My Arrival

Four days ago, I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany at around 7:30am, after a long day of traveling. My trip started Thursday, February 12th at around 11:30am, when I loaded my bags (two 50lb monsters, plus a backpack) into my car and headed to Logan International Airport in Boston, where I had to catch a flight to Dulles (outside of D.C.). However, there were strong winds going up and down the east coast, and my plane kept getting delayed–bad news, since my layover in Dulles between flights was only about 90 minutes. Thankfully, right around 3:10 (about 40 minutes after the scheduled time) we left Boston, happily headed south.

I should’ve known the end of the flight wasn’t going to be very fun when the pilot had the flight attendants sit down earlier than usual, due to turbulence. As we got closer to the airport, the plane started bumping around, and then, once we started our descent, the plane moved in ways I’ve never felt before: side to side, up and down, even dropping about 20 feet unexpectedly. And, as could be expected, the wonderful sound of sick bags being opened and put to good use filled the cabin, and even I wasn’t feeling all that great. But, we were just about to touch down when out of nowhere, the pilot aborts the landing and starts ascending again (turns out a plane hadn’t quite gotten off the runway yet). Unfortunately, we’d have to try it again, which meant another couple minutes of the turbulence. After I determine the location of the nearest sick bags (the seat pocket to my right, or the one across the aisle), I made sure to fix my gaze on the horizon outside, hoping desperately to quiet my stomach. Luckily, we made it to the ground before my body gave in, and, looking around, it seemed like most people were in the same situation as I was: very red-faced and eager to get off the plane.

However, there was no time to waste getting myself back together as it was 5:15, and my flight to Frankfurt left at 5:50. I raced to my next gate, where people were already boarding, and I hopped right onto my flight, still a little jittery from the previous adventure. Luckily, the second leg on Lufthansa was completely uneventful, and 7.5 hrs later, I was in Frankfurt. What was pretty funny, though, was how different (i.e. better) Lufthansa is than United, the carrier of my connecting flight. Not only did they come by 4 or 5 times with the drink cart, but we got hot towels, two meals, and a snack. On my first flight, the guy next to me paid $6 for a bloody Mary, and on the second, nearly everyone around me had either wine or beer, completely free.

After landing in Frankfurt around 7:30 am, another student from my group met me at the baggage claim, since he had been on the same flight. We both headed to our meeting point and waited a couple of hours for our program directors to pick us all up. Once they did, however, we had to wait another two hours for the rest of the group to arrive, so we didn’t end up leaving until around 12 or so, and we got to Heidelberg about an hour after that, where we were then taken to our rooms, which I’ll be mentioning more in a future post.