Tuesday, December 22, 2009

I am safe in Germany and currently have a belly-full of white russians. but before I talk about the white russians, I will tell a little bit about the events before them!

The first thing that people always ask when you arrive to a foreign country is, "How was the flight?" In a way, I am kind of happy that I have a story to tell about my flights! Before I left, I was stressing out a little bit because my mom realized that I only had 45 minutes in between my flight from Chicago to London. I wasn't too worried about this...until my flight from Des Moines sat on the tarmac at O'hare 15 minutes past scheduled arrival time. Finally when they let us off the plane, I darted from the plane like a bullet from a gun. I am by no means a fast person, so I was pretty worried (one of the reasons I quit playing softball was because of my sloth-like running abilities). I had ten minutes to run through two different terminals. When I was darting though the neon underground tunnel connecting gate C to the rest of O'hare my backpack throwing me off balance, I heard over the intercom, "Gate C18 to London Standstead for final boarding call." Out of breath and barely out of time, I made it to my gate right before the flight attendant closed the door!

My flight from Chicago to London was pretty uneventful, as well as my flight between London and Düsseldorf. I watched the movie Elf in english and in German, and then I watched It Might Get Loud before I got a couple hours of sleep. Being short is definitely beneficial when on a plane...

When I arrived in Düsseldorf after 14 hours of breathing stale air and airline food, Alexander and his sister, Kathy (pronounced like "Kat-ee"), were there to meet me with hugs and kisses. It was great to see them both!

"It's great to see you, Tori!" said Kathy in German, "How was your flight?"

"It was fine," I responded also in German, "But between at the airport in Chicago, it was the Airport Olympics."

.....

That night Alex's mom made a great typical German dinner for us. It had a few different kinds of meat and bread, nothing too extensive but still very hearty and warm. Then Alex and I met up with Thomas, Helge, Fabian, and Liza (some of Alex's friends that I got to know) at a bar in downtown Bottrop. Soccer was on in the background while I "prost'ed"(cheers) with delicious German beer. It felt great to be back.

Over the past months, my German went a little downhill. Well, not completely I'd say. I feel like I know more obscure words, but I forgot so much eveyday conversation so I had to relearn the basics in a way. "How long will you say?" sounds so much like "Since when did you get here?", so i had to re-explain myself so many times.

Before I left, I asked all the Germans I knew about snow in Germany. "Oh, it never gets too snowy in Germany," they all told me. "Don't worry about bringing snowboots, you won't need them." Big mistake. Friday night the snow began, and it didn't stop til sunday night. Although it created a beautiful and picturesque German atmosphere, it was not good for my tennis shoes and cute suede boots. Bwah, my feet were FROZEN the entire time. We went to a Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt) in the city of Essen on Sunday (see facebook photos ^_^), and my feet were completely frozen. But the Christams market was great. There were so many lights, carousels, and umlauts that it felt like i was in a german snowglobe. I got hot cocoa with amaretto liquor and drank it to warm myself up a little. too bad i couldn't soak my feet in it though.

actually, it's three AM and I will finish this in the morning. you will need to wait to read about the white russians..

2 comments:

  1. Oh my! Im glad you made your flight- thats scary! Have fun with Alex- maybe you guys can go boot shopping :)

    cousin Kay

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  2. I agree - it sounds like boot shopping is in order! LOVED your facebook pictures; Germany looks like a wonderful place to spend the holidays. Have lots of fun and drink a beer for me and the baby!

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