Hello again from across the pond. Sorry it has been so long, it has been a busy two weeks for us. A very good and promising two weeks but busy and long. For starters, we know have Visas and are legal to stay in this great country. Hooray! The Visas are good till Jan. 22 and are provisional based on our attendance of German school and our ability to find a job that will pay our expenses by the turn of the year. On that note, Jen's team has found/put together jobs for both us that will officially start Dec. 1. This is very good news. The jobs, if we understand correctly, will consist of some office work, some management and will hopefully unfold into a marketing/international gig that will entail us handling international communication for the company. I hope this pans out because it will be good money and it would possibly lead into future opportunities if/when we move home. Visas and jobs coming our way, things are looking up.

Yesterday we both had road games. Jen had to travel three plus hours to face one of the top teams in her league. They had to play without three of their usual starters, two due to injury and 1 due to a wedding and although they put up a good fight they ended up losing by 7. Jen had 4 goals and said she felt the most comfortable on offense she has all year. She was able to recognize some holes and opportunities that she had not capitalized on before but still realizes she has a long way to go.  She felt very good about her defense and said that her partner in the middle of the defense and her had great chemistry working together. They were only down 2 at half but were overwhelmed in the second. ESV Weil played the worst team in the league and managed to escape with a one-point win.  We played without five guys due to work or sickness but we were still able to put together a good enough showing for the dub. We were up 5 with 4 minutes left but an untimely 2 minute allowed them to climb back in, but we were able to keep control of the ball for the last minute and never give them a chance to even up the score. I played the first 15 minutes at the circle position, score two goals, one on a fast break and the other on a pick and roll. In the second half I saw good minutes on the defensive end and the last five playing both.  We have both played five games in league now, Jen is 1-4 and we are 2-3. We both play on the road again next week and than finally have a mini home stand the two weekends after. Jen has to travel seven plus hours both ways so she is leaving Friday afternoon and pulling an over-nighter. If you would like to check up the standings in our leagues or any other (Mark Ortega, Gary Hines, Keith Fine) you can go to my team's website  www.esvweil-handball.de/ click on links (bottom left) and than click on Ligamanager des Handball-Servers. From there you can click herren (men's) or damen (women's) and than scroll down and choose which league. Jen plays in the Regionaliga Sud and I play in the Sudbadenliga. 
 
This last Sunday Jen had a very successful interview with Forum Sports Club in Basel. FSC is a club that is worldwide with roots in the Northeast US. The women who runs the gym is a former Swiss National Handball Team player and although she did not offer Jen right away (extenuating circumstances - Jen couldn't legally take the job right now and this is why she wasn't offered it) but she did give Jen a free pass to work out and is excited to see what Jen knows and how she connects with people and perhaps by the new year this opportunity could formulate into Jen's entrance into personal training.  The fact that the gym is worldwide is a huge bonus because that leaves an opening for a possible transfer when we decide to pull the cord on this little experiment (won't be for at least two more years we hope). 
 
Sunday night we ventured to our friend Dirk's house for coffee, cake and than a little later dinner. Dinner brought about something completely new to Jen and I, which doesn't happen very often. We are both good eaters and enjoy a wide variety of foods, which is why when Dirk pulled out the contraption we were going to use to enhance our meal last night we were both intrigued.  I hope you're not hungry. Now, try and wrap your mind around this. Dirk's wife had boiled over 30 small potatoes and that is where we started. Everybody grabbed a potato or two, or three (I'm big) and, here is where it gets good, we than each individually decided what we wanted on our potatoes (choices included: bacon strips, bacon bits, two types of cheeses, jalapenos, peppers, mushrooms, etc.). Once we had collected our goods, we were able to put them all in our own many grill and place it in the heat contraption set up in the middle of the table. Thirty seconds to a minute later your cheese and goods are melty, warm, scrumptious and ready to eat. Top your potato and chow down. I did a horrible job of explaining it but it is basically a mini oven that allows up to eight people to individually warm/cook whatever they want as they want it. I have never seen one of these in the states before and I am dumbfounded that they are not the most popular things around. I would compare it a fondue type idea but with more possibilities. Best finish to the week I could have imagined. 
 
This week has been good but uneventful. No Internet access till now, our only source (Jen's teammates' team house) was down for a day or two, so we have been holed up at home watching movies and studying German. 
 
Good news on the house front, we are moving into a beautiful three-bedroom mansion (it's not, but it feels like it compared to what we dwell in now) tomorrow. We will be living with one of Jen's teammates who is super nice so we are pleased about that. It will be the first time I have had a dishwasher since I moved out of the house after high school. Pretty stoked about that. We have a garage, a shed and a place to grill that is covered so we can get meaty rain or shine. And my Vespa will no longer dampen my arse every time I sit on the seat for I can park it out of the rain. I think we are going to set the world record for time taken to move, considering we have four bags of clothes and some bathroom stuff and that's all.  
 
So a quick move, one and a half bus loads. Two hours max, super easy. I am counting stars, the lucky ones. We have fallen into a new house, with a roommate who speaks English, enjoys beer and chips, and owns a car (fantastic). Her name is Aniko, she is from Hungary and she speaks three languages; needless to say her English translations are pretty entertaining (there may be additional posts that include/consist of her interesting phrases/translations). Continuing on, I enjoyed another encounter with the Swiss police Wednesday night after handball practice. I am starting to get the feeling that Swiss people are very nice, especially the police. I get stopped driving a car with Hungarian plates, I don't have my passport, only my driver's license (from Kansas) and I am topless (I didn't have a shirt on).  The border police, who both happen to speak English) make a call to their "people" and apparently my Visa is good (pretty excited about that) and I am not a threat to Swiss National security because they let me go on my way rather promptly. German class is going well; we are soaking up the language like new sponges. I can tell you all about Halloween in Deutsch if you are interested.