Endless Wall of Text

It looks like I'm finally starting to settle in here - while adjusting to the city/language/culture/people here is still an ongoing development, I'm starting to pick up where things are, which buses to take, etc. so I don't feel perpetually lost and worried. I also spent a good chunk of today heading back to IKEA, meaning that I finally have my room outfitted with pretty much everything I need (short of some decor to break up the whiteness).

With things finally settling down, I decided it would be a good time to do some catch up and fill you guys in on what I've been up to. Just a heads up, I started writing this intending it to be a quick recap of my last couple of days and it kind of grew out of control rather quickly. Here's how my first "day" went:



Wednesday, January 21st

My mom drove me down to Logan Airport in the morning. I checked my bags, we had lunch and then she headed out around 1pm ish. My flight didn't start boarding until about 2pm so I just sat and waited, trying to keep an eye out for the other people on my group flight. I knew that there were supposed to be 5 people from my program on the flight but I only recognized 2 of the other names on the list. So while I was waiting I was trying to see if I could scope out who these other two people were. As I sat there longer and longer without seeing somebody else I recognized I was starting to get nervous - why the hell was I the only one here?

Just as the plane was supposed to start boarding, the woman at the ticket counter announced that our plane had a mechanical issue and it looked like we were going to be delayed but perhaps it could be fixed in time, otherwise they had another plane lined up that we could use instead with a slight delay. Around this time one of the people I recognized, (Melissa) finally showed up and I filled her in on the situation. Worried about the other missing person, (Lukas) I gave him a call to let him know about the delay/figure out where the hell he was. At this point I learned that he was still well on his way to Boston since he had misread the flight itinerary and thought the flight went at 6 instead of 2:30. I told him that I would keep him updated on the flight but chances are there was no way that he would make it in time. Within 10 minutes or so the woman at the counter announced that we were being shifted to the other plane with only about a ~30 min delay. We were a little worried about making our connection at Dulles since there was only a 1 hour layover between flights but we figured if it got desperate we could probably sprint and make it.

When we finally got on the plane, we figured out who the two mystery people were pretty easily since they were sitting right between us (Anya from Wesleyan and Leigh from Bates). We got crammed into the tail section - I was especially cramped since the overhead bin was already full when I got there and I had to cram my backpack, laptop bag, and coat into my foot space. Thankfully, the Russian guy in front of me had the decency to keep his chair fully reclined for pretty much the whole flight.

After a quick flight to Dulles and a nice powerwalk between gates (on pretty much opposite ends of the terminal) we boarded the nice big 777 to Munich. Once again, we were waayy back in the cheap seats - past first class, business class, economy plus class, all the way back to just plain old economy class. Nonetheless, it was a really nice plane - video screens in the back of the seats with 9 channels, music and a GPS map showing you were the plane was in flight. I just sat there and did the crossword.

The flight was about 7 hours long and we managed to land ahead of schedule at about 7am local time (1am for my body).



Thursday January 22nd

Landing in Germany was a bit anticlimactic - the sun still wasn't up and the ground was covered in a thick fog. The Munich airport terminal didn't even look especially German except for the "Kein Eingang"(no entrance) signs - it was just an endless, white tunnel to Customs and then the baggage claim. The downside to our flight being on time was that we just had to wait around longer for our ride to show up. The rest of the people flying in (minus Lukas, who had missed the flight and would be talking the same one the next day) were coming in about half an hour after us out of JFK. Our Resident Director, Lutz Huewel,(the guy in charge of this whole program) would then be picking us all up.

This proved to be my introduction to the concept of "Wesleyan Time", a general lack of concern for promptness. After meeting up with the people from the other flight (Kathryn from Wheaton and Heather from Wesleyan), we sat around a waited a bit and then finally met Lutz and one of the German student assistants, Karin (it's a bit hard to find somebody when you don't have a clue what they look like, but you'd think that a large group of American College students wouldn't be that hard to find.) While we were waiting for the van to be ready, Lutz gave us our housing assignments - I was a bit disappointed to learn that I was assigned to Hiltnerheim instead of somewhere in the Altstadt. During the hour drive to Regensburg, Lutz gave us info packets and told us a little bit about the program. We would be dropped off at our dorms and then be meeting up later for a quick tour and then dinner with everybody from the program (except Lukas).

When we got to Regensburg, I, along with Anya and Leigh, got dropped off at Hiltnerheim at about 10 am local (3 am my time). Karin showed us to our rooms and then headed out. With nothing to do until 4pm, we all decided a trip across the street to the little shopping center was in order. There is a Sparkasse (a bank) a Netto (a small, discount grocery store) a bakery and a few other stores. I picked up a few things at the Netto but ran into a now all-too-familiar problem at the register - they don't take VISA. I had been hoping to avoid the fees associated with ATMs by using a debit card but I soon learned that I would have to bite the bullet and start carrying cash.

After I got back to my room, I met one of my suite mates, Johanas (I share a kitchen, 2 showers and 2 bathrooms with 4 other people who live in singles like mine). In my over-tired state, I couldn't really carry on an intelligent conversation in German or even English at that point so I just looked like an idiot. After a bit of unpacking I tried to do some writing and soon realized that I was not going to make it much longer without a nap. 3 hours later I got up and headed out to meet up the rest of the Hiltnerheim people so that we could take a bus to the Altstadt together. There I met Erwin (Wesleyan) and Elaine (Wesleyan?). Elaine actually lives in the Altstadt but she had come down to be our guide since she had been here for the previous semester and knew her way around.

After a short wait at the bus stop and about a 10 minute ride, we were in the city proper. A quick walk to Haidplatz and we were ready to wait around for everybody else to show up. At this point the nice warm (by Maine standards) weather had gotten quite chilly and windy. I'm still getting used to how much the weather changes over the course of the day here. Eventually everybody showed up: Tyler, who I already knew from Wheaton; Susie, another of the German student assistants; and Neil and Jarell, both from Vanderbilt.

Lutz took us on a brief tour of the city (not brief enough though) and then we went back to Haidplatz for dinner at "Da Tino", a pizzeria. By this time it was about 6 O'clock (12pm, day 2 for my brain) so as much as I wanted to get to know the people from the program and chat, after a beer and a whole pizza, I was about to pass out at the table. Unfortunately, Lutz was pretty wrapped up in conversation at the other table so we stayed there for about 2 hours. Finally around 8:30 or so we called it quits. I got back to my room around 9 or so and went straight to bed.