee 2000th anniversary of the city of Homburg

Designed by Klaus Glutting Anno 2000"

After doing some additional research, Schwarzenacker is just to the southeast of Homburg city, so we'll be adding a Roman museum to our future list of activities. History is everywhere in Europe and we've only begun to scratch the surface.

Guten Tag from Germany! It's the evening of day 16 for us and things continue to be mostly a whirlwind. The kids are asleep, so it was a good opportunity to take a few of minutes to write an update.

Let's start from the beginning: we made it (I know, stating the obvious given the post title)--and mostly without hiccups, but I'll comment on those a little later.  Getting to the Dulles International Airport with 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs and a whole lot of luggage proved to be quite the adventure in itself. Our rental Ford Explorer was maxed out, so we hired a Uber SUV to transport the luggage from our last hotel to the airport. Additionally, flying dogs internationally requires different (larger) crates than when flying them domestically.  We had to have PenderAir (transportation arm of a large local veterinary clinic) drop our crates curb-side since they were such monstrosities. Checking in three and a half hours before the flight is normally a breeze--even on international flights--unless you get the customer service rep who is training a new employee. Sigh, this entire time, the dogs are sitting in their crates and almost an hour later, we're all set.  We said goodbye to Aspen and Izzie and then headed for the PreCheck line. Thankfully, Dulles is a quieter airport so getting through security was a highpoint for us.  Our last American meal was tacos and quesadillas from Chipotle.

A few brief comments regarding Lufthansa, they're a great company that knows their business--easily bests any US airline (but thats not hard to do these days... read: United). We were set up in the first row behind a bulkhead which meant that we lost our beneath the seat in front of us storage space, but gained the infant bassinet that we utilized for Sam. We were served real meals, not just peanuts (if you're lucky) and the service was superb. If you're going to fly to Europe, spend the extra funds to fly a European carrier, you won't regret it.

We landed in Frankfurt a little ahead of schedule and took our time getting off the plane since the boys were asleep and we had a huge amount to get out of the cabin with us. We were actually "helped" (read: chased) off the plane by the flight staff!  We cleared passport control and made our way to baggage claim, where we were greeted by our dogs sitting off in the oversized baggage section with Aspen having a bin over her crate to help prevent her from barking.  This was a major frustration since Lufthansa didn't follow their own procedures that they explained to me prior to our flight. Long story short, we were met by members of my new squadron and made the trip down to the Kaiserslautern area without incident, only constant rain.

Our original plan was to stay in pet friendly lodging on-base while we searched for a house off-base.  Those being unavailable, we were booked into the Hotel Circle Inn just outside the base. This was  a great little hotel, just not one that was set up for 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs for anything more than a few days.  We lasted three nights and then checked into a 3 bedroom apartment in Mackenbach where we've been ever since.

The whirlwind... as if all of the above was not enough, I have been the only one able to drive since we've arrived, had numerous briefings, meetings and appointments to attend as part of my in-processing. Throw in house hunting (I feel like we needed some cameras following us around) and we're just completely exhausted.  Being nearly 10 degrees latitude north of Denver or DC has taken its toll. While its been nice having the extra daylight, it has played absolute havoc on all of our internal clocks.  I want to believe that we're finally getting close to being adapted, but we'll have to see how effective the rolladens in our house (yes, we have one and move in next week! More on that in the next post) will be before I make a determination on that count.

Truth be told, we're in a beautiful area of Germany.  Rolling hills, villages every few kilometers, fantastic weather and countless things to explore.  If you've been following us on our Facebook pages, you know that we've already commenced our castle hopping and been enjoying some European wines.  We are looking forward to sharing our adventures with you all.