Journey Back to America

So it has taken me a while to get this on here…but I couldn’t just leave it out!  It was a huge part of my Germany Experience!  So I woke up at about 6am and my friend drove me to the airport.  He dropped me off and I struggled getting my bags inside.  I had 2 huge ones, a carry on, and an extra large purse.  Once finally getting situated and inline to check my bags, I get up to the counter and my bag is so heavy they won’t let it on the plane!  It was 36 kilos and the limit is 32, after that it’s considered cargo and can’t go on even with the extra charge!  I knew that bag was going to be overweight, but not that much.  So I had to scoot over to the side and proceed to unpack and reorganize my suitcases in the middle of the airport in front of everyone else checking in!  I sat there for probably half an hour working on it! It was miserable!  I was sweating and freaking out and couldn’t get it to fit back in there.  I was just taking the heaviest stuff I could find out of there and shoving it in the other bag.  I finally just shoved an entire vacuum sealed bag of clothes into my purse!  And some sweet German lady helped me push on the one bag while I zipped it up!  And I overheard this lady in the other line tell her husband, “that poor girl had to pack and repack her bags for like 30 minutes!”  Once I finally got it packed, I jumped back in line…luckily they let me right in at the front I didn’t have to go to the end.  I got checked in and the lady handed me one ticket and then sent me to this other guy to pay.  I was like um my final destination is KC, do I get my other boarding pass in Detroit?  And she was like why didn’t you say that sooner…its too late now, you will have to re-check in there!  So then I was freaking out that I was going to have to pay again to recheck my extra, overweight bag!

So I finally get through security just before boarding begins and I am just sitting there crying wishing the day were over!  I get on board and the flight went pretty well.  I couldn’t sleep since it was the middle of the day in Germany…but I watched 4 movies.  We finally landed in Detroit around noon and of course I had to go through customs which I was dreading!  Luckily it went pretty smoothly.  I got welcomed back and then I stood there and waited for my bags.  I got a cart since I had so much luggage and as I was pushing it to the customs checkpoint…a police officer stopped me!  My heart started racing…he was like can I see your passport and I was like “Sure, I just got done studying abroad for 5 months that’s why I have so much stuff!”  Luckily he just smiled and handed it back to me and let me continue!  I walked up to the desk and the guy was like you have a lot of luggage and I had to explain myself again.  He looked over my customs form, asked me what kind of food I had and then welcomed me back and let me go through!  I didn’t have to get my bags gone through…HALLELUJIAH!  Then I proceeded to recheck my bags in!  I told the lady at the desk that the lady in Germany didn’t know what she was doing and only sent my bags here, not to KC…she was really nice and just printed me new tags!  I didn’t have to pay anything else! :) 

Then I had 7 hours to kill before my departure to KC!  So what’s the first thing I did?  I got a Large Dr. Pepper from McDonalds! :)  Then I sat down and relaxed for awhile.  I called my mom, dad, and Grandma Donna.  I even got so bored I called my other grandma that likes to talk forever!  I finally had to say ok I need to go eat some dinner to get her off the phone.  Then guess what I had for dinner? Taco Bell of course!  After sitting around for what seemed like forever, we were finally able to board.  And about 2 hours later, I arrived in KC! On the plane, I was sitting next to this really nice lady and we talked about my studying abroad and she said her son is in the military and was stationed in Germany for awhile, but is now in Kansas and she was going to visit him.  Then the guy in front of us started talking to me in German.  I only understood a bit of what he was saying, but it was cool.  He had studied in Spain and we talked about our experiences and then what we are doing now.  It was the most conversation I have ever had on a plane.  I wished they would have been on my 12 hour flight! lol

Anyway, after we arrived in KC, I was getting off the plane and I come around the corner and start heading to the baggage area and my family was right there around the corner and just about scared me to death…I almost didn’t even see them because I wasn’t expecting them right there! So we headed to the hotel and that was the end of my crazy stressful day and the end of my “Life in Germany!” :( 

