Here Comes The Sun

It is currently 73 degrees Fahrenheit in Saarbrücken and my windows are wide open so that the sun's rays can reach me directly as it sinks behind the silhouette of a neighboring house. Today has been the first truly warm day here since I arrived last weekend. I suppose I packed for a Texas summer, maybe even Mediterranean, but certainly not for the cold, rainy days I have been experiencing. At night it can drop into the low 40s, and on Sunday night I was so shivery that I had to resort to wearing two pairs of socks and curling up with my bath towel just so I could fall asleep in my drafty room. I even had to delete Fort Worth from my saved locations on the Weather Channel website because seeing the two temperatures side-by-side was making me homesick. I know this might sound melodramatic, but I just don't do cold weather, especially when I only brought sundresses and sandals to wear. However, it seems that summer has finally arrived in Saarbrücken (even if just for today). The sun is now shining, the voices of a choir fill the streets below, and I am a happy camper. :)

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine- and shadows will fall behind you.” -Walt Whitman

Willkommen in Deutschland

After 24 hours of travel (from Houston to Miami to Berlin to Saarbrücken), I have reached my final destination. My flight to Berlin and Saarbrücken were both delayed due to some type of plane repairs. By the time I reached Berlin and made it through customs, my next flight had already left so AirBerlin rebooked me on a flight several hours later with LuxAir. When I landed in Saarbrücken, the first thing I saw out the window was a tractor chugging along the runway. I started to wonder what I had signed up for--did I just travel 6,277 miles to arrive in a German version of Sealy? I couldn't find my suitcase in the baggage claim, so I had to fill out a missing luggage report. When the woman helping me asked me to describe my bag I told her it was black and really heavy. "How much does it weigh?" she asked. "Fifty-eight pounds," I replied. Wide-eyed she said, "Fifty-eight! Five, eight?" She even wrote it down and showed me the number because she couldn't believe it could possibly be right.

Afterwards, I took the bus into town and found the street where my new flat is located. Since I had no key, I had to wait for one of my flatmates to come home, which gave me some time to people watch. My flatmates are really sweet-- two are from France & one is German. They showed me the main square in the city and we stopped and talked over coffee before going to Karstadt, a huge store that sells just about everything you could need. A taxi came with my luggage at 19:00 and I hauled all 58lbs of it up 54 steps. The flat is located above two restaurants in an old building that is really close to the center of the city. My room has 2 large windows from which I can see lots of rooftops, pidgeons, and 4 church steeples. The hourly bells remind me of TCU.

the windows

The view from my room

A sweet note that was on my door when I arrived :)

Though I was exhausted on my first night, I decided to go out with Erika and Cécile. We went to a disko which ironically enough was hosting a "USA College Spring Break" party. I couldn't stop laughing when we walked into a room that was covered in American flags. It looked like a scene from a tacky MTV show.

 

I've spent the last 2 days getting settled into my room and acquainted with the city. I have a lot to learn before I can stop feeling like a tourist-- starting with German. I have forgotten so many basic words of the language, but I hope I will remember many of them with time. Tomorrow is my first day on the new job and I have so much to do to get ready. Wish me luck!

Déjà vu

A familiar scene-- I'm up during the late hours of the night packing for a summer trip that I leave for in four hours. Exactly one year and a month ago, I was doing the same thing but for my study abroad trip with Semester at Sea. I have learned so much since the Summer 2010 Voyage. When it comes to international travel, "this ain't my first rodeo." However, this is the first time I have ever gone anywhere on my own without friends or family, and it will be my first time to stay in one place for longer than a week. Though I am excited for this new chapter in my life, I'm also quite nervous for the challenges that it will bring. Even if I had gotten an early start on packing, I would probably still be awake right now from anxiousness. I am quite convinced that my suitcase is over the 50 lb weight limit, and I still have last-minute items to cram in. Hopefully the person checking me in tomorrow is gracious and understanding. I intend to sleep the whole way from Miami to Berlin, which shouldn't be too difficult since I will not be sleeping at all tonight.

I'm about to embark on what is sure to be my greatest adventure yet. Follow my travels (simply click on the links in the right sidebar) as I experience new places and make new friends and blunders along the way.

“Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to face many a danger, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.” — Annie Besant