First Day!!!

So the first day started off well enough! I was finishing packing and all was going well until Matty came up to my room and started crying that he didn't want me to go to Germany. It was hard to say the least! Well we sorted that out a bit and then it was off to the airport!

The airport wasn't as hard as I thought it would be (at first)...

We took pictures of our group and here they are:

From left to right: Me, Zach, Hannah, and Rachel!

And then the goodbyes came! It was so hard having to say goodbye to everyone! Matt would not let go of me, Jenna was pretty sad too, Christina squeezed me so hard I thought I would pop, and everyone was crying. But it got better, everyone I was with was so supportive and we got our minds off of goodbyes as we made our way through security and the naked scanners!

We got to the gate and had to sit for a while, so we just all sort of talked and got to know each other a little better (as we really only knew each other from German classes)! As we were sitting at the gate, there were two very English boys who sat down across from us with Beers in hand. It was hard to understand them before, but the beer probably made it worse, as we could not understand a single word they were saying!! 

We boarded the plane a little later and Rachel actually boarded in between two members of My Chemical Romance (I couldn't tell you which ones), but I thought that was pretty cool! I sat in almost the very back, and as I sat down the Flight Attendant came up to me and told me that my TV on the seat was broken, and that he didn't have another one for me. What a great way to start out a seven hour flight haha!

I ended being able to watch things however, and I watched Source Code, Kung Fu Panda 2, and the Office (the one where Andy is in Sweeney Todd)!! The flight was long, and they served Chicken Curry which I couldn't eat (thanks stomach), so I had a granola bar and lots of water!

When the flight was finally over we had to make our way through Heathrow and only had a little bit of time before our next flight so we got to go through the express lane. (At first they made Hannah go through the normal line and let Zach go through the express line.. we had to explain that we were together). We finally made it to our next gate and boarded our second flight of 1 hour and 40 minutes. 

Here's Hannah Trying to stay awake.

I got to sit next to Hannah on this flight and we passed the time by coloring Disney Princess coloring pages!

 Hannah messed hers up... it looked like Jasmine bit Aladdin or something, oops haha!

The Before

 

 

The After.. My Rapunzel was kick butt!

Me and Hannah on the plane!

Oh and they had milk in a tube!! Yum!

After the second flight we finally arrived in Stuttgart! 

We got off and went through the customs and picked up our luggage without incident! As we walked through to pickup terminal 3, Dr. Malchow (The Prof. from Valpo) greeted us with a smiling face and in sweet sweet English! He said that we had to wait a few hours until we could leave, because we had to wait for the Reutlingen students to arrive on their plane. As we waited, he took us to an ATM to withdraw money if we needed to. Poor Rachel came back like five minutes later and said, "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I found some money on the floor. The bad news is, the machine ate my card." Dr. Malchow had to make some calls, but we were not able to get her card back. She really took it well though! We were all saying how we would be crying or pulling our hair out, but she was so calm! Win for Rachel.

When the Reutlingen students arrived we got on a bus and left for Tubingen! Here are some of the photos from that bus ride:

On the bus Dr. Malchow let us borrow linens from the Reutlingen program, as it would be too late to pick them up from the Hausmeister then, and we needed sheets and such right away. We dropped Zach off first, as he was the farthest from the Altstadt (old city where Hannah, Rachel, and I are).

Us dropping Zach off! Poor Zach had to carry all his luggage up the stairs by himself as we just drove away!

Some sign in the city that for some reason I felt the need to take a picture of.

Dr. Malchow then dropped us girls off near Hannah's dorm building! He quite literally just dropped us off and said "Have a good year!". Luckily Jake was already here and we knew a girl, Clara, that lives here now and studied at Valpo the previous year. She met us and helped us all move in one at a time! (God bless her!!!)

First was Hannah's room. It was up five floors or so, and we had to carry up Hannah's overweight suitcases, her linens, and poor Hannah has a walking boot on! Not a fun experience!

Here is the poster outside of Hannah's room (left from the students last year):

It says, in a nutshell, that wearing fur is dumb.

Here's Hannah unpacking later in the day:

Pikachu!!!

Next was my room. I live at Froschgasse 1 (Frog street pretty much). My room was by far the cleanest, but my floor is on a slope, which I suspect is because it is so old!

 Here is the view from my window!

 The stream under my window!

 The MASSIVE spider that was dead in my room that Rachel had to dispose of for me! Where's Jenna the spider assassin when you need her!!

 Froschgasse!

 The cafe outside my building!

 The church across the street from my room!

 Here's the main view of my building from the front!

The two shut shutters on the right are mine!

We took Rachel to her room next. She lives in a little room at the very top of her three floor building! The room has a little hobbit door and everything is a little slanted! 

At this point we were exhausted and Clara suggested that we get some ice cream, but since I hadn't eaten really yet, I suggested that we get some hot food! So, we went to the Neckar Mueller!

Here's the view from the Neckar Mueller, which is right on the Neckar River!

I really wanted to kayak here! Still do! It's a shame things like Kayaks don't ship cheap haha!

I ordered the Kaese Spaetzel mit Zweibeln, which is a cheese spaetzel with onions. First of all it was huge! And second of all, I guess I overestimated my hunger because Hannah and Rachel had to step in to get to even half of it! When the waiter came out he sort of yelled at me to next time get a smaller portion. Well next time I will.. 

After eating Clara left us, and we just walked around the city to try and learn the streets!

As we were walking around, I noticed a lot of Kirby's. Zach later said that they were like Hidden Mickeys and we had to find them all. Here are the two I found:

I thought of Matty when I saw these!

And I saw a few other things that reminded me of both Matt and Jenna!

IT'S RAINING MEN!!.. pretty interesting..

Yes, Mario is international!

After a long day of walking, flights, and stress, we went our ways and went off to bed. My room was so empty and I made the mistake of leaving my windows open for the night, so I could hear everything that was going on outside ALL NIGHT! I got no sleep that first night.. but hey there was always tomorrow.