20 Things I am Not Going to Miss About Germany

1. Walking everywhere!

2. Carrying heavy groceries

3. Hard and boring classes

4. Catching the bus or train

5. Sorting all of my garbage

6. The tiny refrigerators

7. The extremely odd weather (especially since its usually cold)

8. Outrageous prepaid phone plans

9. Over priced soft drinks

10. The size of a so called “large” soft drink

11. Not being able to read the menu because it’s all in German

12. Having to pay for public bathrooms.

13. Delayed trains!

14. Not being able to stay out late unless you want to stay out all night!

15. CNN being the only channel I can watch and understand because everything is in German.

16. Not having my favorite fast food restaurants.

17. Not having a dryer and having to hang all my clothes and wait for them to dry.

18. Stores closing at 6pm and nothing being open on Sundays!

19. Horrible internet connection.

20. Not having doctor pepper, maple syrup, and peanut butter easily available!

20 Things I am Going to Miss About Germany!

1. All of my wonderful friends from all over the world!

2. The beautiful scenery…vineyards everywhere.

3. Ease of Travel to other countries

4. Toni’s Ambstkeller

5. Schnitzel

6. Berliners

7. Doner (even though it’s not German)

8. The 2 Euro bottles of delicious wine.

9. Franziskaner (pretty much the only beer I like)

10. Having wine with every meal.

11. Primark and the Cheap Clothes!!!

12. Pork Knuckle

13. Feeling safe walking home alone after dark in this little town.

14. Hearing everything in German and picking out the words I understand!

15. Sitting at the bar and not understanding a word everyone is saying, but still having a good time!

16. All the exercise I get from walking a lot.

17. EBS parties and house parties.

18. The beautiful architecture,old buildings, and parks.

19. Saying Danke, Bitte, and Tschus all the time!

20. The fresh baked goods everywhere, especially pretzels.

Departure from Barcelona

I woke up at 3am, threw my clothes on, and looked out the window to see if there were any taxis sitting around and there were 2 by the hotel.  Pauli had told me to check for some before I called one.  So I knocked on her door (she wanted me to wake her so she could watch me leave).  She came out and I headed down to ask about the taxi.  When I got down there, they were both gone!  I called back up to her and she let me back in.  She called the taxi for me and I stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting. After about 10 minutes she hollered down at me, I don’t know where they are, I am calling them again.  Then this stupid street washing machine was going by, she yelled down that there were several taxis stuck behind it!  I was like great!   

Finally it passed and I went out to stand by the road.  Three taxis passed and none of them were mine, she was yelling at me that she thought it was the next one and I was pointing and yelling at her and she was like yes and the guy in the car was nodding his head, so I walked over and jumped in.  He asked me something in Spanish, I assumed it was where to? So I just answered Estacio Nord.  We hit almost every read light and my bus was supposed to leave at 3:45…it was 3:37!  We finally got to the station and he was talking to me in Spanish and I was like I’m sorry I don’t speak Spanish and he was like do you need a receipt and I was like oh no lol. 

Then I ran into the station to find the gates were closed and the passage to where the tickets and information were was closed!  I headed down the stairs to the platform freaking out because I thought I couldn’t buy a ticket.  It was pretty dead there because it was like 4am!  I saw this guy sweeping up trash and I was like do you speak English and he shook his head yes and I was like is it too early to buy tickets?  And he was like Girona?  And I was like yeah and then he started rambling in Spanish and pointing and then I saw a group of people with suitcases so I headed over there.  I tried to go through the doors that I thought the guy was telling me to go through, but they were locked too!  I just stood there wondering what to do for like ever and then I saw these two girls with tickets in their hands and I was like excuse me do you speak English and thank the Lord they were like yes very well!  And I was like great, where can I buy a ticket?  And they pointed me in the right direction and said to go up the elevator.  

I finally got my ticket and got back down and on the bus.  A few minutes later it left.  I ended up being on the 4am bus rather than the 3:45 bus, but I was hoping I would still get there in plenty of time for my flight.  Online it showed that I should, but also online it said people on my flight should take the 3:45 bus.  Anyway, I couldn’t sleep on the bus, but luckily it had free wifi!  So that and my music kept me entertained! I finally reached the airport, but after getting through security, the screen still didn’t show which gate I was supposed to be at!  I decided to go to the cafeteria area to get something to drink and some breakfast.  Even though it was ridiculously over priced and I try to never by anything in the airports, I was dying of thirst!  

