I am currently without internet and will post this as soon as I get it. According to my “schedule of important dates,” I sign my rent contract on Thursday (a week from today), and that is the soonest that I can get internet in my room. However, the library is open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week so I can get internet there as soon as I fill out the paperwork to get a card, or maybe I’ll be able to steal it from one of my doubles (explanation following).
Thursday, March 05, 2009 19:51 Dortmund time, 13:51 EST
Well, after months of preparation and anticipation and approximately 23 hours of traveling, I’m finally here. Finally. Now I understand why all of the other study abroad students start all of their entries with either apologies for writing too much or apologies for only writing a little and leaving things out. Tonight I’ll go with the former approach, and I do apologize for this entry being so long:
I’ll start at the beginning. Kevin and Stephanie tell me their goodbyes and I go into security where they discover that I completely forgot about the 3 oz rule and put a bottle of lotion in my bag. Great way to start, right? Then they escort me out of security, I give Kevin and Steph the lotion, give them each one more hug, and enter security again. Apparently, I just didn’t have security in mind when I got ready yesterday morning because I wore my high-top converses, and since I went through security twice, I had to unlace and relace those shoes twice. It was really unfortunate. Then I moved on to my gate, only for them to announce that our plane had a “mechanical difficulty” and we all had to move from gate E30 to E4 and wait for them to prepare a different plane, delaying our flight by about an hour and a half.
About an hour into our flight, I watched the sunset. It was possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The moment the sun was out of sight, there was such a rich array of color in the sky—I just wish I had a picture to show you. The skyline was black, and right above it, there was a rich garnet color, then a deep orange, then yellow, then green, then blue, then violet, then black again. After the sun went down, I could see the cities below us, and they looked like the pictures of galaxies taken from a telescope—I never thought that sight could be so pretty. I had fun trying to guess which city we were over, then looking on the TV screen to see if I was right. Speaking of TV screen, we each had our own, complete with a map of our travels, games, your choice of about 10 movies, and some good TV shows too. It kept me entertained for pretty much the whole flight.
The guy sitting next to me, David, was a really nice man. He born in Puerto Rico, but he has lived in Germany for three years with the military. He was a good person to sit next to—he was friendly, but he didn’t talk too much. Once we got there, we stuck together. He helped me with my bags at the baggage claim, and we went to the Bahnhof (train station) together where he showed me where to buy a ticket. I was a little amused by the fact that I knew more German than him—I asked for my ticket in German and he had to ask for his in English. I guess they don’t really speak German on the military bases. Then he let me use his phone to call the people who were supposed to pick me up, and we parted ways. It was so nice to have him there to help me.
You will never guess what I saw as I was waiting on my train-an Elvis impersonator! It was awesome—like Tennessee had followed me to Germany :-) Soon before the train was supposed to arrive, I met a girl who was waiting on the same train. She was from California, and she came to Germany to visit her brother who is a professional basketball player. She didn’t speak any German at all. When the train got there, I told her it was our train, but she didn’t think it was, so she asked one of the men working on the train, and he said our train would be the next one, so we didn’t board. It was our train. Great. So we went and changed our tickets, and now instead of having a direct train to Dortmund, I was taking three different trains, with a girl who made me miss my first train. I was feeling a little downhearted, but I walked to the gate and asked someone if I was at the right gate. A man overheard me, correctly assumed I was American, and started to help me. His name was Jörg and he was wonderful. He was heading to Bonn, which meant he would be riding the first two trains with me. He looked at where I was going, explained some of the finer points of the Deutsche Bahn (German train system), and told me that his wife is from Brazil (he met her when studying abroad), so he knows how hard it can be for foreigners to find their way around Germany. When the train arrived, he grabbed my bags and hopped on. One the second train, we passed followed the Rhein River, which was an absolutely beautiful area, and Jörg told me a bunch of stuff about the area. He was such a nice man, and I am so thankful that I ran into him. When we arrived in Bonn, the train was running about 10 minutes behind, which was not good, because I only had 8 minutes between when I was supposed to get off this train and the next train I was taking was supposed to leave. As I asked a few people around me what I was supposed to do if I missed my train, a woman told me that the train I was already riding stopped at Dortmund, so I actually didn’t have to get off the train at all. I was a little relieved that I didn’t have to worry about missing my next train, and a little perturbed at the woman who sold me my ticket and told me I needed to switch trains. Oh well.
When I finally arrived (at 2:30pm, 8:30am EST), Jessica and Benjamin were there to pick me up and take me to my new home—a two bedroom flat with a kitchen and bathroom. When we walked in, however, the kitchen was a mess. At this point, Jessica showed me which room was mine, wondered out loud if someone else lived there (they honestly weren’t sure, and called the janitor to clean up everything. Then they told me that my “doubles” (two German students who are in charge of helping me) would be there at 4:30 to show me around a little and take me to get some food, and they left. Shortly afterwards, my suitemate, Stefan, arrived. He explained to me that he hasn’t been here because the school is on vacation right now, and it was the student who was living in my room that left the mess. He came back yesterday and found it like that, and he also showed me where the other student got drunk and tried to kick down the door to Stefan’s room because he was confused and thought it was his room. Stefan told me that he didn’t mind if I drink, but please be nice to his door :-) He was very friendly, and told me I could use anything in the kitchen and showed me where there was a bar nearby that had cheap beer on Tuesdays—apparently everyone who lives in the building goes there, and he said I can meet a lot of people that way. He kept saying, “It’s not a problem” after every statement. Anyone notice something wrong with all of this? Yes, I’m living with a guy, which took me completely by surprise. I guess it’s not a big deal because he said that he’s leaving in about 3 weeks, and he’ll only be here about 3 or 4 times before he leaves, but I was still a little shocked.
At about 5:00 I was sitting in my room, wondering if my doubles forgot about me, unsure how I was supposed to contact home with no internet or phone, unsure how I was going to eat if my doubles didn’t come (I had not eaten since breakfast on the plane at 7:00 am), and wondering if it was normal for the school to put a foreign girl in the same apartment as a guy, and I will admit, I was a little discouraged. Right before I completely lost it, the doorbell rang, and I met my doubles, Carina and Anna, who admitted to being chronically late. They took me to the library where I could use the pay phone to call home, and then we went to eat at this multicultural place, and I had döner, a Turkish dish that was really yummy. Then Anna took me to a store and I bought food for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, some water, a few cleaning supplies and toilet paper (there wasn’t any in my bathroom—another exciting surprise). Then we walked back to my new home in the cold, dark, rainy, windy German weather, but I really enjoyed it because I had good company, a full stomach, and plans for tomorrow. My new friends are picking me up at 2:00 (lots of sleeping in and recovering from jetlag time), and we are doing more hard-core grocery shopping and a trip to Ikea. Then tomorrow night we are going to a Disko (a German club) with some of their friends—I’m excited. They asked me to go, and then said that I probably don’t want to go because I’ll be too tired—at which point I assured them that I could deal with being tired.
Well, I’m going to get some sleep, tomorrow is another adventure :-)
Tchüss!
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