You Know You've Lived in a Hotel Too Long When...

Day 47.  It's not really that long.  I mean, normally when we move it takes an average of three months to get into our new home from the time we left the last one.  So 47 days isn't that long in comparison.

But, this time our temporary home is a hotel.  An Army hotel in Germany.  Usually we stay in a short term furnished rental home, or sparsely furnished "temporary quarters" which is like a combination of an apartment and a hotel.  This is new...different.  Long.  Small.

Since we've been here we...

Spent 5 weeks locating a house to move into and another week or two negotiating the contract in German and English.

We bought a van and got our car that we shipped from the States and got a free 1991 car that needed new brakes.  Since it's the last one we got, we call it our "new" car.

Went to a local German emergency room after my 17 year old accidentally broke his nose.  Treatment:  surgery.  The night before his appointment for a second opinion from the American doctor, his brother  elbowed him in the nose while he was sleeping and crunched it back into place.  No surgery required.

Found a local swimming pool with a 10 meter (about 30 feet) platform diving board...which all my kids, minus my 4 year old, jump from.  My 4 year old tries to keep up by jumping off the low dive and showing off his swimming skills by getting back to the side of the pool.  The young German boys ask, "Wie alt bist du?"  How old are you?  Because most of the German kids that age are still learning to swim.  "He's 4."  They smile!

We've managed to survive easily on the items we packed in our suitcases... back in May.

Ten ways you know you've lived 

in the hotel too long during a military move:

• When you know the housekeeping staff by their first name and you miss them when they go on vacation.

• You know the address of the hotel by heart because you have to put "your local address" on every form you fill out when you move to a new place.

• Tears come to your eyes when you are in the lobby as yet one-more-family stands in the lobby saying a tearful goodbye to their friends they may never see again who came to their "home" to say goodbye. 

• You've seen 100 cats in their airline cages coming or going to the airport.   Those sad, scared eyes looking through the wire cage door.

•  You go to the lobby in your slippers for the free breakfast.

• You cook dinners in the crock pot since there is no oven.  Every. Single. Night.

• You give out the hotel's business cards with your cell phone number scribbled on it when you meet someone new.

• The housekeeping staff knows your daily routine and asks how many miles you ran today when you come back from your morning run.

• The other people in hotel are your "neighbors" because they "live" there too while they are PCSing (moving from one duty station to another).

• You go to the lobby in your pajamas.  I mean, it is your home.

Two more weeks until we move into our "permanent" home.  Our "temporary-permanent" home.  In three years we'll most likely be in another temporary home looking for our next permanent home.  I prefer to think of it as going on sequential 3 year vacations!

 Genesis 12:1 

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you."

Hebrews 11:9

By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country.

So....how do you define home?  

...Where you currently live?
...Where you grew up (military "brats" can't do that)?
...As one of my college professors said, "Where you go for Thanksgiving"?
...Where your parents live?
...Or, something else?