After my breakfast, I was beginning to worry because the screen still didn’t say what gate and it was nearing boarding time.  Finally I realized that the words flashing on the bottom of the screen were switching through languages and it wasn’t all in Spanish!  That’s when I realized that they don’t post it until 1 hour before departure…which I find kind of stupid if the gates are supposed to close half an hour before departure, but whatever!  

Finally I got on the plane and there was this kid sitting behind me that was screaming and kept kicking my seat!  I was like great this is gonna be a fun 2 hour flight!  Luckily, I guess I was tired enough that I finally fell asleep, but only for about 30 minutes.  After arriving to Frankfurt Hahn, I had to wait an hour and a half for the next bus to go to Mainz.  Why they don’t have more busses running I don’t know! :(  Anyway, made it to Mainz and had to wait a little less than 30 minutes for the train to Wiesbaden and then in Wiesbaden I went to Vodafone finally and then the train was delayed so I had to wait there too.  After a long morning of traveling and waiting…I finally made it to my house around 1:30!  

You would think that I would have passed out, but I didn’t.  I stayed up and added pictures to facebook.  I went to the store to get some food to last my final week here in Germany and then my house mates had a party because they were going home the next day!  It was a great night and I am really going to miss those guys!  Hopefully I can go visit them some day in Singapore! :)  

Final Day in Barcelona

I woke up around 5ish to Nasha talking on the phone with the taxi driver.  I stood on the deck and watched her get in the cab before going back to sleep.  Pauli was going to meet me after she got off work at 2.  I ended up sleeping until about 1.  I got up and took a shower and then Pauli showed up shortly after.  She asked what I had done and I said slept!  I guess I was just really worn out from all the sightseeing we had done for the past week!  

So she said we would go shopping for a bit; she wanted to get something to send back with me for Cherie, Isaac, and Troy.  For those that don’t know, they were her host family when she was in the US 5 years ago.  Anyway, we found some cute things and she showed me this store I fell in love with.  It’s a Spanish store called Blanco and everything was so cheap!  I bought yet another bag for 4 Euro and some sunglasses for 3!  They had swimsuits for 8 Euro, both pieces, but I had already bought 2 here in Europe so I decided I didn’t need anymore! lol 

After shopping, she took me to her university to show me around and she needed to return some books.  On the way, we passed through this beautiful little park!  Its so nice to see people actually using the parks here in Europe.  You don’t see a lot of that in the states, but then again you don’t see parks that nice either! lol We ate lunch at the little snack bar there on campus.  We got a sandwich and a beer for 2 Euros!  She was trying to talk me into studying there.  She said all the masters classes are in English and that they have a lot of students from America there.  She also told me that the tuition for her entire masters program (just one year there) was only 2500 Euros!!!  I was like what?!  That is like the same price of just my summer classes!  

Anyway, I am considering it, but I don’t know what my mom would say! lol Plus I will be graduating in December and I don’t think I would be ready to turn around and come back to Europe in January and I doubt my mom would be happy!  Not sure if I would take a semester off or what.  We will see what happens I guess.  So after our lunch, we walked around a bit more and then we decided to go to a little café because I wanted to try Churros!  She said that you dip them in hot chocolate.  So we got a cup to share; they were nice and warm and delicious.  The hot chocolate was really thick and I thought that was interesting.  Then we decided we would get frozen pizza and some wine for dinner.  After dinner we decided to go to bed somewhat early.  I had to be up at 3am to call the taxi!  My flight left from Girona at 6:40am!

Barcelona Day 3: Stadium, Picasso Museum, and Magic Fountain!

Karis and Phyllis were flying out this day, so we were on our own this day.  We woke up late again since we were out so late.  We headed to the stadium and since it was Sunday it was closed, but it was still cool to see it and take a few pictures.  We wandered around that part of town, but it was pretty dead and not much to see, so we decided to head to the Picasso Museum.  On the way we found a McDonalds…well the sign anyway!  It took us awhile to actually find the place!  But when we did, we found chicken nuggets and onion rings on the value menu!  I got 6 chicken nuggets and like 6 onion rings for 3 Euro!  Yummy!  

