I can sum up my traveling experience in one word:
Cars
If it didn’t have four wheels the family didn’t go and it greatly limited our range of travel. It was no fault of anyone’s except unmatching schedules, expenses, and genetic anxiety, but I digress.
Ever since I was a child I have always wanted to study abroad and it was my dream. And if I would have told myself a year ago that I was doing this, I wouldn’t believe it; but here I am, in Germany, standing out as the American I am and I am LOVING IT.
I should start the journey from the very very beginning, so if you’re not into origins, go ahead and skip to the lil * later on.
So how I found out about the trip in general is the most drive-by thing that has ever happened to me. I literally saw the TVs in the CBA advertising it. I took a picture of the ad and moved on. Thinking that this trip would be popping, I showed up to the information session early and it turned out that I was the only one that showed up. It was like my own personal information session! Regardless, I took the information to my parents and with their blessings and half of my life savings, I was ready for the trip.
So, I’ve never been on a plane. Kind of uncommon for someone who is 20 but, eh, whatever. Thankfully my parents didn’t cry so I didn’t cry, but my brother. Like all siblings, we pretend to not give two flying fadoodles about each other, but when I wake him up he hugs me and says “Be careful Em.” In a if-anything-happened-I-don’t-know-what-I’d-do way; and that, of all things almost made me cry.
*As we got on the plane I psyched myself into it. Thinking “Thousands of people do this daily, you’ll be cool,” and you know what? I thought flying was AWESOME. I was lucky enough that on the flight to Philly I had a window seat and I fell in love. You really realize how small we are and how HUGE the world is. The flight was really bumpy and thank God I had my seat belt on because I would have flown right out of my seat! A lot of people that were traveling with us said that was the worst flight they have ever been on; I didn’t even think it was that bad!
What sucked though is that on the flight from Philly to Munich I could not sleep at all. The nice thing is that I was able to see out of the window of a guy who left his seat (thankfully) and I could see Ireland out the window in the wee hours of the morning.
Also the beautiful thing about traveling on those huge planes is that they’re very gentle. You rarely have turbulence and landing is a cakewalk. It really was nothing.
I won’t keep anyone too long on this one post but, I will tell you about my first days very soon!
Tschuss! (Goodbye!)
