What I miss (2 months)

I have had reservations about writing this post. I am not usually a whiny person. But I always write pretty upbeat blog posts, and don't want to give readers the impression that living in another country is a walk in the park! Plus, I thought it would be fun to document what we miss the most at different times. So we have now lived in Spain exactly 2 months. So far, we are loving it! The moving process is complete, we are getting settled, making friends, finding our way around, etc. I can't say it's exactly what we expected it to be, but overall it is pretty good so far. Nevertheless... there are certain American comforts that we don't have here, and there are already some things I miss! They are:

1. FAMILY. We lived with parents for the month before we moved, and the kids and I miss them a lot. Plus, it was so nice having live-in babysitters, and childcare is one of the biggest frustrations about living so far from family members.

2. FRIENDS. We had a great mom's group/playdate group for the last few years, and the other moms were my close friends. We could call each other for anything, drop by their house anytime, and had social events or playdates to look forward to every week. We are meeting friends here, but getting to know people takes time and effort, and sometimes Facebook is just not good enough contact with my 'old' friends.

3. American appliances. We live on base, in base housing, and have nice Whirlpool appliances. But I miss my large-capacity washer ad dryer! I do so many more loads of laundry here! And even though we are lucky enough to have a dishwasher here, I wish it actually worked. I basically clean every dish before putting it in there, and have to use vinegar to cut the residue of over-calcified water.

4. Carpets. Our entire house is tile here, and it means I have to clean a lot more often. I do enjoy the tile in the dining room, but I miss the way my carpets muffled sound, made the house cozy, and were much more forgiving with dirt and hair build-up.

5. Fast food. Not so much the taste, since I hardly ever eat fast food burgers and fries. I just miss the convenience! Sometimes when we were running errands, or the baby fell asleep, it was nice to go to a drive-through and get them a quick lunch. There is no drive-through on base. I am so glad there is a Subway... but that is pretty much the only choice, which will get old quickly.

6. Yogurt in English. Most of our food from the commissary comes through Germany, so some products are only in German, which I can't read. We have figured out most of the flavors, but it's tricky blindly trying new products all the time.

7. Non-frozen meat. The meat in the commissary has mostly been previously frozen, so it is either sold frozen solid or thawed, but none of it is very fresh. I have to check expiration dates, because even some of the canned and boxed food is close to expiration!

8. Scheduling. My husband has always been in the infantry, so there are plenty of times he is gone for training, ranges, deployments, etc. But in North Carolina his training schedules were somewhat predictable and scheduled in advance, so he usually had weekends off, and would tell me ahead of time if he was going to be gone for the week. Here, things have been in an unusual pattern, and everyone is on high alert because of all the terrorist activity that happened in the Middle East and North Africa starting... oh, the exact day we got here. So it is nice that he hasn't deployed yet, but everything is on hold and it is hard to plan anything in advance because he has to work so many nights and weekends, and doesn't know what he'll be doing a few weeks from now. So we take advantage of the days we can, and make 'tentative' plans for everything.

9. Cable TV. We just got our cable fixed yesterday (long story) so for the first time in 2 months we have more than 1 tv channel! AFN has a decent selection here of news, TV shows, movies, and sports. But there is only 1 channel for each of those, so if you don't like what's on, you might have to wait another hour for the next show to cycle on. I miss our hundred cable channels where you could choose from multiple kids shows, movies, cooking shows, news, etc.

10. My Smart phone! I actually thought this would be higher on the list, but I'm getting used to it. I stopped using my Verizon smart phone because it is just too expensive here. So for almost 2 months I have been using a basic cell phone with no photos, no internet, no bluetooth. I used my old phone for everything-- gps directions, music and distance tracking when I was running, reading books, taking and uploading pictures, inputting Weight Watchers points, and of course checking email and Facebook all day long. Now I do none of that on my phone. But I have a gps for the car, an audiobook reader and runner's watch, and a camera, so I guess I just have to carry more stuff around. I just have to wait to use the internet when I am home, which is usually not too bad. It was hard to wean myself at first, and I was jealous of my husband's iPhone (which his work provides), but I am used to it now.

So all in all, not too bad. I am sure the list will change and get longer as we stay here for the next few years. But so far we are adapting and finding our way!