Auf Wiedersehen Amerika, Hallo Deutschland!

Good bye America, hello Germany!

The picture is a bit dark, but you get the idea. We're not in Minnesota any longer! This picture was taken at the Munich airport while we were waiting for our bus shuttle to take off.

So my adventure started off at seven AM on the 28th of March, when I met with my fellow traveler, Matt, and we went to check in three hours early for our 10:00AM flight. The guy at the check in counter insisted that we be put on stand-by for both the 8:00AM and 9:00AM flights to Chicago, because of the weather, and subsequent delays there. We made it through security and to the gate well before the first plane took off. At first it appeared that we weren't going to make the 8:00AM flight because it was full, but there was one party that never made it, so we got ushered onto the plane at the last minute. It was a short trip, but there was quite a bit of turbulence and being that I had had an upset stomach since midnight the night before, it was a rough ride, but I made it without incident.

The flight arrived in Chicago without any delays, so we sat around for about four hours waiting for our big flight to Munich. That was pretty boring. But at least the flight to Munich was on-time. Because I had only gotten about 45 minutes of sleep the night before, I took some Tylenol PM before getting on the eight and a half hour flight. I slept for a little bit, probably two hours, and was up in time to watch the second and third movies. I dozed a bit through the third one. It was, again, pretty boring, and I probably went through every emotion imaginable while I was on that flight. The emotion that really has been sticking the most is disbelief. The whole "I can't believe I'm actually here, and doing this for four months" thing and wishing I was back at home. Actually, who cares about home, I just wish I didn't have to leave Kyle.

We touched down in Munich around 6:00 AM local time. So that was about 11 PM back home. Got the passport stamped, baggage claimed (mine was one of the first to come out - I totally won that!), and money successfully changed (31.41 Euro for $54 = OUCH!). Found the shuttle bus we needed to take, no problem. The bus ride was pretty cool. A lot of the landscape here reminds me of the rolling hills/farm country in Wisconsin. There were obvious differences, of course, but it was all vaguely familiar too. Now, we were told that we wanted to get off at the first bus stop in Ingolstadt, so we did. Except that when we got there, it turned out we were at the wrong stop. After asking directions (a scary thing, when everyone else speaks a different language - even though our German skills are pretty decent, the dialect is different, and it's easy to forget words when under fire), we ended up walking quite a distance through Ingolstadt with our luggage. But we made it. And we were met by some of the students from St. Cloud State that are living here, and we were whisked back to the villa that they're staying in.

Found out that none of the converters I have work, so I have to borrow Matt's until I get my own. But there is wireless internet here, for which I am eternally grateful, and so I've been able to send out emails to people and let them know I arrived safely. I tried to stay up through the afternoon, so that I could adjust easier to the time difference, but even on the bus ride, I was literally falling asleep where I sat, and after the long walk to the correct bus stop, and sitting down again to do some stuff on the internet, I was out for about a good four hours. Woke up in time for chili night, finally got some good food in me, since I've barely eaten anything substantial since eating at Kyle's on Tuesday night. And now I'm sitting back in our guest room with my beer/lemonade combination (which is not too bad, actually) and wasting time.

Tomorrow we're supposed to go on a tour of the Audi automobile museum with the St. Cloud State students already here. That should be fun, and I'm going to try and do some exploring, and hopefully get some more pictures taken. I haven't taken very many at all yet. But I have plenty of time to do so, so I'm not worried. On Saturday we get to make the trek to Eichstaett and really get into the swing of using our German. That will be interesting, and I may also have less access to the internet there, and as such may not be able to do as much updating and emailing as I would like. But I'm sure everything will work out in the end.

I miss you all already!

Bis später,
Amanda