Today we arrived in Germany!

It was a pretty big plane, but that was good because we had a lot of luggage. We had a tail wind, so we arrived a few minutes early – about 0700 in the morning. We left the plane with our two carry-on items each, and without a whole lot of waiting we were able to claim the two for each of us that were checked in. The mission president and his wife from the Frankfurt German mission was waiting to meet their new missionaries in the “Treffpunkt” (the place where people can meet). We met the president and his wife and one of their sons, then said good-bye to them as the missionaries went their way as we will be in quite different areas from now on. Two adult couples showed up – one from the area office, and one from the Family History center. The Oaks, who are to be in the area office, went with one of the couples, and we went with the Calls. They first took us to the area office so we would know where it is and what it is like. Then they brought us to Bad Vilbel where we are to live at Niddastr. 5. So our address will be
Br. and Sr. Howlett
Niddastr. 5
61118 Bad Vilbel
Germany


This picture shows the house from the street. Our apartment is to the back (on the left). The windows that are part of the roof structure are the windows in our apartment. We have windows on both sides of the roof (the 3 on this side, and one on the other.) The street runs approximately North and South, so our apartment is on the West. The two pictures below show that there is a large window/door on the West end that opens out onto a balcony. There is a very narrow driveway that goes down this side of the house to a little parking area on the West. The following pictures were taken from the corners of that parking lot. The entrance to our part of the house is on the side of that little driveway. It is very narrow. Only the smaller German cars can make it through. The driveway entrance is just behind the man walking on the other side of the road.
We unloaded the luggage from the car and carried it up the stairs to the second floor and into our apartment. In our part of the building, this is the top floor, but in the part of the house that is on the street there is another floor higher. There is a very narrow driveway that goes by the side of the house to a little parking area at the back. Our apartment has an outside balcony overlooking the parking area.

View from the South-West corner of the parking lot showing the narrow driveway. The entry door for our stairwell is in the middle of this driveway.

View of our house from the North-West corner of the parking lot. Ours is the upper level, just under the roof. We can see the angles of the roof inside our apartment.

View inside our apartment showing the living area (in the foreground) and the dining area. The apartment is all white inside and looks very nice. The furniture is nice too.

The bedroom is on the West end. The door and balcony look to the West over a lot of other houses. Bad Vilbel is a very old city known as the city of springs (“Stadt der Quellen”). The many springs supplied mineral waters for the bath houses that have been popular for centuries. “Bad” means bath. Bad Vilbel is a suburb of Frankfurt, but it has a large population. This home appears to have been built since World War II, but the West part where we live may have been added to the original building that was on the street. Early construction after the war was shoddy. They expected another war would come to destroy everything. Only now, after they have experienced over 50 years of no wars within their borders, have they begun to use more care in building with an eye to permanence. This building appears to have been extensively renovated to make it more permanent.

In the following picture you see another view of the original house from the street, and it shows the way homes are built against other homes. This is fairly common in Germany. There are only three spots in the block where there is a break between the buildings, and there is a gate in both places to control access to the side or back of the buildings. There is still a high concern for security, but now the doors and gates use advanced types of keys and electronics to control access. When I was here 45 years ago they often had as many as 5 locks on the apartment doors.
The streets are narrow, and before arriving I had wondered how they could have advanced enough to have many cars. They have to have a lot of one-way streets, and parking is strictly controlled, but they have been able to do it. I don’t remember ever seeing a parking place for a private automobile when I was here before, but now they have squeezed them into all kinds of places.

The Calls took us into the part of town where we could do some shopping for groceries, and in this little jaunt we saw a little more of the city. After we came home, we put things away and crashed. I woke up just in time to explore around and find places where I could take these pictures before the sun set. Tomorrow should be another day of discovery. We hope to learn more about our assignment. 9-9-08 GSH & PLMH.