Arrival and First First Week

So...people have been wanting to know what I've been up to - and why I haven't gotten a blog post up, been active in Facebook before yesterday, or even answered emails. The reason is not that I've fled the country, hoping to cut off ties with the world that I know and love! The reason is really much more common and mundane than that - and much more annoying. It seems - and I'll explain further why this is especially irksome beyond the obvious below - where I live doesn't have an internet connection; thus, I'm limited for the time being to using internet only in the university itself, and where I live is not in the university. It was therefore really only a simple lack of access that has barred me from making contact. I hope that helps alleviate any worrying that some of you might have had, and I'm sorry to disappoint any of you who were hoping for the worst.

I arrived on Monday of this week actually - that would be Monday, October 5, 2009 in case you're keeping track for some reason. I left, as per itinerary, from BWI at 11:31 AM. My plane arrived in Chicago about ten minutes early, despite fighting a headwind the whole way. I had until, as per intinerary, 3:26 PM to sit and wait at O'Hare. This airport is huge, so I was happy that I had enough time to get where I needed to be, find my gate, and then get something to eat. As luck would have it, though, I didn't have to spend a lot of time hunting for my gate. It was about three or four down from where my plane came in from BWI. So the hour-long hunt for my next boarding gate was accomplished in about ten minutes. At first I was happy, but soon I grew peeved because, after having found my gate, I had nothing to do. My head hurt already from nervousness and lack of sleep the night before, and reading was therefore not really something that was making the time any more enjoyable. There were hundreds of people going in fifty-gazillion different directions, and all the food places were packed with people. I was hungry (The soup crackers the plane gave did little to abate my growing hunger.), and I didn't really want to herd into McDonald's with all the other twenty million people trying to do the same. I went to some stand, bought an apple and a milk, and went to a less crowded (notice I said less...that doesn't mean that it wasn't actually...) waiting area. I ate the apple and drank the milk and looked at my watch. I had spent about twenty minutes at the airport and already was bored. Coupled with my worrying about what was coming, I was really just a wreck inside. I think I projected a good front. Some woman and her daughter came up and sat down and started to talk to me, and then I wished that they would go away because I didn't really want to talk about Italy. I just wanted to get to Germany and get my worrying over with. The older woman then told me something that made me even happier - the plane was coming in from Germany, and it was experiencing a delay. That was all that I wanted to hear because I was already tired of sitting in the airport, and now the plane was late. There was nothing I was going to do about it. I tried to read during the next several hours, but that just didn't seem to make the time go any faster. Finally the plane came, we boarded, and then the real fun began.

The plane ride was seven and a half hours long, and I sat beside a man from the Middle East who was on his cell phone the entire time before the plane took off. He slouched and took up the entire armrest that was ours to share. When he had to put away his phone for takeoff, he did so, but then he started to fiddle with the TV in front of us (We each had our own little TV in the back of the seat in front of us.). He kept jabbing his finger on the screen, trying to get it to change channels, but the thing was that the safety video was playing so that we all would know what to do in case of an emergency. This man obviously didn't care about that. Finally, we got up in the air and the TVs allowed us to watch what we wanted to, and then he fell asleep. All that hassle about the TV and he didn't watch it anyhow. He was still hoarding the armrest, too. I decided to watch the German programming since I was going to Germany and flying with a German airline. It was decent. All in all, if I have to fly back to Europe again, I'm going with Lufthansa. The people were nice, the service was great, and the seats weren't bad for plane seats (I can't imagine that even first class seats are that comfortable...). The food didn't taste too bad either, actually.

