Now that we've passed our two year mark of living in Germany (actually we are at 2 years and 5 months. The end is near.), I feel as if I can honestly write home about the good and the bad that come with living OCONUS in Europe.
It's a funny thing...
Before moving here, I would talk to people I knew, people on Facebook pages that I didn't know, and I read a variety of blogs about the OCONUS life in Europe.
All had nothing but wonderful things to say about Europe.
I now know why, but it's not something many will admit, or even blog about.
My answer to that will be at the end of this because I have to explain myself first!
I'm about to get real here.
COLA:
So, the first reality that will slap many in the face is that COLA (cost of living allowance) is NOT all that it's made out to be.
Honestly, our COLA does not boost our paychecks, and doesn't begin to cover the added expenses that what we pay for basic needs on or off post.
We (a large family of six) made out better in Tennessee without it.
When a loaf of commissary bread costs $4, a routine oil change costs $140 (even after buying your own oil on post), and a basic bitch hair trim is $60 in Germany, it adds up.
I know that many years ago the COLA was pretty darn high, and people were pocketing an additional $1,000+ on top of their base pay. It hasn't been like that since I've moved here!
But this is where having a low COLA isn't so bad:
The lower the COLA is, the cheaper it is to adventure.
The COLA is based off of the economy around us here in Germany and the currency exchange. One US dollar is not equal to one Euro, nor has it ever been while I have lived here. COLA is supposed to make up the difference, or at least help with it.
Again, it doesn't.
BUT if the COLA is low, that means the Euro is down, and travel costs aren't as high. Economic balance.
There is an upside to low COLA. Just one. And only if you like to travel!
Because we have traveled often, I have never had a reason to complain about the low COLA because of a weak Euro. In fact, I take advantage of it!
TRAVEL EXPENSES & ARMY FLEXIBILITY:
Speaking of funds, if you plan to travel in Europe, you will find out it's not always super cheap just because you are already here. Before we began our adventures, so many people told us how cheap it was to ride trains, to stay in hotels, etc,.
Ha.
I've paid next to nothing for planes and trains, and then again, I've also paid a lot. Like A LOT.
It really depends on the travel dates. A round trip to Rome, Edinburgh, London, Barcelona, etc, can cost as little as $25, but the exact route and same airliner for the day after can jump higher than $300.
Flexibility is KEY above all else, and flexibility in the Army is not always easy.
A majority of our family trips were done on four day, training holiday weekends, which means that there wasn't much leeway for date swaps.
When we went to London for a four day, we got lucky with our $42 USD per person, round trip airfare, with our four-day weekend dates.
When we went to a different place, not so much; spending $250 per person for a round trip flight.
I guess it's really about how badly you want to go!
A lot of people have a simple solution to skipping the cost of a flight: Drive instead.
But with only four days to spend on your mini vaca, trust me, you don't want to attempt a 15 hour drive, one way. I've seen people do it. They come back miserable, and visited very little.
There are train options, which are sometimes longer than driving, and there are many MWR and USO bus options. Once again, I've never heard someone come back happy from a 20 hour (one way) bus ride from Germany to Southern Spain. Sure, it was cheap, though.
Back to my point, if you and your family are pcs-ing to Europe soon, start looking into the actual costs of traveling from your soon-to-be duty station. It'll give you an idea of the real costs just so you an idea of what you need in the bank, or what you'll need to save to make adventures happen.
It's definitely not as cheap as people make it sound.
Nope.
ARMY FLEXIBILITY (continued):
In conjunction to traveling:
When the training schedule is erratic, or the unit is dysfunctional and disorganized, trying to plan a trip can get super tricky.
I've witnessed people pay for trips that they couldn't take, even having approved leave revoked at the last minute because of a pop up training thing or a deployment (yes, there was even a pop up 'deployment' for a specific unit here last month, in 2016. It STILL happens).
It is always best to remember that you are in Germany (Europe) because of job reasons. Not every day is a vacation. And if you come here thinking it will be, you will surely have a nice slap in the face.
The Army/Military doesn't care if you have a trip planned that conflicts with random training.
Unless you're the person making the training schedule...then maybe there's some leeway!
HOUSING:
I will speak for the Vilseck/Graf area only:
Forget the cute alpine, half timbered style houses you see on Pinterest that look oh-so postcard worthy. You will NOT have one.
