Unpredictability

*Just a warning, this is a LONG winded post.

Yesterday I realized that things do not always go as planned. Eric was flying back to Germany from Sicily early yesterday morning. He would have to go into work for a couple of hours before heading back to the house to enjoy a little party we had planned. It wasn't anything big. We just had a few friends coming over for appetizers and drinks, then head to dinner followed by a night of karaoke at the bar on Volgelweh I mentioned in a previous post. I sent some cupcakes with Matt to work so when Eric arrived in the morning, he and his whole unit could enjoy them to kick off his birthday. Well as Erics plane was about to take off from Sicily, smoke filled the cockpit and they were all told to evacuate immediately right there on the runway. We are all thanking the good Lord that the plane was not in the air when this happened. They evacuated and were later told that they probably would not be able to find another plane to bring them back to Germany until tomorrow (which is technically today). Talk about a HUGE bummer! I think everyone was pretty upset and frustrated at the thought of that. A couple of hours later, I got a call from Ryan and he said that Eric had just called the office. They did in fact find another plane. The plane was currently in Greece. It was scheduled to be in Sicily in time to pick up the guys and have a departure time of 3:30pm and would arrive at Ramstein AFB at 6pm. 6 works great. Thats the time people were going to be coming over for drinks. Not a bad deal. Well then due to weather, Eric messaged me and said they were now delayed until 8pm. Ok, a little later but we can deal with it. Then 30 minutes later I get a message that says they will be back at 9pm. Again, we can deal with 9. We will just do a late dinner (that is the norm for Germany) before heading ot karaoke. As we were chatting online around 2pm about where we should go for dinner, I see SH*T flash across the screen. They had just informed Eric that the weather had cleared up fine but the plane that is supposed to come pick them up was in Greece and THE GREEK AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLERS DECIDED TO GO ON STRIKE. By this point, you just had to laugh!!!! Whatever. It sucks big time but we just agreed we would definitely celebrate in Berlin. So now they were predicting that they would strike until around 7pm. At that time the plane could THEN head to Sicily, pick up the guys and would be back in Ramstein around midnight. Well that is exactly what happened. Eric finally walked through the front door around 12:30am. Just enough time for Matt and I to wish him a Happy Birthday Belated Birthday, watch him open some gifts, eat a cupcake and head to bed. After all is said and done, sometimes you just have to realize that no matter how planned out something is, it is never guaranteed to go as planned. It was definitely a lesson in patience but I think Eric handled it really well. He did inform us that the guys did take him out to celebrate on Wednesday night in Sicily and that he was *struggling* pretty bad on Thursday so I am glad he got in a good celebration. We do plan on continuing the celebration this weekend in Berlin. I was told to pack clothes that would "blend in" and not make me stand out due to the hightened security issues going on in all the major cities in Europe...Berlin being one of them. Yikes. I hate not feeling safe but Eric assured me that we would be fine. So, I am off to pack. I heard Berlin in a pretty incredible city so hopefully I will be able to take some great pictures! I'll leave you with a couple pictures I took of the house after I decorated it for Erics birthday. I hope everyone has a great weekend. Miss you all!!!

Not really the best pictures but this is walking into the dining room

His birthday sign I made him. He said it looked like something out of Survivor because i used two bamboo poles to hold it up. I have to give credit to Matt for the bamboo idea.



Drink station on the huge window ledge.