The Neverending Day (September 1-2, 2006)

Well, well. This day was quite eventful. To me it feels like one extremely long day, starting at 8 a.m. EDT and then finally ending 33 hours later. I didn’t sleep at all on the plane. The guy next to me snored. I watched The Incredibles and listened to classical music (one was a symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams). My legs were cramped because I had my carry-on on the floor. It wouldn’t fit under the seat in front of me and I wanted it accessible (even though I barely took anything from it the entire time… that always happens to me). But I got through it with my legs intact, so it’s all good. The food wasn’t bad at all. In fact, the gravy that the chicken was in was very tasty. Except for a screaming child, it was really fun taking off. Steph said that she always closes her eyes when they take off, but I was enjoying it so much that I didn’t want to blink. It was so cool looking down at everything from the sky. I didn’t realize how high we had gotten until I saw some clouds below us. Everything was so small. We got above all the clouds eventually (around 35,000 feet)… the sky above was a darker blue than the sky is from the ground. It seemed like we were going slow, but we were going 550 mph. I caught my first glance of Europe when we were over the UK. It was still dark, but I could see clusters of lights from cities. Before that, I saw the St. Lawrence Seaway. Landing was normal. Germany looked great from the sky. …I always knew I would love flying.

In the Detroit airport, I pretty much saved a German family’s child. I was sitting at my gate thing and there was a German family sitting across from me. They had a 10ish year old son and a 3ish year old daughter. As I was looking around, I saw the little girl casually running away down the corridor thing through the throngs of people and the parents didn't seem to have noticed. So I went up to the lady and said "ma'am, I think your child is running away". I pointed in the direction and she ran off. When she came back, she thanked me. I felt special.

After we landed and I got my stuff, I had to find my way to the train station. That took awhile. It was so weird in the airport because it easily could’ve been America. Nothing seemed different… except that everyone was speaking German. After a while, I got my train ticket, found my way to the track, and waited. I was afraid that I was going to get on the wrong train, and I even asked some random guy sitting on a bench. The train was fun, but I was fairly exhausted from lack of sleep. On the train, I bought my first thing in German besides the train ticket: water. I was so thirsty. (In fact, as I’m updating this a few days later, I’ve been thirsty ever since I landed in Germany). It was a pain hauling my luggage on and off and through the aisle.

Upon arriving in Freiburg, I saw a guy waving around a yellow “AYF” sign, and so I went to him and he took me to the table. His name was Tim and he’s American. Surprisingly, the table was where I started to get stressed out, or maybe it was just when all the stress finally hit me. I took a cab to my dorm, and that was a fiasco. The guy ended up driving on a sidewalk… He was nice though. I don’t think he spoke English. After navigating the ghetto elevator, I made it to my floor, but I could not find my room anywhere. After much searching, I realized I was an idiot and had just overlooked it. But then I tried the lock and I could not figure out how to unlock the door. I actually had to knock on someone’s door and ask them to unlock my door for me.

I walked in my room and it was a bit dumpier than I had expected. There were quite a few cobwebs and it was dirty and dusty. There is one window and it’s fairly large, but there are no screens… anywhere. I unpacked a little, went for an unfortunately pointless walk, and took a 3-hour nap (that was the first time I had slept in at least 24 hours). In the evening, AYF had a pizza party and I met some people there. The head guy is Ulli and this year’s other head person is Professor Mittmann. She came with her son, Isaac, and her husband.

Ok, so the thought of being in Germany is fun. It’s like ‘heh, I’m in Germany’. But the reality is different. The reality is more like, ‘wow, I’m in this place that basically is the Midwest, I don’t know anyone, I barely speak the language, I don’t know where I’m going, and I have no idea how to do anything’. It’s in western Europe, there aren’t huge differences between here and any other westernized country. Maybe different countries will be more unique. But I’m sure it will be cooler and I will appreciate it more once I’ve slept.