So...I'm in Germany. Today is my fifth day in Freiburg.
Getting here was honestly probably one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life. For the first time ever, I was really truly alone and had to figure out what to do with no possibility of help. I have never left the country before, have been on a plane only once (almost 10 years ago), have never taken a train, and have never hailed a taxi, so God help me. When I lay it all out like that, I sound really sheltered.
I'm going to chronicle my journey in this post. It's going to be really long, so be warned. Read it...or don't.
I left my house last Wednesday morning in a nice black sedan driven by a stranger. My parents hired a car service to take me to JFK to spare them the trouble of driving to the city, which I can understand I guess. In retrospect it was probably better that way because it would have been harder to say goodbye at the airport. It was an ugly, rainy day and when I got to the airport, I had no idea what to do. At the airport, everyone is doing their own thing and just assumes you're doing yours, but I really wanted someone to notice me and tell me what to do. I had to ask everyone at the counters what was going on (what is this ticket? where does my baggage go? where is the gate? what is the gate?) and fumbled my way through JFK. The international area where I was was pretty much already another country; not many people around me spoke English and no one else in my line at security had a USA passport. I had no idea what to do at security where you take all of your stuff out in bins, and just stood there until a TSA guy came and asked him what to do. I was so flustered with all of the bins and stuff that I didn't even take my bag of liquids out of my carry-on, and you know what? Nothing even happened.
After that I made my way to my gate, stopping through all of the weird duty-free shops and overpriced newsstands. When I got to the gates, I didn't know if you were allowed to sit down anywhere you wanted or if you had to check in or something first. When I sat down and no one arrested me, I figured I was alright. No one sitting near me spoke English, they were all speaking German: families, a man on a phone, a cluster of Orthodox Jewish men in all black. I felt pretty alone.
Eventually it was time to board, and when I got on the plane, I mistakenly thought the seats were going to be okay, but silly me, it's because you have to walk past business class to get to economy class. When I saw the seats in my section, I almost laughed out loud at how cramped they looked. I arranged my stuff in my window seat (my neighbor hadn't boarded yet) and got settled. Meanwhile, the cabin filled with Orthodox Jews. I seemed to be sitting in a giant cluster of them: old men, middle-aged men, teenagers, all speaking German. I had no problem with it, it was just interesting. I've hardly ever flown before, let alone flown on a flight filled dominated by one group of people. Little did I know how much more interesting things would get on the flight.
It appeared that my seatmate was going to be young teenager from their clan, but he remained standing and talking with his group. I got up to use the bathroom before the plane took off, and on my way there, one of the Jewish men stopped me and said "What are you doing? Are you going to move your seat?" and I was totally off guard and said "No, I'm going to the bathroom!" and he pointed to an empty window seat across from the plane and said, "If I ask that man if he minds, will you move your seat over there?" and I was like "Ummm maybe, I'm going to the bathroom now, bye." But he wasn't taking no for an answer and as I went to shut the door he said, "OK, I will go and ask him right now. I'll tell you what he says when you come out." As I was in the bathroom I was trying to process what had just happened. He didn't give any reason why he wanted me to change my seat, and I was thinking of all of the possibilities (which were probably ridiculous anymore): I'm coincidentally interrupting their group's seating plan, they're not allowed to sit with women, maybe I smell bad or something? I wished I had stood up for myself, but I had been in stress mode for 24 hours in anticipation of leaving and was too nervous and alone to do anything gutsy.
I got out and sure enough, the guy was right there and told me it was ok for me to go. I felt sort of hurried to get out of my seat (and accidentally left my pillow there, a huge regret) and grabbed all of my stuff, wanting to get away as soon as possible. As I went to reach for my bag in the overhead compartment, the guy said, "It's okay, you can leave it here. It's fine." and I was like uhhh, whatever, and left it there, not thinking about how that moment would agonize me for hours afterward. And of course, as I was awkwardly moving to the other side of the plane, the flight attendants yelled at me and told me to sit down so we could start taxi-ing. I shrugged at my new neighbor, a kindly older German man, and he seemed cool with it. I told him that I was probably going to get up and get my other bag at some point, and he said that was fine
The plane took off, and I started playing around with the tv screen on the back of the seat in front of me. I tried to watch Lincoln, but couldn't handle it because the plane was loud, people were talking loudly, and I just could not hear all of the softspoken dialogue of the movie through the crappy over-ear airplane headphones. I soon gave up on watching anything, and just started out the window for awhile. The gears were turning in my head about how to get my backpack from the other side of the plane, and how to time it with a bathroom break so as not to get up a bunch of times and annoy my neighbor, and I realized I was going to have to wait at least a couple of hours.
