I AM SAFE! It’s wild to think that, a mere 22.5 hours ago I was still sitting on the back porch at the farm, eating food (leftover from 4th of July feast (on the 3rd)) visiting with family (also leftover from the 4th of July). And now I sit back in my apartment in Nürnberg. Dude.
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| THEY INCLUDED TWIX IN THE LUNCH PACK!!! SOOOOO HAPPY!!! |
Friday’s traveling was rather uneventful. I was everywhere that I needed to be, at the appropriate time. I took the fast train to Frankfurt because A) I didn’t need an extra hour of public transportation added to the entire day of traveling I had ahead of me, and B) I like sleeping in. On the 8 hour flight to Washington Dulles airport (in D.C.), I sat next to Roy, an electrical engineer who was travelling on a business trip. He was pleasant. It was a very weird sensation, returning to the U.S. but I was super ecstatic! We were ALL funneled down into a customs area. When I got my first glimpse of the crowd that was gathered there, I was overwhelmed with love for my fellow countryman. 45 minutes later, I was overwhelmed with hatred for U.S. airline security policies. For some reason, IT TOOK FOREVER!!!!! But then I survived, and left all those peons in the dust. But I was still in a pleasant mood, because hey, I was comin’ home!! At the gate, since it was a regional flight I was to take next, there were three slated to depart from this same gate all within 10 minutes of each other. WELL, the Jacksonville flight was having trouble getting their stuff together; 15 after their slated departure time, they STILL didn’t have a crew!! Apparently they eventually found the B-team, which would have to suffice, and they were sent on their way. Then the guy (Indian fellow) called for the next flight to board to Peetsburgh. And THEN it was Day-ton’s turn. Our stewardess was extremely fun, witty, and engaging. She blamed her gregariousness on it being her last flight. “Turn your cell phones to OFF Off off, or else Rambo’s coming for you!” And later on in the spiel, she said “Do not tamper with the smoke detector in the bathroom, or else who’s coming for you?” and we all answered “Rambo!” She liked us! I sat next to a man (never got his name) who worked for BWI Group (?) as an industrial engineer. Said he travels maybe an average of 18 months a year! Eek! But he was super easy to talk to, and the entire hour-and-a-half flight from D.C. to Dayton, I didn’t read a single page of my book, or listen to a single song on the iPod. And I’m okay with that! :)
Mel and Grace were waiting to ambush me when I walked out of the gate. “Ambush” is too strong of a word, so perhaps they could’ve been waiting for me like this:
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| Grace and Mel (L, R) |
And Grace was NOT as calm as that picture would lead you to believe. I was attacked several times. Goodness gracious. :) Seeing as I didn’t sleep too much on the marathon flight, I was resorting to hyperactivity to keep myself awake, and I must confess, we left quite a message on one of our AWOL roommate’s voicemails. Hahahahaha. :D They were kind enough to drive me home to pick up Miss Daisy! If there’s definitely one thing I miss about being in Germany, it’s being in control of my own transport (i.e., driving). And if there’s definitely a second thing I miss, it’s SKYLINE!!! Which is where we head to next. And I was satisfied.
Saturday morning, Wedding morning. All is well, except for being disoriented when my alarm clock on my iPod goes off at 8:30, except I forgot to change the time zone of the iPod, so it actually went off at 2:30. Oops. Erik shows up at the Tux at 9:25, demanding to know why I wasn’t ready at 9, when he CLEARLY picked 9:30 over 9. So I said, had he picked the earlier time, I would have been ready earlier! Silly boy. Time was spent collecting all the little things I had left behind me in the whirlwind I created during the one day pack-and-leave frenzy back in March.
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| We two, in our finery |
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| I, Danielle, Emily Cost (hee hee hee! :D), Megan, and that man (eek!) is Bobby Cost |
Emily’s wedding: lovely, beautiful, and catholic. And as we sat down, I remembered that I had forgotten to tell Erik that she was catholic and that we’d have to sit through a mass in addition to the ceremony. Needless to say, we were BOTH surprised when the entire ordeal ceremony only took an hour! From the church, we went to a Wendy’s that was on the way to the reception hall, and got vanilla frostys.... mmmmmmmmmm :D We get to the reception hall, and the DJ starts playing music until the bride and groom get there. I remembered that I had neglected to Erik that there would be a lot of country music at this reception. Or at least more than he would prefer (which is zero). Haha, oops. There were a lot of people there who I hadn’t seen since high school! Okay, maybe not “a lot,” but a couple. Jeannette and her family told me they had placed bets on whether I would be wearing a dress or slacks. Kristen told me that she wanted me to get tipsy so she could hear me say that I liked hugs. It was fun!! Food was eaten, disgusting American beer was drank, and pictures were taken. :D I was very happy to be there and sharing in the celebration!! In no time, it was 6 PM and the party was over. Sadness. So I drove Erik back to his car on Moerline, and headed to the Farm to visit the Fam! Uncle Jack and Aunt Penny were grilling ribs and whatnot. Everyone finally got alltogether at the Farm, and the sun set at a reasonable hour. (not this 9:45 nonsense as in Germany) I exhausted my reserves of energy at 10 PM, and went to bed halfway through the fireworks.
