Thursday, June 6, 2013

Final Out - (Germany) Day 525

 Guest lodging entrance at Patrick Henry Village

This morning PT formation was at the PHV bowling alley parking lot, so I was able to get up and walk over there in my ACUs. The few that were there were doing a ruck march around PHV. I checked in and then headed back home…after a pit stop at the shoppette to pick up some coffee. We no longer have a coffee machine…one of the last things to get tossed from our house. When I got back home, we ate breakfast and got ready for the day. I then took down our bedroom curtains and gathered together all our bedding materials. All this stuff went straight to the trash, which is unfortunate. The recycling center closed down and we can't fit all of that into our luggage, so it all gets thrown away. We then did a quick sweep around the house and spot cleaned a few things. I unhooked our internet and phone, then threw the router and phone away as well. Both devices were 220v so we can't use them back in the states, and I couldn't find anyone who wanted them here.

We put our suitcases right outside our door and hung out until the housing inspector came by at 0845…the moment of truth. Now is the time we see if all our hard work cleaning every nook and cranny of our house really paid off. The inspector came and literally did a 30 second check of everything along with our appliances. He then checked to make sure we still had all our assigned keys and proceeded to have me sign some papers while he signed the required clearing papers. We were all done in well under 5 minutes…holy cow! It went a lot easier than I thought it would.

We waited on a co-worker to bring the TMP and then loaded up all our luggage and transported everything to guest lodging (the army hotel on post). We were allowed to check in early which was nice, this way we didn't need to store our bags and check in later at 1400 when they usually do it. I headed off in the TMP to the out-processing center and finished up my final paperwork there. I also picked up our plane tickets back to the states. They were supposed to email them to me, but I hadn't received them yet. I stopped by the internet provider and cancelled our service and then the bank where I turned in some rolls of coins that had accumulated during our time here. A quick stop by S-1 to drop off copies of all the final-out paperwork and then I was done for the day.

My co-worker dropped me off at guest lodging and I hung out with my wife for the rest of the day. We at dinner at the local restaurant on post "The Village Grill" which happened to be the first place we at dinner here when we arrived a year and a half ago. We've now come full circle and will be heading to the airport tomorrow. We could have stayed in guest lodging for free until our flight out on Sunday, but we decided to get a hotel at the airport for our last two nights here. That way we can get out and see Frankfurt if we want, we won't have to deal with any army base issues, and most of all we will not need anyone to drive us up to the airport very early on a Sunday morning…instead they can drive us on a Friday instead and get out of the office for a while.

Saw these on a tree outside guest lodging (the army hotel) and it made me smile

No comments:

Post a Comment