First day in Deutschland!!

First off, I'd just like to say that this is my first blog so the content may be a little tedious at first, but bear with me and I hope to have a thriving little column here soon! I appreciate your feedback.

The flight here was a little ominous at first: 8 hours of being cramped with about 2 inches of leg room, the most severe turbulence I've ever endured (of course), and mediocre food and entertainment. But hey, it's United, what else would you expect? Lesson #1: Always upgrade to a seat with more leg room if given the opportunity. Turbulence doesn't usually faze me, but the hour long patch we hit was so bad, the captain made an announcement that everyone had to sit down for safety's sake. It felt like the plane was sliding over massive, uneven boulders, with the sound of rumbling constantly in the background. I even got that feeling in the pit of my stomach like when you go down a hill really fast. It was then I felt we were going to drop out of the sky.

In any case, I got to Frankfurt in one piece and wandered around the airport for a bit trying to find an ATM and wondering how in the he11 I was going to find the shuttle driver who was supposed to take me to my school. By the grace of God I found both, and using my limited German, the driver and I came to the conclusion that I was headed for the right place (amazing!). After arriving at Schiller International University, we unloaded my heavy luggage and I dragged it inside the beautiful old mansion that will be my home for the next four months! The building, grounds, and surrounding neighborhood are beautiful; the school is nestled at the bottom of a small mountain surrounded by trees and old brick walls that have surely been here for centuries. The little houses in the area are typically European, some painted bright colors, some with turrets, most with detailed wood moldings. I still haven't explored much of the school, but from what I've been in already, it's very much like a maze with many, many staircases. Speaking of staircases, it was fun lugging up two ginormous suitcases, a back pack, and a shoulder bag up about 7 flights of stairs! Luckily, one of the guys helped me with the biggest bag that would surely have put me in the hospital if I had tried to carry it myself. But now everything is unpacked and my small room is feeling cozier.

Around dinner time, I walked out into the hall and two girls at the top of the stairs looked back and asked if I wanted to go to dinner. I'd met several other Schiller students but I hadn't met them yet. I didn't know where they were going but I said sure because I figured it would be nice to see some of the town and get to know new people. On the way outside, I found out their names were Taylor and Kae Lani. The boy with them was a returning Schiller student; his name was Martin and he was dropping us off at Cafe Gecko in downtown Heidelberg. True to the European stereotype, Martin likes to drive fast for apparently no reason down the tiny roads of the city. However, he is a very good driver and knew exactly where we were going. At Cafe Gecko, where my water was more expensive than my soup, I got to know Taylor and Kae Lani; they're a lot of fun, want to travel a lot while they're here, and aren't obsessed with partying every waking hour of the day. Since we're all pretty similar I think we'll get along great. I've been here one day and already have three new friends; I'd say that's pretty good! Martin stopped in after we had been there for a while to see if we wanted to go to a club. "Nothing too crazy," he says, "just a light, laid back place." Seeing as how all of us had been awake for about 30 hours, we weren't really up for even "light" clubbing (good thing too, because we found out people who did go didn't get back until 6am). Before leaving, Martin advised us of which tram to get on to get back to Schiller. He also said don't worry about buying a ticket because they don't check at that time of night. So we rode the tram back for free and it let us off about 1 block from school. Talk about convenient! And thus, my first night ended very well, the beginning of many adventures to come.