With the most anticipated wedding since Kate and William’s taking place today, and our expat wings barely stretched in the slightest, we decided to not really leave base today. While we’re excited to explore our new home, we weren’t exactly excited about fighting crowds, experiencing crazy security measures and risking an anxiety attack on my part.

So this morning, after we took our time getting ready, saying hi to the horses just off base and checking out (still) empty PO Box, we ran into Tim’s new coworker driving down the street. He said he was headed to an abandoned luggage auction in the local city center and invited us to tag along. We decided to take him up on the offer and were delightfully surprised.

We arrived at the small lot 30 minutes or so before the auction started and after a quick registration, we were able to look around inside the adjoining antique store. I’ll cover this more later, but already I’m realizing how VERY different antiques here are vs the states and I’m unsure I’ll ever be happy going back. haha.

It wasn’t a large affair, but about 50 people gathered in the parking lot to big on these suitcases that had been abandoned at the airport (Or may train station?). Bidding was quite quick and rarely passed more than £40. Both Tim and I and his coworker scored two suitcases pretty quickly and piled them into the tiny Alfa Romeo we drove in. There was very little room for me, but at least we made it back to the base. The gate guard looked at us like we were a little nuts.

Realizing that we didn’t want to open anything for the first time in our TLF rooms, we decided to sit on the grass in the parking lot and see out spoils. Surprisingly, three of the four of our suitcases were filled with relatively clean clothing (sorry Tim haha). Sean’s suitcases were the best of the four, but Tim lucked out nicely with a pair of brand new Clarks that fit him perfectly. Mine was full of kids clothes (blah) BUT the suitcase itself is little and cute and I’ll use it for traveling through Europe.

Overall, I’m grateful for the unexpected jaunt off base and our first chance to experience something new in our new home.

We will have more HUGE updates coming soon! I’ve tried and failed to keep up writing a good update on our check in week. But it was just so insanely busy, wrought with both extreme joy and terrible low homesick moments. We did though, get all checked in, get our 3AF driver’s licenses, house hunted and chose our new home. We’re super excited about the house and will be sharing more info when we can!