On Saturday at 9:30AM I arrived at Dayton International Airport. My parents drove me there and along the way I was already beginning to miss them. I was also nervous about going through the check-in and security check process because I hadn’t flown since the summer before my senior year of high school when I went to California. I was afraid of messing up or not following directions correctly and looking embarrassed or getting yelled at. Surprisingly it was a very easy process. First I went to the check-in where they took my driver’s license and weighed my bag. Then they gave me my boarding ticket for the flight I booked online and also a “Heavy” sticker with a $60 fine for my bag weighing more than 50 pounds. It weighed 64 pounds because of all the books I brought. Then I took my bag to the checked baggage scanner, watched that go though, then went to the TSA security checkpoint with my personal item (backpack). I wanted my parents to watch me go through before leaving and I hugged them goodbye, holding back tears. Next, I approached the security checkpoint and I had to take my shoes, my belt, and my coat off and empty everything out of my pockets and take my laptop out of my backpack. I slid that through the scanner and then stood in a large scanner that looked like a pod and had a revolving sensor that circled my body. Then I went through, picked up my stuff, and grabbed a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit from a café before heading to gate C17. My flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 12:45, so I had about 3 hours to wait.
On the way to the gate, I ran into Nathan Wukie, who is an aerospace engineer on the same trip who will be working for Numeka in Nuernberg. We chatted until around 11, when I went over to my gate to board the plane. When I got over there, I waited for a little while until Julie Hess, a chemical engineer working in the ICP program working for Bosch in Stuttgart, arrived. She booked the same ticket as me and sat across the aisle from me on our first flight from Dayton to Dallas/Fort Worth with American Airlines. That flight lasted 2 hours 40 minutes, and then we went to gate D36 to fly from Dallas/Fort Worth to Frankfurt, Germany with Iberia, a Spanish airline owned by American Airlines. When we got to the gate, we got our first taste of Germany because many people were speaking German and the announcements came in both English and German. At this gate, I exchanged 610 dollars for 360 euros which was a terribly high exchange rate. I got the money placed on a Travelex Pre-paid Currency Card so that I wouldn’t have to carry around the cash. I was then able to later take this money out at an ATM. We boarded the flight, which was a Boeing 777 packed completely full of people. This flight lasted 9 hours 40 minutes and to pass the time, I watched 2 movies, Chronicles of Narnia: The Dawn Treader, and The Kings Speech (which was excellent by the way), along with some sleeping and reading my Germany Lonely Planet guide in between.
When we got to Frankfurt, it was 7AM in Germany time and we saw all the signs in German and heard everyone speaking in German. We followed signs for the Gepaeckausgabe which means baggage claim. We waited in a huge line until a woman worker came up and yelled at everyone in very fast German to go upstairs to an alternate entrance. She looked really annoyed by all of us because many of us were Americans and couldn’t understand what she said. Anyway, we got to the Gepaeckausgabe and gave the police officer our passports. He looked at them, stamped them with a visitor’s visa, and waved us on. Then we grabbed our bags which were there waiting for us. The next room we came into was a big green room for customs. There was a door that said “Nothing to claim” in English, so we walked right on through that one. I was nervous about going through customs, since I’ve never been out of the country and hadn’t done that before. But that was it, we just walked through that door.
Next we followed signs to the basement of the airport (Flughafen) to reach the Frankfurt Flughafen Bahnhof (train station). There, Julie and I met up with Justin Speer (Mech. Eng., Siemens, Passau), Corey Vinton (Mech. Eng., Leoni), Ben Zeigler (Mech Eng., Leoni), Corey Knapke (Mech. Eng., BMW with me!, Muenchen), Nathan Wukie (Aero. Eng., Numeka, Nuernberg), and Evan Sneath (Elec. Eng., Deutsch Luft-und-Raumfahrtechnik (DLR), Bremen). There we attempted to use the automatic ticket machine to buy a group ticket, which we did, but we weren’t sure if it was right because all it had on it was numbers. So we took the train from Frankfurt to Mainz and when we got to Mainz, we went into the Deutsche Bahn train station and sure enough we had the wrong ticket. The good thing was that nobody checked our tickets. So then we got two correct group tickets and took the train to Koblenz and had to change trains to get to Koeln. One of the trains we were on had a hydraulic door for the restroom that looked and sounded just like one of the doors on the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars. We took the regional trains, which were the slowest, but scenic trains. This was well worth it because we traveled along the Rhine River the entire way. There were vineyards spread all across the valley and we saw small towns along the river with castles perched on the hills. It was amazing.
Then once we got to Koeln, we took the S-bahn (city trains) to the Jugendherberge (hostel) where we are staying for the next two weeks. We checked into the hostel and got settled into our rooms and then took the train downtown to eat lunch and see the city. As soon as we walked out of the Hauptbahnhof (central train station) the Koeln Dom (Cologne Cathedral) towered over us. It is monstrous and intimidating. We walked past some street artists who painted on the sidewalks which were really cool. Then we walked down Hoch Strasse (High street), which is the major shopping strip. There were many American stores there plus 2 Dunkin Donuts and 2 McDonalds. They’re impossible to escape! After walking around for a while, we ate at a place called “Bratwurst”, can you guess what they served? I had a brat on a bun with some ketchup and mustard and a Reissdorf Koelsch, which is the most popular koelsch beer (a style of beer made only in Cologne) and we sat outside café style watching people.
After that we went back to the hostel and Corey, Ben, Nathan, and I tossed a frisbee outside for awhile. After that, I went to the front desk to ask for directions to the nearest Geldautomat (ATM maschine) but the woman at the counter could not give good directions. I went out 3 times to find it and couldn’t, so I asked her to draw it and then I went out one more time and finally found it. I took about 100 euros out because here in Germany, they don’t accept credit cards very often. Almost everything has to be paid in cash. I’ve heard that that is changing though. Anyway, I went back to the hostel and paid for internet (1.50 euro per hour) so that I could check my credit card balance and send some emails back home letting everyone know I was ok. Only about 2 people from our group of 13 had cell phones that were working, so I made sure to email home as soon as possible because I knew my dad would be worrying about me. My mom later that night called AT&T and got international calling enabled on my phone for 26 cents a minute. Then I got to talk with my girlfriend Janie on gmail chat and video chat for a few minutes. I was so happy to see her face again, even though it had only been two days. Then I went to bed after that because I was completely exhausted from jet lag (5 hour time difference this week, because of daylight savings, but normally 6 hours).
No comments:
Post a Comment