The Beginning: Kazakhstan to Bayreuth

"So, are you ready to go to Germany?"

After a summer of adventures, craziness, stress (both physical and mental) and anything but rest, the fact that I was about to head off on another big adventure seemed positively petrifying. I was ready to curl up in a bed and take a nice long nap, not fly to another country all by myself to study a language that I barely speak. But, I had made the commitment, gotten the scholarship, and put all the pieces in place to head off on an adventure of a lifetime, so by golly I was going to do just that. And thankfully, somewhere on the plane from Kazakhstan to Frankfurt, my brain kicked in.

I'm going to GERMANY.

I've never been there before.

I won't know anyone.

I don't even really SPEAK German.

This. is. gonna. be. AWESOME!

:-)

After I got off my flight in Frankfurt, I met Anna, another girl from Northwestern. We navigating the (somewhat confusing) train system out of the airport to the central train station and purchased train tickets through Nuernberg to Bayrueth. We had about an hour, so we got some coffee as we stylishly waited with our luggage.


Then we took a three and a half hour train to Nuernburg, where I learned that, in Germany, you can reserve seats ahead of time on trains. If you do that, a little red sign will light up on the wall next to your seat and if that happens, you have the freedom to kick anyone else out of your seat who happens to be sitting there, even if there are no more seats on the train. Yes, that did happen to me. But, being the Kazakhstan girl that I am, I seat-hopped around the train sitting on empty seats and just waiting for someone to come and make me move.

We switched trains in Nuremburg to hop on a train to Bayreuth, where I got my first view of the city I will be living in.

The day ended with hectic registration, my moving into an apartment with a bedroom bigger than my entire apartment at Northwestern, jet-lagged conversation in German with my roommates, a half-hearted attempt at a get-together in the pub (half-hearted only because everyone that came was exhausted) and a wonderful, glorious sleep.