Day...One?

Greetings from Schriesheim, Germany! :)

There was a one hour delay in the departure of our flight from Sioux Falls to Chicago which very nearly made us miss our connection to Ottawa. Andrew and I literally had about ten minutes to race across O'Hare to make it to boarding on time. We arrived a little late for boarding, but thankfully they started boarding late (just as we arrived) so we made our flight. Unfortunately, United Express was convinced that we wouldn't make our flight, so even though we did make it, they re-booked us on another flight. That wouldn't really be a problem, but our luggage was apparently re-booked as well and didn't make it onto the original plane with us to Ottawa. It kind of sucks being here with nothing but what I had in my carry-on (thank goodness I packed my toothbrush in there!), but with any luck the baggage will arrive sometime tomorrow.

I slept for almost the entire flight from Ottawa to Frankfurt, and with the help of some coffee to keep me awake for today, I think I might have managed to adjust to the new time zone. Either that or my body has absolutely no idea if it's supposed to be sleeping or active; I suppose we'll have to see how the next couple of days turn out. It's about eight o'clock now, anyway and I'm completely exhausted. Today was an easy day, we met the rest of the students at the airport in Frankfurt and then took a bus to Heidelberg which dropped us off with our host-families.

My host-family has turned out to be great so far! I'm staying with a couple named Anika and Johannes and their young boy (8) and girl (10). Anika took the time to show me around the smallish town of Schriesheim, which I have so far found to be very charming. :) Schriesheim is about 10km from Heidelberg. Everything here is green and lush and smells like flowers, mostly roses. The buildings are old, and the town has a lively feel. I'm looking forward to spending some more time exploring and really getting a feel for this place. Since it's so close to Heidelberg, and there are well established bicycle routes, and my host-family has a spare cycle for me, I think I might be riding a bike to school instead of the train once I understand the route a little better. :D

After our walk, we ate fresh strawberries and played Uno with the kids. Finally, we went to a pizza party to meet up with the rest of the summer program students and all of their host-families. I got to speak mostly English today, but will be expected to speak mostly German tomorrow and pretty much exclusively German from Sunday onward. I think that will be tough at first, but hopefully I'll become comfortable speaking it all the time without too much awkwardness. I'll be riding a train to Heidelberg tomorrow for an orientation and a tour of Heidelberg. I'll start posting pictures tomorrow, too. :) Until then, I'm going to try to get as much sleep as possible. Tchuss!