Alyssa Kennedy Stinchfield

Boy, is this sad :(

Nobody is doing anything? C'mon, even I'm posting. I'm typing this in one of my operatories right now, since I still can't log on to my computer (my CAC card still doesn't work) and we won't have phone service (much less Internet service) for another 4 weeks. Can't do any pictures, either. Too bad, because there is a lot to do and see around here. Our car hasn't arrived yet, but we've taken the bus to a couple of castles and cathedrals. They're okay, but there's not really a lot of excitement in seeing an old church. We haven't gone to see it yet, but one of the cathedrals here claims to have one of the nails used during the crucifixion! I wonder if you traveled to all of the Catholic churches how many of those nails you would find... Driving on the roads here is pretty much like the States. When you're on the autobahn, it looks like you could be on I-90; all of the trees are the same, buildings, etc... There is one difference in the city, there are hardly any stop signs. Instead everybody follows these "right before left" rules and each intersection tells you who has priority to go first. Haven't gotten in any accidents yet, but I have had a couple of close calls. No wonder car insurance costs about twice as much here as in Cleveland. And speaking of the autobahn, driving here pretty much sucks. Everyone gets all excited about how fast you can drive, but it's not true. Inner city speed limits are 31 mph, freeways are 42 mph, and the autobahn has an assumed speed limit of about 80. You can go faster, but if you get in an accident you'll get a ticket for speeding. On base, we drive either 18 mph or 12 mph depending on if we're by housing or not.
We're in a pretty nice house, much bigger than we thought it would be. It's three stories, and a finished basement, two and a half bathrooms, four bedrooms. Our household goods are here, so we're in the process of unpacking those. We live off-base, but it's still government leased housing, so we don't have to pay any utilities or anything. The Euro rate sucks (.71 to a dollar) but we don't have to pay sales tax on anything, and that knocks off 19%, so it works out okay. It's fun to go on a walk to one of the millions of bakeries around here and buy pastries or pretzels. If anyone is thinking about coming out for a visit, around Thanksgiving and Jan/Feb you can get round trip tickets for about $450, not too bad. We'd love to have you out here, and just about every country in Europe is in easy driving distance. Germany itself is only about as big as Montana.
I started seeing patients today, this week I'm just doing exams. We're way behind, because there's only been one dentist here for about 4 months, and before that there were only two. It feels kind of weird to mark down what's wrong without marking what I want done. The other dentist here loves amalgam, that's all he'll place posteriorly. He doesn't use rubber dams, though.