Then we jumped on the metro and luckily the stop we needed for the museum was the one a friend of mine had told me I would find a chocolate store that sold the chocolates I was wanting.  I walked in there and bought 3 of what I thought I loved!  I tasted it to find out it wasn’t the same thing!  It had like dried fruit in it instead of nuts! :(  It was so disgusting!  I was so disappointed!  Anyway, we got to the museum to find this huge line!  On Sunday’s after 3 you can get in for free, so there was a big line!  I guess they were regulating how many people were in the museum at a time.  The artwork was great for  the most part!  I learned some interesting things about Picasso that day.  He started out good, then got into this weird sexual phase, and then became obsessed with Pigeons!  Lol…it was very weird.  His last set of work was probably my favorite.  After he stopped with the Pigeons, he used a lot of shapes and made misshapen portraits.  They were very unique and interesting!  

After the museum we ran into this guy on the street selling these little paper characters that were dancing.  They danced to the music and when the music stopped they stopped and then they started again they were really cool and everyone was hovering over him looking for the characters they wanted.  We were just walking by but of course they guy had to talk to us and show them too us and he kept shoving them at me and pretty much wouldn’t take no for an answer.  I was like ok my little brother will like these, so I got some.  They came in a package of 2.  We did some more souvenir shopping and I found another chocolate store that had chocolates that looked like the ones I wanted, so I bought one to try and it was the right one, so I bought one more!  Yay!   

When I got back to the house, I took the dancing things out of the package and tried to get them to work with the music of my phone, but they just fell over and didn’t do anything!  The instructions were saying something about a string and we were like what no!  Because we stood there and watched the guy drop it and use the music.  We were so confused!  I was so mad I was like did I just pay 3 Euro for a some stupid pieces of paper!  And Nasha started busting up laughing.  I am hoping they will work with a speaker when I get home because he was using like an older style boom box.  

Anyway, we decided to get some dinner with Pauli and her boyfriend.  They took us to this cute little diner where we had some delicious burgers and milkshakes!  Nasha and I had planned to fill their fridge with their favorite type of beer in appreciation for their hospitality, but it was late and it was Sunday and Nasha was leaving early in the morning and we hadn’t bought it yet, so we decided to get their dinner for them instead!  We walked up to the bar to pay and Pauli was getting out her money and we were like no no we have it.  And after a little bit of a fight lol we won and got to pay for it! :)  

Then they walked us to the Magic Fountain because we almost forgot about it and it was Nasha’s last night.  The fountain was so beautiful, but it was hard to take pictures because the wind was blowing water drops on our camera lenses.  After the fountain we walked home to get some sleep!  Nasha had to get up at 5 am to take a taxi to catch the bus to the airport at 6am!  

Barcelona Day 2: Mountain and Castle!

We slept in pretty late the next day, but that was ok because we had planned to meet the others at about 1 to climb up the mountain to the castle!  We met at the plaza again and before heading off to the mountain, we looked for a Vodafone store…I was completely out of minutes and needed to be able to communicate with Pauli.  We couldn’t find it and information told us to go into this one mall and we searched all like 4 levels and nothing!  So we went to the bus stop to wait for the bus that took us up the mountain.  I thought someone knew where we were getting off at since they knew which bus it was, but they didn’t.  We rode it all the way to the end and then it did this U-turn and started back down, so we jumped off.  Then we found some signs that told us which way to walk.  We finally made it up to the castle after making a quick stop at this little bar halfway up to use the restroom and get some water!  

Once at the top, we had a beautiful view of the city and the water.  We had a nice long photo shoot!  Then we headed back down and went through a park.  The park was nice with fountains and a little waterfall.  We waited forever to take pictures in front of the waterfall because there was this group of old people that were taking pictures and then this one guy climbed up like practically in it!  And then he stood there forever and was waving at the rest of his group.  Some lady finally took a picture of him and then 2 other ladies decided to climb up there with him.  It wouldn’t have been as bad if they were taking pictures in front of it like everyone else, because you can do different angles to crop them out; but they were literally like in it!  You couldn’t take a picture of the waterfall without them being right in the middle of it!  We were so annoyed.  Finally the guy got down, but then those ladies stood up there forever!  Even after they were done getting there picture taken, they just stood there!  Can you tell how annoyed we were?! Its annoying me just talking about it! lol Finally I got my picture, which took all of less than a minute!  See its not that hard! 

