"Day 1 - August 31 to September 1."

I'll be popping up in italics in this post to for clarification and editing purposes...

On the flight. =) 1734 chicago time.
Watching Black Books and then Goodnight and Goodluck. Then bed. =D

Love it. This is so exciting!!!





"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."





I'm in Frankfurt. In the bahnhaus ... at least, I think it's the "bahnhaus"... Either way, it's the train station. (Actually, it's the "bahnhopf") Bank and I booked a train that would depart the station at 10:54 - extra time to be sure that we would make it through baggage claims and customs and not be too late. Well, we got here at about 8:54... So we have plenty of time.


Mind you, I'm not actually updating live. All of this is actually from at notepad note that I started on the plane because I couldn't sleep, then I got spontaneously paranoid that the excessively tall man a seat behind and across the aisle from me was watching me type, so I minimized it and pulled it up again about an hour before we landed in Frankfurt to write the Hitchhiker's quote and then closed it up again...


So, Currently it's 0220 in Chicago. I've been up for a LONG time. I got about two half hour naps in on the plane, one right after takeoff and the other right before we landed. Brilliant, eh? But I had NO legroom, and my knees were bugging me almost the entire time. Even now, sitting at a cafe in the bahnhaus (yes, I'm going to call it that until I get to free internet and can look it up) my knees are starting to "lock up". They're not really locking up, but if you imagine my knees as a hinge that's rusty... that's kinda what they feel like...

Bank made friends on the flight with a guy named Aaron and a girl named "E" (I can't really hear her when she says here name, so that's what I gathered. got her facebook info later, it's "Yi" ) They went with us from the Frankfurt baggage claim to the cafe where we're now sitting. Except Aaron, he didn't like "loitering" in the cafe (we all bought stuff!) so he went off on his own and is now sitting on the floor about 150 yards away from us. ANYWAYS. Aaron and E are from the University of Minnesota and will be studying in Freidbrugh (I think). They're catching a train at noon from here, so Bank and I will be leaving first.

I turned on my phone while I was here, just to check the time and a) it's still on Detroit time, which I find amusing; and b) it gets signal. So I emailed mom to tell her that I'm safe and alive and waiting on my train.

But now my battery is getting low and I still don't have a power adapter for it (silly me, not buying it before I leave...) So I'll be getting one of those soonly and then I'll update the Bloggy-thingy and get all y'all up to speed on how things are going. =D





By the way - I'm soooo incredibly excited. I can hardly believe that I'm here, actually doing this. It's so amazingly surreal, somebody pinch me! =D


Love and hugs,

~erin


It's currently 2020, and I'm not quite ready to do the shower/sleep thing just yet... So here's an update of what I got to do!
That was all written at the Frankfurt Airport/Train Station. After an excursion which included running up flights of stairs with two big >50lb bags each to catch a train, Bank and I made it safely to Pforzheim and met up with Elena who drove us (and our luggage!) to Keplerstrasse, our dorm.

Upon arrival, we found out that THEY HADN'T PROCESSED OUR APPLICATIONS YET. Fortunately, since we were there with our luggage, they just gave us new applications and set us up "right away." (We got there at 1245 and got our rooms around 1400) ((Sorry about the 24-hr time mode, but it's easier for me to keep track of things this way here, since that's how everyone else does it...)) But between 1245 and 1330, we were frightened by a large, frustrated, German pirate. Ok, he wasn't *actually* a pirate, but he was wearing short pants (floods, maybe?) and had tattoos and an earring. He reminded me of a pirate. He was the hausmaster and turned out to be really nice, but was just really frustrated that we showed up without hearing from them first. (Though, we sent in our applications for housing in JULY, so I think we were justified in thinking that it would be safe to show up, since we had heard no news otherwise.)

After we got our rooms assigned (I'm 220) Bank and I went to the car and got our bags to bring them back to the room. At this point in time I was very tired and frustrated that things just HADN'T been working out the way they were "supposed to". It was the first (and only) time that I thought "Damn, I want to go home." But that thought didn't last very long, because as soon as Bank and Elena had dropped Bank's bags off in his room, they came down to mine and we all went up to the university itself to look around and get something to drink (Bank and I were extremely thirsty!) The university has really large buildings of glass and steel, but they're not as foreboding/prisonlike as the IIT ones are... ;-) Elena signed on to her computer account (Bank and I will be getting our own sometime next week) and let us use the internet access, but I only really had time to email Mom and tell her that I was alright.

