Why not Germany?

Both photos of Germany I decided to post have markets in them...can you tell I'm a *bit* food obsessed?

How could we have missed this? (add a lot of hand smacking head gestures and incredulous looks at each other)

This was the beginning of our conversation about plan B...which comes up often...we are natural worriers (well, I am, at least). Our plan B was to stay in town, get our own place of course (I am starting to go insane...not anything that my mom is doing in particular, we are just desperate for our OWN space again and our OWN things that we love), bring our things to Ontario from the storage unit in New Brunswick and continue working and then try again next year....and the year after and....well, you get the point. We are worried about the fact that most international schools in Switzerland want a minimum two years of teaching experience. Justin will have just graduated...he does have almost a year in class experience as a special needs assistant teacher, two other degrees (psychology & counseling), a year volunteer mentoring, and a Swiss wife (me! YAY! I count for something! ;) ) that hopefully will all be considered pluses. 

So, in case he gets no job offers due to having no actual in class experience as a teacher's college graduate yet, we are always prepared for plan B. To gain those two years experience while trying not to go insane and still live our lives in non-limbo and then try again. 

So the usual conversation started about plan B....I was having a particular "woe is me" day and declared that I do not want to live another two years in limbo here in town (nothing in particular wrong with this town at all....it is actually cute and I love my job that I have right in town actually)...I just constantly feel like I am waiting for something (Europe!). I basically declared our plan B to be crap....a poor compensation for what we really want. The idea I threw on the table was to widen our net for Justin teaching internationally. We toyed with that idea before...but the fact that we have Felix makes us a bit weary about it...we just want him to have a somewhat stable life, and we really do not know enough about living in such foreign to us places with a toddler. Japan, Dubai, Ireland (Ireland? apparently the Irish do not speak English) came to our minds among many other places.

Then came Germany.

How could we have missed this?

So simple!

Such a good plan B.

It would not feel like a step back, more so sideways. The awesome thing would be that Justin would still be learning the language (as he is learning high German as a base for Switzerland right now). We would still be in Europe. It is gorgeous there, I have some family there, I have been there before and feel familiar with the culture...and I freakin' LOVE Pumuckl!
The minimum teaching experience does not seem to be such an issue for the international schools we looked up in Germany, which bodes well for us and they also seem to have more openings as well. Fingers crossed if Switzerland does not work out this year, that we can get the teaching experience in Germany for a couple of years (and love it there!).

So now, added to the list of schools Justin is applying to in Switzerland in November, there has now been added a list of schools in Germany. 

Moral of the story....plans can change...and sometimes when you *think* you have looked at all the options, a brand new one can pop up! (that our tiny tunnel vision minds apparently completely forgot about)...

ps...Did I mention the Christmas markets????? *Heavenly*