Phyllis had walked away from us to go look at the water and we were standing there waiting trying to get her attention; we didn’t want to walk all the way over there and then the funniest line of the weekend came out of Karis’ mouth… “What the hell is she doing over there?!” *in the tone like it made no sense for her to be over there*  I am cracking up just writing about it…you need to hear it in her Chinese accent!  It is so funny…Nasha and I were laughing about it for the rest of the trip!  Then we were walking along the sidewalk and came to this other park, the sign had some writing in brail and Nasha was pretending to try to read it.  Then these people with a dog walked by and we started to leave.  Nasha was like I can’t see!  And Karis *very concerned like* was like What?! And then Phyllis was like…”Do you need to borrow that dog?”  Lol…it was hilarious!  We were laughing all the way back down the mountain!  These Chinese girls can be so freakin’ funny!  I love them!  Nasha and I told them they should make a tv show!  

When we got to the bottom of the mountain, we realized we were pretty close to Phyllis’ hostel, so she went back there to have some lunch and then she was going to meet us at this restaurant we found.  We were eating one of those 3 course meals like we had the day before, but it was not near as good.  I had some Brazilian rice, which was good, but there was too much!  Karis finally had Paella, but it was awful!  The rice was totally mushy and I think she said the shrimp wasn’t good either!  I felt bad because she had been wanting to try it for awhile!  I had meatballs for my second course and they were really salty!  Luckily I was already full from the rice, which by the way had an fried egg on it! We didn’t even get our dessert and the guy was just sitting around not working…we finally had to like yell at him just to get the check.  We were disappointed luckily we only paid 8 Euros for this one.  

Then Phyllis met us and we headed to her hostel.  I wanted to use the wifi to look up the addresses for Vodafone shops.  I wrote them down and then we were discussing our plan.  We wanted to go see the fountain, but then Pauli had messaged me asking if Nasha and I wanted to go to dinner with her and some friends.  We had just ate, but I wanted to hangout with Pauli as much as I could while I was there, so we were going to go and just get something small.  She didn’t want to go until 9 anyway.  So we decided that Phyllis and Karis could just go to the fountain without us.  Her hostel was leading a trip to there, so they would be able to find it easily.  Karis and Phyllis were arguing; Phyllis was like I will just go with them then.  And Karis was like what about me?! (Are you imagining this in a Chinese accent, because it might not be as funny if your not…lol…but I am cracking up).  And Phyllis was like you can come too!  And Karis was like oh ok.  Then they were arguing about something else and Phyllis was like why are you always so mean to me?! And then like 2 seconds later Nasha and I were like ok we are leaving and then Phyllis was like I want to go to the grocery store and Karis was like me too lets go together!  Its just hilarious how one minute they are at each other’s throats and the next minute they are best buds!  They definitely kept our trip totally entertaining!  

So Nasha and I decided to go look for the Vodafone shop and then head back to the house.  We went on a freakin’ goose chase for these stupid shops!  Each one we went to said that they couldn’t help me because it was an international number!  We went to every single shop in the city and not one could do it; even thought the night before the guy told me that the larger store could do it!  

We got home and Pauli told us that her friends were going to a sushi bar and she wasn’t sure if we would like that and she didn’t really want it, so she decided to just not go.  She told us about this concert on the port that we could all go to.  So we had drinks at the house; Pauli the ex-bartender made us some cocktails.  She also showed us the proper way to pour the liquor.  Then she even put orange slices on the rims!  Then she showed us how to make this flaming orange vodka shot inside the other half of the orange!  It took awhile to light on fire because I guess the alcohol has to be a really high percent and the cheap one we had wasn’t.  Anyway it was cool looking when it finally worked!  After our drinks, we headed down to the port for the concert.  After the concert, we headed back to the house and stopped at the statue to take some pictures!  Nasha and I climbed up on the big lion!  It reminded me of the time we did that in London, but this time the lion was smaller.  It was still hard to get back off of though!  Then we headed home to pass out for the night, we were so tired!