After that, Bank and I realized that we needed to pick up a few things that we had forgotten/didn't know we needed. Bank wanted a SIM card for his phone and I wanted to pick up an adapter and we were told that we needed CAT-5 cables for internet in the rooms. Now that i realize that my phone works here, I might pick up a SIM card as well, if I can find an instance where it's cheaper than a pre-paid phone... We'll see, I want to go back down to Pforzheim tomorrow to havre K&M (the computer store in town) order an adapter for me (nobody I went to had one, but they offered to order one for me) and look at pre-paid phone/SIM card options.

So, Elena dropped Bank and I off in Pforzheim. Now, our dorm is not very far from the center of the city, but Bank and I were very tired and apparently not paying much attention to which way Elena was driving when she took us down there. We knew that the #5 bus went from the university to the city, but we didn't know how much it cost (when we get our Student ID cards, it'll be free). So we walked back. It was quite a trek. We got quite lost. =D We ended up in probably the swankiest neighborhood of the city. It was gorgeous, HUGE houses (I wish my phone hadn't died, I would have taken some pictures!) and very green, lots of trees and shrubberies, and really nice cars. We asked two different people for directions back to the dorm (we were getting a bit tired, Pforzheim is VERY HILLY. Especially for an Illinois girl ;-) ) The first woman was very nice, but didn't speak one word of English. And unfortunately, neither Bank nor I have enough German (classes start on the 7th) to get around yet, so we walked off in the direction that she pointed and after about 15 minutes we asked a bicyclist if he knew the way. Fortunately, he spoke English, so we didn't have to worry about miming and he pointed us down the road that we were about to cross and told us that soon there would be signs directing us to the "Hoschule" (University). Thankfully, we saw our dorm (came up from the other side of the building) and made it safely back to our rooms before it even began to get dark.



Ok, this is the transition from "narrative" to "updates" I'm only going to put in a phrase here or there in italics to clarify... Be warned, I was very very very cranky at this point... But internally, I tried VERY hard to keep it inside and not let the situation/heat/frustrations of the day get the overall attitude of the First Day down.



1043 chicago time - 1743 erin time.

I'm tired and cranky. And I want to a hotel. All I really want to do is take a shower and go to sleep, but i'm too hot and tired to move. And I really want to call my parents. But I can't. My phone is dead and I have no internet. This makes Erin very sad and cranky. Put that on top of the fact that she's had a rough 24 hours and I feel bad for everyone who has to deal with me today...

On the bright side, I think I got my toilet to work... =p I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS. I'm feeling very self-righteous and entitled and angry.

Ok. battery is dying. GR. I don't have an adapter to charge it and I don't know where Bank is to borrow his... GRRRRRR. I'm really hating life right now...



1807 - Bank lives in 211. He's lending me his adapter for now. He's also going to talk to the housing master about what's going on with the internet...



2001 - Wrote the family on Kenneth a letter with some interesting aspects of my day. =) Then decided to clean/organize my room for the first/only time. And promptly fell asleep. Bank woke me up about 15 minutes ago to see if I wanted to go to "7E" aka: the gas station around the corner with him. As soon as I said "sure" and put on my shoes, it started pouring. It rained the entire walk there, stopped while we were inside, and rained the entire walk back. I think Murphy needs to take his laws BACK to America...

Anyways, I'm exhausted, still, and won't have internet for the night, so I'm going to plug in my phone and charge that for a while, email Mom again, and then shower, put on some clean clothes, put on Pride and Prejudice, and go to bed...

Alright, it's 2100, Pride and Prejudice is running, I charged my phone and will be able to take pictures tomorrow when I go down to Pforzheim. (Hopefully I won't get lost this time... Bank's coming too, though! No worries!) I'm going to get some PJ's out and shower and go to bed. (Yes, I know that's probably TMI, don't worry I won't be giving updates like this too often. But keep in mind, I've been walking around German Cities for the last ... bunch (8-ish?) of hours...)

Much love!