As I sit in my hotel room at the lovely and fabulous NH Hoteles in Kleinmachnow enjoying my first meal in Germany (a Subway 6 inch Club sub) I can tell you that this adventure was clearly not for the faint of heart or body! It has currently been 30 hours since I left my house in Ohio and 35 hours since I was last asleep, and I’m pooped! Let me give you the quick run down so I don’t collapse.
Brunch- Had a farewell brunch at First Watch with my family. Amanda showed up to see me off. I was totally shocked that Amanda and my parents managed to pull it off with very minor suspicion.
Airport- Managed to get all four of my bags on the plane for a mere $100. That was the bonus of the century! Hung out and visited with Dad, Mom, Jordan, and Amanda until Dad got worried that I might get delayed by security and miss my flight. I then said a quick good-bye to hold back tears. (It’s like ripping off a Band-aid. In my case a quick sting is better than the slow torture .)
Columbus to Chicago- Uneventful. Crying baby on the plane, but we were not even in the air for one hour.
Chicago to Dublin- At first I sat next to a chatty high school graduate who was meeting his girlfriend in Dublin. Then, we realized that both of the seats in front of us were empty and I bade him farewell to sit in front of me so I could catch some Z’s. I followed my normal plane sleep protocol, but couldn’t sleep. Crazy! I did, however, get to enjoy some Irish Alternative music via the plane radio station.
Dublin airport- Squeaked onto the plane right as they were closing the door due to super slow security and people who kept cutting in line.
Dublin-Berlin- Slept. Slept like a dead log on the ground until it was time to put the tray table up and prepare for landing. Then, I saw my first glance of my new city. It looked green and full of lakes. Poor picture to follow…
Berlin airport- I arrived in the airport expecting to be reunited with my luggage, but unfortunately all of the luggage came and went except for mine and a pair of Americans who were also moving to the city. We decided to simply sit there and wait for more baggage to arrive since there was no one at the missing luggage counter. I knew that with my three huge and one medium-sized pieces of luggage I would definitely need a cart. Unfortunately, I gave all of my American change (except for a lucky 2007 penny) to the Aer Lingus Unicef envelope. (That’s right, philanthropy even in the skies.) I also only had Euro bills and no coins to release a cart. Sheesh! That’s when I decided that I would move my stuff the old fashioned way- by hauling two suitcases ten feet and returning to the other two and hauling them twenty feet. It felt like a totally messed up game of leap frog. Two German security agents watched and chuckled openly at me, but finally the man came over and helped. I walked through the gate to see a whole bunch of signs, but none for me. I pulled my bags to a post and started to sit and wait when I woman holding a sign that said, “Welcome Ashley to BBIS.” I smiled and she kissed my cheeks. (Which I'm not a huge fan of...) Then, I passed on the two heaviest suitcases to her and we packed them in her car and got coffee to talk about the schedule.
Kerstin (pronounced Cay-ah-steen?) and I went on a ton of errands. We saw four apartments, went to the Rathaus, got passport photos taken, toured the school (where a jackhammer was being used in my sealed off future classroom) and went three times to another BBIS teacher’s apartment to met her. The apartments were a whole range of goodies from, “Absolutely no way,” to “Ooh, I think I could live here.” More on them later after I see three more tomorrow morning.
I hope this will be coherent when I read it tomorrow morning.
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