18 hours later...

Guten tag! I am at long last getting settled into my room in Freiburg, Germany. It still feels like a bit of a dream, but that could be the sleep deprivation talking. To arrive at the program center I took, in the following order: cab, train, AirTrain, plane, plane, train, cab. It took 18 very long hours.

My trip began in NYC, after visiting my brother for his law school graduation. I caught a cab at about 3:45pm EST, then bought a ticket and boarded the NJ Transit, which left at about 4:15pm. After navigating the AirTrain to the correct Terminal, I had about 2.5 hours to kill before my flight, which I used to exchange my currency and read a little Moby Dick. At 7:35pm I flew from Newark International to Washington-Dulles. My Newark flight landed at 8:50 and my Dulles flight began boarding at 8:55, resulting in a very brisk, slightly frazzled speed-walk across the terminals from gate D15 to C1. Now at this point I hadn't eaten anything since lunch at 2. I had planned on grabbing something in between my flights, but didn't want to risk it once I realized how close I was cutting it, and my international flight provided an in flight meal anyways. Well, that in flight meal didn't come until 10:45pm.

At one point, the flight attendants started delivering certain passengers their meals, and I had about a 15 minute long internal panic attack, thinking that I had missed something when booking my flight and forgotten to ask for dinner. The smells of pasta were cruelly tantalizing. Luckily, the attendants then rolled down big carts of food for everyone - I hadn't missed something after all. The only snag was that I was in row 38, so I could see and smell the food long before I got to eat it. I attacked my meal with vigor, and although it was good, it still didn't quite satisfy the hunger pains of my bottom-less-pit of a stomach. My seat mates didn't even eat all of their food (one left some rice and corn, the other his salad and roll) but I felt a little gouche begging their leftovers off of them, so I suffered in silence, counting down until the "light breakfast" would be served. It was almost 5 hours. Rough.

The plane ride was totally worth it though, when I got to see the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean.We landed in Frankfurt, Germany at 11:30am - Frankfurt time (5:30am EST). By this point I had been traveling for 14 hours, and was getting a little beat, although I was very excited to be setting foot on foreign soil! I cleared customs, retrieved my suitcase from baggage claim, and began the trek to find the train terminal. I had my first transaction with Euros, and hopped on the 12:57pm train to Freiburg. One snaffu almost freaked me out - I had to change trains in Mannheim, and my train arrived at the station 10 minutes after my connection was supposed to depart. Luckily, my connection was late, too, and arrived right when I did. Two hours later I arrived in Freiburg. I'd met another American on the train, so together we found our way out to the street, where I took a taxi - finally! - to the study abroad center, arriving right around 3:30pm. (The change from that transaction left me with some coins instead of just cash. It might just be because it's new to me, but Euros look way cooler than American money!)

Phew! Sorry for the long post, but it was a long journey! The weather here is absolutely beautiful and my room is bigger than my room from home (always a plus)! I'll be meeting the rest of my program tonight and over the next few days at orientation. We are taking a hike in the Schwarzwald on Thursday and classes begin this Friday; I can't wait to get started!