Instead, the majority of enlisted folks get duplex/apartment style housing on post that look like outdated college dorm buildings or basic row homes. Single family homes on post are for higher ups, like super senior enlisted Sergeant Majors, and the like.
Off post you are likely to find some decent houses, if you are allowed.
Though they are really close quarters. IE; Narrow streets, living right up on your neighbors, small backyards, but the insides are bigger, usually.
The Housing Office makes the final call on what a family can, or can't, have depending on on-post availability.
We wanted to live off post. My husband is an E6.
That was a fat "No" from housing, just because on-post houses were available and essentially ready for move-in for our family size and my husband's rank.
I've seen E3s live off post and E8s who live on post.
Rank isn't really the biggest factor like some are led to believe.
It really is all based on timing of your arrival, not what you want or where you prefer to live, per se. But...the higher in rank, the more say so you get. Generally, an E8 will get his/her choice in the matter.
So, until we PCS, our family is living in a not-so-great stairwell apartment. Sure, the inside is nice. But when I look of out my windows, I see no backyard, flowers in my garden, or my own outdoor space to have a bbq gathering. I see dumpsters, my neighbors' old mattresses, junk furniture, trash, and a big ol' parking lot.
We live on the top floor of a three story building, so hauling groceries sucks.
Our neighbors are obnoxiously loud. I can hear the guy under us coughing up his lung every morning and night, and his children running up and down the hall, inside of their apartment. And yes, I said they are under us!
The people on the very bottom floor play music loud enough for me (two floors up) to feel the vibration of their subs.
Oh, and if you end up living in a stairwell style apartment, be prepared for a shared mess. Every other day I'm stepping in something sticky. My neighbors let their kids (ages 4-12) chill in the shared stairwell. I guess they haven't figured out that the stairwell is not a playground?
Living on post here is a HUGE and SOLID difference from our living arrangements (both on or off post) at previous duty stations.
This is not typical post living, whatsoever. And it's far from the pictures of houses you see on Pinterest.
SHOPPING:
This is something I could go on and on about.
I'll sum it up as fast as possible.
If you are used to one stop shopping, good luck!
There is a store for everything here, minus serious crafts.
If you need groceries, you buzz over to the nearest grocery market.
If you need clothing, you walk the main street of larger cities and deal with C&A, H&M,Espirit, department stores, etc,.
If you need electronics, there's another store for that: Media Markt, Conrads.
And chances are if you need all of the above, you will plan to be out all day long driving around.
Yes, there are large retail stores here that are similar to Walmart (Kauflands), but it's just not the same.
In every Amrican city I've ever lived in, a shopping plaza cured the need of Walmart. And sure, they have them here, too, but again, it's just not the same.
And don't even get me started on craft stores. If you think you'll find a Hobby Lobby or Michael's equivalent in the greater Vilseck area...heck NO. And shopping for fabric is worse (unless I'm in Paris).
I could only wish it were easy.
Most of my craft junk is ordered online, which makes school projects super duper fun! Not.
Speaking of Online Orders...
SHIPPING and DELIVERY: MAIL:
It's our third Christmas season living in Germany and some of my family still doesn't understand how to write out my APO address.
Aside from that, APO shipping is not always a freebie like some people say.
There are TWO stores I know of that ship free to APO, no matter the cost of the order: The Children's Place & Nordstrom.
$7.99 pajamas, and nothing else in the cart? No problemo.
Sale floppy hat for $10. You got it, dude.
Other stores honor their shipping policies like they do for people stateside. Spend a certain amount, get free shipping:
Old Navy, Amazon, 6.pm, Walmart, Target, Ulta, JC Penny, Victoria's Secret, etc,.
And then there are those jerks at Forever 21, Hobby Lobby, Macy's, etc that charge shipping costs because it is an APO address. No free shipping, ever. No matter if you spend the amount that flashes at the top of the screen prompting you to load your virtual cart because shipping is free if you spend $25 or $100 bucks. NOT.
Lastly, there are the complete asshole companies that don't ship to any APO/FPO address, period.
I'm talking to you, Pier One, Wayfair, World Market, just to name a few of the many.
FOOD:
You thought I was getting more and more negative, right?
Well this will make some folks happy.
THEE best Chinese food I have ever ate in my life is here, in Germany, and not a far drive away!
And we have found Tex-Mex restaurant that is way better than any attempt at traditional Mexican food in Tennessee (but will never trump Arizona).
I don't have a huge issue with food here.