Lufthansa actually served a lot of food and drinks, and came around with drinks multiple times, snacks, dinner, and even breakfast at 4AM. The food service was constantly interrupted by our Jewish friends, however. There were at least 40 of them in my cabin, no joke. Twice they all got up, put their hats and overcoats and everything on if they had taken any of it off, and prayed. Imagine men in black lining both aisles of the plane, all the way up and down the cabin, and praying, rocking back and forth on their heels. It was honestly a little bit unnerving. And after they prayed, it was like social hour, and a bunch of them would remain standing and talk to their buddies. This made it difficult for the flight attendants to serve food and drinks, and they actually had to make multiple announcements over the PA system to tell them to sit down. It also made it very hard for anyone to go to the bathroom. I was waiting for a good time to get up and reclaim my bag, but between dinner and drinks and prayer, there was just never a time when the aisles were clear. So I could not relax. I wanted to sleep but wanted to make sure I had my bag in my sight before I did. Eventually, after dinner, my neighbor got up, and so did I, and I went on my mission and got my backpack. Of course the overhead compartment was full so I had to shove my backpack underneath the seat in front of me, which I didn't think would be a big deal until I realized that it cut my legroom down by about 50%. (By the way, the man who had asked me to change my seat was sitting in my seat when I got back. He seemed to be the father of the boy next to him, which made me feel a little better about switching with him. Also I was spared the worst of the praying on my side. Maybe they just wanted to sit together, and also wanted to spare me from being alone in their giant cluster.)
So, after finally having completed my mission, I allowed myself to sleep. Except I couldn't get comfortable. And I was no longer sleepy at all. I tossed and turned, and dozed for about a total of 30 minutes. I watched that dumb Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis movie The Campaign because it was the only thing I could handle, and then went nuts because after that was over I still had over 3 hours left to go. I have no idea how I made it through the rest of the flight, so cramped and uncomfortable and anxious and fidgety, but eventually it was 6am and I was finally in Frankfurt.
I all but ran off the plane, eager to get away from that crazy experience and get on with my day. I had twelve hours until my orientation started, and it was going to be the longest day of my life. I just wanted to make it to the train so I could sleep.
FRA was huge. I walked like 4 miles to baggage claim, where luckily my bags were right there and I got them without a hitch. I figured out that you go to customs next, which for me, apparently went nothing, because I had nothing to declare. Some German police officer stamped my passport and that was it. I saw signs for Bahnhofs (train stations) and was hoping that also meant Fernbahnhof (long-distance trains) and walked like another 3 miles inside the airport. I started seeing Deutschebahn ticket kiosks and it took me a few tries to realize that some of them only sold regional train tickets.
I also wanted desperately to call my parents and tell them I arrived, because I knew my mom was going to be up all night waiting for me to contact them and tell them I'd arrived safely. But my stupid iPhone got no service anywhere, there was also no Internet, and no apparent way to be able to contact anyone from the airport. As I made my way towards the Fernbahnhof, I kept seeing these TMobile payphones, and decided to just try one. I could not figure out what they said (it was all in German, and my subject-specific German is not good at all.) so I gave up. Then I resolved to try the next one, which was broken and didn't take my credit card. Then I tried the next one, miraculously made it through about thirty digits of dialing, and then the operator told me the first minute would cost 17, 5 Euro, not including additional fees. I was disgusted and hung up, hoping I'd find another way somehow.
I managed to buy a direct ticket to Freiburg at an electronic kiosk without any hassle, other than the fact that my printed ticket had almost no information about time or track or platform on it at all. I was able to print the itinerary information from the ticket kiosk, and had about 45 minutes until my train. I knew I had to call my mom, because it was already 2 hours later than I told her I'd call, and I knew when I got on the train that was another 2 hours I'd be unlikely to be able to contact her, so I sucked it up and used the ridiculously expensive TMobile payphone. It was the most expensive phone call I'd ever made in my life.
After that, I made my way down through what I hoped was my track. It had taken me all day to master taking an escalator while rolling two suitcases, but by that point I had gotten it down. I went down to the track, hoping to see a DB helpdesk or my train on the board or some reassuring sign, but it was cold and dark and not many people were around. I was terrified of missing my train, so I actually went all the way back upstairs and double checked with someone at the DB infodesk, and it turns out I was right, so I went back down. Lots of people had gathered on the platform, and I tried to figure out where on the platform to stand, but instead I just tried to stand near someone with a lot of luggage to figure out where to put it all when you get on the train. They kept making announcements over the PA system, first in German, then in really-hard-to-understand English, saying that my train was running late. Then they made one that I didn't catch, and everyone at the platform got up and started walking away. I had no idea what was going on, but I figured I should follow them, and they were going up the stairs and presumably across the station to the other side of the tracks (I figured that much out: my train was coming in on another track because it was late). Of course the escalator was broken now, and I didn't want to take the elevator and risk losing everyone, so it was the stairs. There was me, lost, nervous American girl trying to carry two really heavy bags up three stories in a giant crowd of fast-moving people, one step at a time. I was worried I would not be able to do it and just die there on those stairs. And then some German businessman grabbed my big bag and lugged it up the stairs, and all I could do was just keep saying "Vielen Dank!" because I couldn't think of anything else to say.
