The Arrival

We arrived safely into the Frankfurt International Airport right on time as scheduled. We were met by Tim Schwartz (our director), his little son Adam (who is one of the cutest kids ever), Brice Myers (our RA for the semester), and Yvonne Luft (the wife of one of our professors, and our German mother during our stay here). They loaded us and our luggage into a bus, and we started the hour long drive to Heidelberg. On the road, we did basic introductions with everyone, and then they orientated us on what they day and the rest of the week was going to hold for us (is orientated even a word?). We received our food money for the week, so we got to hold some Euro bills in our hands! And a couple of us also figured out the hard way that in some public restrooms, you have to tip the restroom attendant in whatever small Euro coin you have with you.

Then finally, our bus reached Heidelberg! The city is absolutely beautiful. The Neckar river runs right through the city, and there is beautiful lush greenery all around! There is a beautiful old bridge that we walked across that goes across the river, and on the other side there are peaceful meadows on the shoreline and many houses just up a level. The best thing is the castle up a little ways on the hill. You can see it from just about any spot in the city. I haven't hiked up there yet, but I can't wait until I can!

The place I'm staying in is called the Jeske Pension. I am in a room located on the third floor, and it takes about three locked doors to get to my actual room. I think after today I'm finally getting used to putting the keys in upside-down! That took a while, I'll admit. After we had a couple more meetings and orientations, we had about 2 to 3 hours of free time, which was so very nice. I always love to unpack when I go somewhere new, so I was about to go crazy if I still had to go with not knowing where anything was in my suitcases. So I used my free time to un-pack. There isn't much storage in my room, even though it's pretty big. We have a small wardrobe to share, two night stands, two beds, and a nice table with two chairs. But the issue is finding where to fit all our clothes... so we are working on that. We are definitely going to have to use our suitcases to store some stuff for the everyday living, but we're still figuring all that out.

For dinner tonight, we had pizza. It was a little different tasting, not too bad. Then after dinner some of us watched a group of four or five teenage girls perform on the street, all playing saxophone. They were amazing! And none of us were surprised that they were as good as they were. And after dinner, we headed down to the main street again, this time a bit more awake than the last time we went, earlier in the day with our city tour. Just walking around the city is so peaceful and exciting!

And I think this is it for tonight. I need to get to bed so I can get up tomorrow, and hopefully the jet lag will leave soon!

Getting There

So I am on the plane, about an hour away from landing in Frankfurt! I’ts been kind of a crazy day so far. The Heidelberg students met at APU at 4:30 this morning, and we left for the airport in two different shuttles at around 5. Then we got to LAX with all of our luggage and belongings, checked in, went through security, and then boarded our first plane to Newark, NJ. We left at 9:25 or something, and arrived in Newark at 4:52 local time, which is 1:52 our time. We had a 2 hour layover there and then finally boarded our next plane at 6:30 and left at 7:25 PM. Anyway, on the first plane I slept for the first three hours, and then watched two episodes of House. I was pretty excited that both my planes today had personal TVs with free entertainment. Traveling abroad in airplanes really spoils you! The flight I’m on now is about a seven hour one, and so far I’ve probably slept for four to five hours out of the seven. I have never had trouble sleeping on planes, which is something I am so thankful for. But now it is 11:20 PM California time, 2:10 New Jersey time, and 8:20 AM Germany time. It doesn’t even feel like almost midnight to me, although that might just be because I just woke up from a long nap and the sun rose outside my window not too long ago. We are expected to arrive at 9:25 AM local time into the Frankfurt airport.

I’m getting pretty excited to be there already! I’ve always been a settler kind of person. I love to get to a new place, unpack, find a place for everything, and make it a new home. Today is a busy day, I think... I’m actually not sure, because our schedule is on our online calendar and no one has had a chance to use the internet today. But Tim Schwartz, our director in Heidelberg, is supposed to be meeting us there at the airport, so I guess we’ll find out when we land! Anyway, we’re preparing for our descent soon. Woo!