I will say, though, that you must be open to new things if you plan to live out of America during any point in your lifetime.
Shout out to Germany and France, for without these two wonderful countries, I would still hate mushrooms.
And a special thanks to the Katlenburger wine company. I never cared a whole lot for red wine before I discovered your cheap, heavenly cherry wine that tastes like the blood of a goddess. I will truly miss it when I go!
And for those of you that are too scared to eat cultural cuisine during your travels, behold! McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, KFC, and even quite a few Dunkin' Donuts are found in Europe (and there are Papa John's & Chipotle in the UK, as a bonus).
Just know that the menus vary with each country and aren't quite the same as America. Trust me, the optional "brown sauce" on your Egg McMuffin in England is good stuff.
WEATHER:
I can sort-of speak for all areas on this one, but first: Bavaria, Germany.
Here in Bavaria, I will say that winter isn't as harsh as I thought it would be, and I'm from Arizona. I imagined blizzards and snow for the better half of the year.
Winter is real here in Bavaria, but it's not Antarctica. The snow comes, and it goes. And then it comes again. But by April the snow stops and we just deal with cold until June.
There has always been enough snow in Vilseck/Graf every winter to have a day out sledding, or throw a snowball. And it does last long enough to get sick of it.
Summer here in Germany is short. Come the end of June, we'll hit somewhere in the high 70s to the mid 80s, on average. Our first full summer was erratic; temperatures varying between mid 70s to 100s between June through late August. It's tolerable, not very humid, but the downfall is that Germany doesn't believe in air conditioning.
No AC in any houses around here. Even clothing stores, department stores, restaurants, and some grocery stores don't have AC. The only way to escape it is to buy a portable AC unit for a few hundred bucks (which can only cool the room it is in), or to hit the public pool, which I happen to love Vilseck's!
As for other places, the further south you go in the summer, the hotter it gets.
The further north you go in the winter, generally the colder it is.
July in Barcelona, Spain was unbearable.
But odd enough, Christmas in Scotland was 30 degrees warmer than it would have been had we stayed in Germany instead.
Weather is hit or miss, just like many parts of the US. And you can almost always count on some rain no matter where you are in Europe. It does rain frequently all over Germany.
TIME:
What I didn't think about before moving here is time, in more ways than one.
I have lived away from my family for over ten years, and never had an issue with homesickness. Still don't.
We have only visited Arizona/California total four times since we began our army life. We've become accustom to holidays on our own, keeping in touch long distance, and it has never worn us down.
But...living in Germany means our closest time difference to the United States is 6 hours on the east coast, and up to 9 hours on the west coast for family in California.
It sure makes that 3 hour time difference between Fort Campbell and California seem like nothing.
Because of the stretched difference, it is very difficult to talk to anyone who isn't a stay at home mom or a homebody.
For example:
If I wake up at 6am (like I do everyday), I can maybe get in touch with my grandmother in California, her time being 9pm, and almost bed time.
During my late afternoon/evening hours, my sister in Michigan is just beginning her day and usually willing to answer the phone.
But during my evenings is when the majority of my west coasties try to get in touch with me; calling at all hours between 9pm and 2am. Often they forget I am asleep!
Time difference has been a never ending saga. Even after 2.5 years of living abroad, some folks still 'forget' that I'm asleep when it's mid-afternoon for them.
The other thing about time? There isn't enough.
Over the course of our living here, my husband has lost a grandfather and another family member. I, too, have lost a grandfather and another family member.
It sucks.
What sucks more is that family back home is in a rush to put together a funeral, all before the Red Cross can even clear a message to allow SATO to cover the flight home and the unit to allow emergency leave. This means that flying home becomes a HUGE out of pocket expense.
When my grandfather died in 2015, I tried everything to line up a flight within my budget because the Red Cross wasn't working fast enough. Let's just say time wasn't on my side, and the round-trip flight was upwards of $3,000.
If you are on your way to Europe, be prepared to go to war with time, in all aspects. Visit your family before coming over the pond, because you never know what tomorrow holds.
MY OVERALL TAKE ON LIVING IN GERMANY UNDER THE ARMY'S WING?
I won't ever willingly do it again.
I was told by dozens of people that this place is magical, that I wouldn't want to leave when the time would come.
I was told that as long as we traveled, got out of the house and visited everything far and wide, that we'd be happy here.
Wrong.
