Travels to Germany

Hey everybody! I have officially made it to Germany.  After traveling for the whole day I have learned three valuable lessons.  One. I miss my family and friends so much! Two. I never knew how attached I was to my cell phone. And Three. Any slight knowledge of German would be ever so helpful when you are in fact traveling to Germany.  Although I was actually pretty nervous to leave, the moment I stepped through security in Sioux Falls I didn’t feel the least bit nervous anymore.  The people I spent my trip with are really kind and embracing, as everyone is going through the same unfamiliar-ness.  The trip from Sioux Falls to Chicago went fast, and as a girl I was traveling with stated the plane looked like a pencil because it was so narrow and only had three people per row.  Once we got to Chicago we were actually ahead of time as we made our way to our connecting flight gate.  This plane on the other hand was a direct contrast of what we had previously been on.  I have not been on an international flight since I could remember and the amenities were awesome!  I watched two movies on my way to Frankfurt from Chicago: The Lucky One and Mirror Mirror.  The rest of the time was spent attempting to sleep and enjoying the two meals they served on the plane.

Once we finally arrived in Germany (yay!) we had to wait for our other group that was three hours behind us (boo!) so we attempted to find some food and get some sleep while we waited.  Once we met up with the entire group the adventure truly began.  We needed to find our hotel which consisted of taking the train from the airport to the Main Station with no knowledge of German.  I think it was pretty obvious that we were not from Germany because of the butchering we did of the German names.  I think we actually enjoyed attempting to pronounce the names but the locals were probably not impressed. 

After consulting some locals we found the right stop and arrived at the central train station.  From there we walked two blocks to our hotel.  Our hotel is in a very interesting area to say the least.  Don’t get me wrong, the area is nice except for the block we are staying on which happens to be right in the middle of the Red Light District.  Our hotel is nice and secure but surrounding our hotel are many strip clubs and various gentlemen clubs.  A plus to this location is that I am getting very good grammatical practice as an English major.  Many of the windows outside of the strip clubs have grammatical errors.  The one next door describes the women as “maybe to hot” instead of “maybe too hot.” I got a laugh out of that.  Right now we are getting ready to go to a local pub a couple blocks away.  We are being cautious and all that (don’t worry mom and dad)! That’s about all for now…Auf Wiedersehen! J