After I got to Germany, I couldn't figure out how to work the phone to call home. I was tired (I hadn't slept on the plane - see above re: travelling partner for explanation), and I still needed to get to Marburg, which is about an hour from the airport by train. I managed to get my luggage after what seemed like an eternity and get to the S-Bahnstation. There, I couldn't figure out how to work the Kartenautomat for my train ticket. I finally asked a lady for some help, and when she looked at it, she didn't know either. I felt relieved that my German skills were not, at least, so inadequate that I couldn't operate the train ticket machine. If the native - who uses the trains all the time - couldn't do it, how was I supposed to walk right in as if nothing were different and perform flawlessly? That didn't rid me of my stress, though. Once I got the card, got on the train, and was on the way to the Hauptbahnhof, I realized that it might not necessarily be the next stop. I didn't know exactly what the name of the stop would be, and then I started to nonchalantly look at the Fahrplan - which happened to be on the ceiling of the train, and therefore made it difficult to catch seemingly inadvertent glances at it - in order to determine what the actual name of the stop would be. The train's roaring along, I'm standing there, gawking at the ceiling and trying to hold my luggage, and I'm tired. I just want to sit down, but the train is full of people and everyone looks so mad. No one is talking, and no one is smiling. I begin to ask myself what I've gotten myself into. Finally, I figure out which stop I need when we get there and the intercom instructs us that everyone must get off at this stop anyhow. I get off, people go in a hundred different directions, and there I am, not knowing what to do with my two brown suitcases from the late 1980s and my backpack - tired, worried, and lost. I pick up the suitcases and realize that my hands are aching from the junk therewithin, and I'm glad I didn't cram them to the max. I resolve that I'll somehow figure out how to do this better when I return home. I make it upstairs, only to find more stairs upwards. Finally, I find trains up yet another flight of stairs, and cannot make heads or tails of the signs hanging everywhere. There must be 20 trains standing there and more tracks with no trains in them. I do not know what do to, and then I see two Polizisten. I ask them which train is going to Marburg, and they tell me to take the train going toward Gießen, but I better hurry because it will leave in about three minutes. I was at gate 20-something and I had to get to gate 14 and board the train (which I knew would be full) in less than three minutes.

I made it to the train and was the last one to get on right as the doors shut. The train was not full. Actually, it was kind of empty. Then I started to worry that I didn't get on the right train, but I just wanted to sit down and take a rest. I did that and asked the man sitting beside if this train was headed in the direction of Marburg. He said it was, so I just sat back and tried to relax. About halfway to Marburg though, he again told me that the train splits in two at this stop and that if I'm going to Marburg, I have to go to the front section of the train. That was wonderful, really. I had to lug my baggage out of the train and up front and reboard. After about another 35 minutes, the train got to Marburg, and there I was - almost where I needed to be. I couldn't read the map how to get where I needed to go (We never learned how to read bus maps in German classes, yet they seem to be such a part of German life. If I were a teacher, I'd make it necessary to learn how to read German Fahrpläne so that future travelers will not be in my situation...), so I just took a taxi, which turned out to be the best decision I made that day.

At the orientation meeting, I got there late because my plane was late - of course! I was only about 15 minutes late, but I felt that everyone on the room was staring at me. Of course they weren't; they were looking at the people who were the "Tutoren" and who were introducing themselves and who happened to be standing near the doorway through which I came into the room. Anyhow, no one seemed to notice my arrival, and that was just fine by me. I found my group, sat down, and about perished. Then people wanted to ask me questions, and I'm sure I looked like an idiot - I made all kinds of mistakes with my German; I was just so tired. After about three hours there, they transported us to our dorms and I put on my sweat pants and T-shirt, threw down a blanket on the bed, and collapsed. I slept for about an hour and a half before I woke up, took a shower, and came back to just lay in bed for about another hour. That night we had a tour of the dorms, so I got redressed and went out for that, but I came directly back and went to bed. I hadn't slept so well in weeks.

That afternoon I realized I had no internet, and I was crushed. I had really looked forward to making some kind of contact with home via internet as soon as possible, and now that didn't look possible. I was tired. My arms and hands ached from caring suitcases. My shoulders ached from the backpack. I felt dejected and humbled for thinking that I could for some reason come to Germany and have no problem speaking but found out otherwise. I just was really feeling bad. If someone would have asked me right then and there if I wanted to go home - all expenses paid - and tell me I had to decide instantly, I would have packed up and came home. I just felt horrible. After waking up and walking around the grounds a little bit, that feeling subsided somewhat, and I realized that I could get internet in the city for a decent price. So, I'll soon have internet, but it might take a month before the device arrives for me to plug it into the wall. That's not ideal, but workable. It's especially annoying about the internet because I live in a dormitory village of about ten buildings - all of which have internet except the one that I live in. There is some technical problem with the structure that won't allow for internet from the university, and I'd have to be fortunate enough to get this one. I always draw the shortest straw in a game of chance...

The rest of the week was filled with formalities. I still haven't made any friends, but I haven't had any regular contact with Germans other than the Tutoren - everyone else has been from a foreign country. I'm excited to say that I've had conversations with Russians, Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, French, Brazilians, Tanzanians, and Chinese (as well as Germans!), and for the most part, these people seem nice. I do notice cultural differences between them and myself, but nothing unbearable. That's part of the point of the study abroad, though - learning about other cultures.

I'm going to stop writing now. If you read this far, I congratulate you. I probably would have quit by now. Soon I'll get some pictures of my room up here (which is nice other than for the internet) and of the town. Following posts should be oftener and shorter.