After 75-ish cities and counting, after 10 countries and counting, after we've put 43,000 miles on our car, taken six flights, after we've seen some of the most beautiful things that Europe and the world has to offer, I still don't love living here.
We have been here, there, and everywhere! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to travel, explore, and "Adventure" is my middle name, but all of that isn't enough for me to want to stay, or to fathom missing it.
Living here, I imagine, is MUCH different than visiting.
While living abroad, you experience all of the bad parts that no one seems to talk about and that visitors would never know:
High car insurance, a 20-40% increase in your regular grocery bill, trying to find a good dentist, accommodating a different culture's calendar and holidays (not always a "bad" thing), frustration when you can't find specific items that you love, the annoyance of filling up your gas tank, learning different driving laws for every country.
I could go on. Trust me, living it is different than reading the above and saying "That doesn't so too bad."
And that's just living abroad.
But being here under US Army orders is harder.
We didn't get to choose what we would live in, which means someone else got to decide how we'd spend our housing allowance. That is a big percentage of our 'net' annual pay. That still bothers me when I'm dealing with loud and dirty neighbors on post, in a house I don't even love.
We never experienced DoD schools until this duty station, and there aren't alternatives. I'm not a fan. At all.
If the middle school had an alternative (which it does not), I would gladly go out of the way to drive my kids to it, every morning. I have NEVER felt this way about any other school since my kids began kindergarten.
And this all plays into the true experience of being abroad. Living on or near an installation in Europe is like living in little America.
Everyone speaks English around here.
Everything is accommodating to Americans (even going as far as some off post establishments and stores accepting US cash dollars, and restaurants having translated menus).
It's not a 'real' foreign experience around any installation in Europe! We've visited five of them: Here in Germany and in other countries. They're all the same in that regard.
But my point: Nobody EVER talks about the shitty parts about living abroad, and I'd like to take a moment to thank social media for this.
On Facebook, Instagram, wherever, everyone only shares the 'good' parts of living abroad. I feel as if there is this is a HUGE misrepresentation of what it's actually like.
I knew a girl that sat on Facebook (back when I was on FB), sharing wonderful photos of her family vacation to France, making her the envy of all of her friends and family back in the United States.
The comments and likes poured in.
"You're so lucky!"
"I've always wanted to go there!"
But what those people back at home didn't see is that they blew a tire, stranding them for hours because it is hard to find American sized SUV tires on the fly in Europe, and because their bank account couldn't cover it without dipping into their travel funds. It rained the entire time. Their youngest kid had a terrible head cold, as did the wife.
Yet, she still sold it to the folks at home as if it was the time of her life, when I knew (because she vented to me) that she hated every moment of the trip.
But...how on earth would people envy her travels if she told them the truth?
That is the problem. The people who live abroad tend to talk it up to the people who don't, for various reasons. They don't post about the everyday struggles.
Nobody told me the truth. Nobody explained that not everything here would be as wonderful as a travel brochure. And this is why I am saying it here and now.
In the army lifestyle, there is a common phrase:
"Each duty station is what you make of it."
This is true, to a degree.
We have made the absolute most of this place, taking advantage of everything it has to offer, and I still don't like it. We are not sit-on-our-asses people. We enjoy dining out, hiking, kayaking, biking, camping, exploring, shopping, and have done all of the above, and it's still not for us.
I'm not saying everyone will hate it here, but it is worth mentioning that not everyone will love it, and it doesn't mean that they "didn't get out much" or whatever story I have heard before.
I am a wanderlust soul to the core of my being, and I can proudly say I hate living here, and nothing, nor no one, will change my mind on the subject.
Everything I wrote needed to be said, because no one else will say it!!! They're too busy posting their selfies, ensuring that you'll be jealous of their travels.
Until moving day, I continue to plan weekend get-aways, and our spring break vacation, because living here hasn't killed my travel bug.
But don't get me wrong, I LOVE Germany! It's beautiful, inviting, and often inspiring. It's just OCONUS living isn't for me.
I still have much to see around the world, but I'd rather not opt to live in the unknown before visiting first. Visiting IS different than living.
Life lessons.
Am I glad I came? Sure! Yes, 100% no regrets.
I know myself enough to say that if we never moved here, I'd still be in America wanting to live abroad one day.
But now that I have lived in Europe, I realize that there's no place like the United States, and I'm super excited to be moving back soon. Even if that means I have to say goodbye to my favorite German Cherry Wine...
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