And slept for a solid 10 hours. I think. George was a pleasant roommate this time. Either that or I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, thus rendering his pleas for attention ineffective. Hmm, I’m thinking it was the latter. Food started getting to the house around 2, and people started getting there around 3. Erik’s dad (who works at Sam Adams downtown) brought a small cooler of beers from the plant. Among them was Sam Adams East-West Kölsch! Umlaut and everything! Before you ask, OF COURSE I had one! And for a split second after you take a sip, it does indeed have that bland, angry tang that is characteristic of the Kölsch Bier of Köln!! Not my favorite, but it was genuine nonetheless! I also had a regular Sam Adams, as well as Hardcore, a hard cider (get it? Haaaa...). So I was feeling good by the time we got around to playing Bocce ball after dinner.
Monday wasn’t much to speak of... Getting stuff together, Kroger-ing for provisions :D, and visiting with family until 4:30 (or so) when Mom Dad and I set off for Dayton airport. An hour-and-a-half later, we were still on the highway, I had already consumed my Big Boy (and vanilla root beer), so I was unoccupied, and starting to get rrreally really anxious that we hadn’t seen an airport yet. So in order to maintain my sanity (and that of my fellow passengers) I stopped talking after a short while. We stopped at a gas station and asked directions, and the guy dad asked turned around and pointed south down the highway in the direction from whence we came. Sigh, of course. But at least we had a definite direction now! 20 minutes later, we see a sign for the airport AND I-70, both at the same time. Incredible. On the way north, we saw NEITHER ONE. We were so confused, but we followed the airport sign just the same. And I made my flight. Chicago O’Hare is HUMONGOUS!!! So was the plane. I was worried, at the gate, that I would have to sit next to the huge group of schoolchildren, but they were at the front of my section in the plane, and I was just one row in front of the crew’s quarters, so I could hear them being real people, occasionally. I like American Airlines! Because the movies and such were much more user friendly than on United Airlines (or whatever airline I was using on my initial flights to and from Germany); I actually got to pick WHEN the movies started! And because they had such a good selection of movies that I actually wanted to see (as well as Tetris! Yeah, you read right, we could play GAMES on this flight!! WIN), I saw three movies and a tv show episode, and didn’t sleep at all. Not my smartest choice. So we touched down (after a moment just after landing, when the momentum of the plane lurched to the left for a second, and my stomach twisted and I pictured us all somersaulting on the runway. Guh) in London. Another huge airport, but not as open as O’Hare, so it wasn’t as visually impressive. I sat there comatose (but still awake!) for an hour until we boarded this scary-looking jenk little airplane from British Airways. I don’t like chex mix. Landed in Frankfurt. Customs chap asked me where I was going. Last time (in March) the guy asked me what I was doing. Do they ask different questions each time? Regardless, I was taken aback. And also unlike last time, I wasn’t intimidated by customs, having been through it a GRAND total of four times since March. Also kein Angst hier! Once the luggage FINALLY dropped onto the belt, I wandered for a grand total of 10 seconds until I realized I wasn’t in the main terminal. Took the fast train to Nürnberg. I was so ready to crash, but The Devil Wears Prada was there to comfort me. But only because it was a book, and very well-written. I finally got to Nü-town, finally got to my apartment, finally reached the top of the steps, and the first thing I did was collapse onto my bed. Aahhhh... The rest of yesterday evening is foggy, though I do remember checking Facebook, and being reminded by Karin to call our mother. Oops. This was 15 minutes before I wanted to go to bed. [As I stated before,] It seemed unreal that a mere 22 hours earlier, I was still talking to Uncle Eric, Aunt Diane, and Aunt Amy on the back porch of the Farm. So I called mom. I don’t remember much of the conversation, other than at one point I realized that she was talking an awful lot! How could anyone have so much to say at one point in time? Craziness. But I did, I think, manage to have an okay conversation, and we hung up, and I lost consciousness.
I “officially” woke up today at 6:30 (to the iPod; I missed my first alarm at 6), but napped/sprawled around in bed until 8. I still made it in to work on time! Woot. I was coasting until 10:45, when I started struggling with sleep. Then came lunch, and the fight got harder, so I had COFFEEEEEEE!!! With lots an’ lots of sugar. Nom. And that did the trick. As though it had slapped me, and screamed “YOU ARE IN GERMANY!!! Now wake up and ACT like it!” Or something like that. And I didn’t have a problem with latent jet lag for the remainder of the day! I got home from work (after standing 16 minutes and 41 seconds in a horrendous line at the post office!!), took a shower, and tried not to get distracted as I typed this blog post. Seeing as I got the first part of it done yesterday when I arrived (so THAT’S what I did all evening! Let’s play a game: whoever guesses correctly at what point I stopped writing last night, that person gets a fine prize! Hint: the part I wrote today should be more coherent.), I only had a portion of this to write, so it should not have taken me six hours. Goodness. Whelp, here ‘tis! :D
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