Hi all! Today has been very long, but very good. I woke up far earlier
than I was hoping to, so I had a lot of time to kill before I got ready
to leave for the airport. I just kind of hung out and listened to music
in my apartment and made sure I had everything I needed before traveling
this weekend. I left my apartment with plenty of extra time to go wait
for my taxi that I had set up through my student advisor at school. I
waited and waited and waited and no one showed up for me, so I started
to get nervous and had someone else call me a taxi. That taxi got there,
but I had lost a ton of time I thought I was going to need at the
airport. While I was in the taxi I got a bunch of phone calls from a
number I didn’t know, but wasn’t going to answer because they would have
cost a ton of money…turns out (I found this out through an email way
later) that they were my student advisor telling me my taxi was waiting
for me, so it must have shown up JUST after I left in the other taxi. I
feel bad for having had it set up and leaving, but I waited for at
least 20 minutes after it said it was going to be there and I didn’t
want to sell myself short any time in a foreign airport.
It turns out it
would have been absolutely fine if I had, because I ended up sitting
around the airport for about 2 hours with no wifi because security was a
breeze and I had already done online check in and printed my boarding
pass. So I sat around the airport for a while and then when we finally
got on the plane, even a little while longer then because for whatever
reason, we ended up leaving about an hour later than we were supposed
to. Having had no wifi, I couldn’t relay that message to my host in
Germany, so I’m hoping they didn’t wait for me too long to arrive.
When I
did finally make it to Germany, it was so nice to see a familiar face! I
met up with Fiona (my host, who I hosted my senior year as an exchange
student) and her dad and we drove to Krefeld from Dusseldorf. We met up
with one of her friends, ate a little something and then went to a play
at her school where I got to see a few other of my friends from
exchanges over the years. Speaking of exchanges, the Americans from my
high school that came as exchange students this summer, were at the
school having a farewell dinner together, so I stopped in and saw my
German teacher from high school (who was their chaperone) and the two
teachers that always come to America for the exchange. Everyone was
shocked to see me, but it was so nice to say hi!
After the play we went
to McDonald’s because we were hungry and then headed to a bar. I met
more of Fiona’s friends and a few of the people I know from past
exchanges came with us. I had a lot of fun with everyone. After a few
hours we left because it was getting late and now I’m back at Fiona’s in
my room here. I’m excited for tomorrow as well, but will share what
happens then tomorrow evening. Until then–arrivederci! Or should I
say–Auf Wiedersehen!
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Read more from Jenna at https://jeninrome.wordpress.com/
Check out http://studyabroad.uark.edu/romecampus
for more information on the U of A Rome Center: Summer Campus.
