The trip over and settling into a new place

Well I survived the trip and the first few days! Actually, that's no small feat all things considered; I had a pretty crazy first day here. The flights over we rather uneventful. It was my first time on a transatlantic flight and I enjoyed all the dinner service, warm napkins to wash hands before meals and the newspapers/magazines they offered for reading on the plane. Hopefully, I didn't annoy the flight attendants too much with my poor German. :-P

The excitement began after we landed, consider this a guide of what not to do when traveling. First, my luggage was delayed, so I sat in the terminal for an hour or more and when I went to file my baggage report, I realized that I hadn't considered the importance of writting down my travel information on paper; I had most of my info on gmail! Fortunately, I could show the service representative where to find the address where I'm living (on my blog here!) and through the miracle of caching I was able to find the phone number of my adviser Matthias.

Once I'd cleared customs I attempted to call my family and also Matthias to give a status update. After, 3-5 tries of different calling cards, credit cards and the like I managed to figure out how to work the public telephones in the airport. Matthias told me the name of the bus/train (I wasn't sure which) to take and the name of the hotel, which I mostly understood, but not well enough to write anything down.

I changed the $10 or so I had in my pocket in to about 8 Euros which was fortunately enough for the train to Darmstadt. I searched for the train/bus Matthias told me to, but with no luck. The information desk staff told me to take the train to the Frankfurt main station and then to Darmstadt, which I ran off to do, but it proved a 20 minute task to decipher the ticket pricing and which track to go to. (I think I really annoyed the lady at the train info booth by asking a question in German and then completely failing at comprehending the answer. She then gave me an answer in perfect English although it was still so fast I almost didn't understand.)

Anyway, to begin to wrap up the story, I made it to Darmstadt, eventually figured out where the hotel was on a map and met Matthias. Matthias took good care of me: showed me my flat, helped me get all the various papers signed for bank accounts and temporary residence and rent and gave me some bedsheets since my luggage was still in Philidelphia. I went to bet around 7pm that night and slept exceedingly soundly.

The next day my luggage arrived, my stipend money came in and I got to meet the rest of my suitemates. Finally, some stability! We've got a long weekend here (Monday is Pfingstmontag a day off after the German Easter celebration) so I've used it to do some grocery shopping, hang out with and get to know my flat mates who are all pretty friendly and try to orient myself in the town. I want to praise God for taking good care of me even though my planning was far from perfect!

Unfortunately, I didn't really bother to take my camera out until today, when I went out walking, so there's not too many pictures even though I've seen a lot I've thought photo-worthy.

First, a few pictures of the flat:

My room is visible at the top of the stairs. It looks like this:

The view from my window is pretty nice:

The balcony out front:

A sample of the student art/graffiti present on most of the walls:


From my walk this afternoon (going away from the city):


A "bee garden" I passed (they sell honey):

I recognize that these pictures could easily be taken in the states (except the bienengarten), but that's part of the point; The newer construction in Germany looks very much like it does here, though I think they do a better job of building along with the natural environment rather than leveling it. I'll get you some photos of the city soon.

Well that's all for now; drop me a line if you want to say hello!