New Apartment, Visitors, and Holidays
/Heynahtsstraße 7
Well, last time you heard from us, we were in Wüstenrot for our 2 week orientation course at the Kontaktmission headquarters. It was a wonderful time of meeting fellow KM workers, getting a crash course/refresher in missions, as well as easing our way into life in Germany. A LOT has happened since then, and there's so much to share! We've now been in Dresden for almost 6 weeks, and we are getting settled into our new apartment. After making the 5 hour drive from Wüstenrot to Dresden, we didn't waste any time and went straight to our appointment to look at the apartment we had seen online and through pictures. It was so surreal to finally see it in person, and once we did, we were ready to take it and get moved in. We knew it was going to be a lot of work, but I don't think we had any idea just how crazy it was going to be! As you may have heard us explain before, German apartments are quite a bit different from normal US apartments. They come completely empty, meaning no lights, no curtain rods, no kitchen appliances or even kitchen cabinets, just bare wires and bare walls *everywhere*! Through a contact at our church, we were able to live for two weeks in a furnished apartment while we got our place ready enough to move in. It would have been much more simple if we just needed a bed to sleep in, but as it was we definitely used the full 2 weeks, and with LOTS of help from people in the church, we had enough to move in: working ceiling lights, functioning kitchen appliances, and a bed to sleep in! After many, many trips to IKEA, and trips back and forth everyday between the two apartments - all on the public transportation - it felt so wonderful to finally sleep in our new place. Thank you everyone at B19 for all your help and for everything you donated to us as well!
Our First Visitors from the USA
Not only did we need to get our apartment up and running so we could move in, but just a few days after we did, we had our first visitors. Elyse's mom and grandma, and Ryan's mom and sister all flew over! They helped us put together furniture, make one more IKEA trip, bought us cool stuff for the apartment, but mostly they were here to help us celebrate Oliver's 1st Birthday!!! We seriously cannot believe it's already been a year; and we cannot believe what a crazy, exciting, and happy year it's been. He is the most wonderful thing to ever happen and brings so much joy to our lives every day! Even if he still doesn't sleep very well at night (or barely at all still sometimes!), he's the best little boy we could ever ask for! Thank you so much Nana, Mimi, Grammy, and Antie KK for making such a huge trip and for all your help. We all three love you so much!!!
Christmas and New Years
The family picked a perfect time to come visit too, right in time to visit all the wonderful Dresden Christmas markets! We've been in Germany for Christmas before when we lived in Jena three years ago, so we knew a little what to expect, but it was so totally different this time! In Jena, Christmas came at the very end of our internship as we were winding down and getting ready to come back to the US. This time, it's right at the beginning of our time here, and of course, we've got our little boy now!! Even though they had to leave before Christmas Day itself, it was wonderful to have our family here and to be able to share a little of the magic of the Christmas season in Germany with them. We went to a wonderful Christmas Eve concert at our church, and then celebrated at home with just the three of us that evening and Christmas morning. Even though it was sad to be away from family, it was still a wonderful Christmas with our little family and a chance to start some new traditions as well as carry on Dillon and Ferrario ones! Although we had experienced a German Christmas, we had not been here for a New Years Eve, and boy were we in for a treat! After a beautiful, fun evening with several families from the church, we made our way back home - with Oliver still awake, that stinker! - about 11:30, and got ready for the clock to strike midnight. We knew there would be fireworks, but we had no idea what that meant. We had some idea just how crazy it might be, since we could hear fireworks from our apartment all day and even steadily from about 4:00pm on. It basically just escalated all night, and then at 12:00, it was OUT OF CONTROL! Not only are there official, big, fireworks displays, but everyone in the city had been stocking up for weeks apparently, and they let it ALL fly at midnight and for the next hour straight! This video taken from our balcony starts actually at about ten minutes after midnight, everything still in full force and even intensifying. And this is just what we could see and hear right on our street from our balcony; it was going on all around the entire city! Good times, and Oliver actually did fall asleep finally even through the fireworks. No wonder, he must have been a very tired boy by 12:30!
Well, that's all for now. Happy New Years from the Dillons!!