We live in Germany now!! (???)

Sometime around 6 pm local time, B, Thumper, and I were welcomed into Germany by three men who Beau will be working for/with during his assignment here. I cannot say enough how much I appreciate all they did to take care of us during our first couple of hours here. Before coming, I heard story after story of families arriving to find out they had been forgotten by their sponsor, had no idea where to go or how to get there, and spent their first hours here feeling alone and scared. From the minute we were here we were well taken care of. B's boss's boss kept me company while I walked the dog, and two others helped B figure out what was to come next. They then loaded all of our luggage (no small feat) into their cars for us while one of them walked us to the Ramstein Hotel to get checked in. I had made our reservations thesecond I was able to, and I was so glad I had the confirmation number with me because they were unable to look us up by name. The hotel is booked here, and pet friendly TLFs (Temporary Lodging Facilities) are in high demand, so I was very happy to have a room. Our welcoming crew took us on the short drive to our TLF, which turned out to be a roomy 2 bedroom space. I suspect this is what we would be living in for our entire 3 year stay if we had taken up the offer of Ramstein stairwell apartment housing. While it's nice for a short term stay, this would not be big enough for us long term. After moving all of our luggage in for us and giving us a welcome packet FULL of great information, our 3 guides took down our room phone number and made plans to get in touch with B early the next day to get him set up at work and also a car to get around for the upcoming long weekend. I fed Thumper her first food in ?? (she had food in her crate but didn't eat a bite) and gobbled down the whole thing and seemed generally at home here, settling into a chair by the window where she can watch me, look out the window, watch me, keep an eye on the door, and watch me. She was snoring as we headed out the door to walk over to get dinner and get a couple of items from the shopette. It's about a 15-20 minute walk over to the mall, down very quiet housing streets. Everything here is set in a forest. For people in Colorado Springs, it's like being in the Black Forest. The mall here in base is gigantic! It is attached to the main hotel, where we first check in, and also has the big B/X. The mall has a pretty good sized food court (Taco Bell, Baskin Robbins, and Cinnabon were my faves that we saw, there were 5-10 other places that I wasn't as interested in ) and quite a few other shops in it. We were able to use the business center to email family that we had arrived since we hadn't figured out the internet in our room yet (we have since figured out that it is not wireless, and I am sitting on our couch plugged in to the wall now) and then had dinner at Macaroni Grill. Yes, I know, our first night in Germany and we ate at Mac Grill. I needed a bit of comfort food, and honestly neither of us thought we could handle any German food after the airline stuff. It was a delicious dinner and by the time we finished at 9, the lack of sleep had finally set in and we were tired. B grabbed a couple of things from the shoppette and we walked home. I took Thumper for her last walk of the day and we went to bed around 10. We were up by 7:30, B was out the door by 9 to go get his truck and drivers license, and I've been sitting here updating the blog ever since! Today, we plan to register for housing, pick up any mail that has made its way here, and pick up things we need from the commissary and BX. More updates to follow!