I hoped that all of my troubles would end them, but nope. The train came, and it seemed that people left their large suitcases at the end of the car, so I did that. I had on my backpack and was wheeling my carry-on behind me, and suddenly realized I had no idea where to sit. I had read about the DB reservation system but didn't think it would be so scary in person: each seat had a little screen above it with its reservations : Mannheim-Karlsruhe, Frankfurt-Offenberg, Karlsruhe-Basel, etc. I couldn't find seats without reservations above them, and there were people in front of and behind me so I just had to keep walking. I asked a woman if I could sit next to her, before I realized it was reserved, and the young girl in front of me told me I could sit next to her (I think), so I followed her all the way through the train, a few cars down, and then realized she had a reserved seat. I didn't really know what was happening, and eventually I lost her, and a few people said things to me in German that I couldn't understand, and I just felt so helpless. Eventually I made it to a car with more empty seats, and sat down because I didn't know what else to do. I saw a conductor checking tickets and waited for her so I could ask her what to do, but she didn't speak much English and told me that I just had to look at the reservations and figure out when I could sit there. I might have to bounce around seats as people with reserved seats later on the route got on the train. I realized I had no idea what the order of stops was (and had no way to find out: no WiFi, no maps posted, nothing) and had no way to figure out what reserved seats were safe to sit in. By this point, my baggage was also spread out all across the train: my big bag was 4 cars away, my backpack was in another place, my carry on was in another. I started going on missions through the train to figure out where to sit, and came upon 2 seats that didn't have any reservations posted above them. Hoping they were safe and that I wouldn't get uprooted or arrested for sitting in them, I started having to go on little reconnaissance missions to check out the situation and bring all of my baggage to my new home base. But the aisles were just too narrow to get my big bag through, so I had to leave it where it was, cars away.
The ICE train seats were nice and big and would have been great to sleep on, but I could hardly even enjoy watching the German countryside going by out the window. Once again, I had ended up in a strange situation where my stuff was not all safe and where I could see it, and where I didn't know what to do at all. I had already attracted enough attention to myself by getting up a bunch of times and dragging my stuff through the aisles, and was not about to try and ask anybody anything. I figured out that they made announcements about what time we would make it to the next stop, and when they said 20 minutes to Freiburg, I made a plan to get up early and drag all of my stuff to the front of the train where my big bag was hopefully still waiting. I kept seeing one of two worst-case-scenarios in my head: either I would get stuck on the train trying to make my way to last bag and the train would keep going and I would miss my stop, or I would make it off the train but not be able to grab my last bag before the doors closed and it drove away. Somehow none of that happened and I waited with all of my bags at the end of the train and managed to dump myself and all of my stuff out onto the cobblestones of the Freiburg Hauptbahnhof.
Next, to find the taxi stand...
I struggled to drag my stuff around bumpy cobblestones until I realized I was going to have to go down a bunch of stairs, which was terrifying; trying to control a 50 pound bag and a 25 pound bag without losing control and falling down the stairs/re-dislocating my knee/etc. Somehow I did it and got a taxi in German.
The cab driver was trying to explain some situation to me: the road I was going was under construction so he could either drop me off a little before it and I would have to walk a few houses down, or he could drive all the way around to the other side and charge me more money. At least he was honest and considerate--I got off there and made my first transaction in Euro (and my first time not tipping anyone, because that's what you do, right?)
I made it to the IES Center, took a tiny elevator up to the third floor, and stumbled into the place. I was greeted by two people who told me I was the first to arrive! I was really tired and overwhelmed as they let me help myself to snacks and juice, and gave me information packets and tram passes and papers to sign. They told me I looked pretty fit or something, which I was very surprised at, because I figured I probably looked as nervous and exhausted and disgusting on the outside as I felt on the inside. I was only there for about 10 minutes, before they called me another taxi to take my to my new home. I was to report back there at 6:00 to meet everyone in the program for dinner.
We rolled up at what I guess was my neighborhood and I was met by Lovisa, my housing tutor (sort of like an RA I think) who showed me to my room. I live in Vauban, an especially hippie-ish, environmentally friendly, colorful area of Freiburg. My building is part of some old French military barracks (seeing as Freiburg was in the French occupied zone after the war) but looks pretty stately and nice, painted a nice slate blue.
My flat is on the first floor (aka the second floor) of the building, and I met a few of my German roommates and closed myself into my room, excited to have my own sanctuary from humiliation at last, and even better, no obligation to be anywhere for the next 6 hours.
And that was my journey here.
I start my German intensive tomorrow morning and really need to actually go to bed early because the lack of sleep for the last week is really starting to catch up with me, so I'll write more (more interesting stuff) tomorrow. Bis Spaeter!
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