The Departure!

Hello there! ⍟

Warning! This post got really long somehow and not everything is important but I'd be happy if someone would read it all :)


The adventure has begun.
It's happening! My exchange year has finally started. Or should I say finally? Because the last two days I was feeling down a lot! I had a farewell party with my friends, and spent the last hours with my family, and then there seemed to happen so much in my hometown and I felt like crying all the time. I was completely fine until then, but I guess I just realized it in the last two days, that I would seriously be away for a whole year.

Saying farewell.

So my family and I drove to the airport with the train together. At the train station, my three closest friends came see me for the last time and there were a lot of tears.
When we arrived at the airport there wasn't any time for big feelings though, since my suitcase was too heavy (which I already thought it would be), and we had to pack heavy stuff like my host presents into another bag. That was a little bit stressful.

Then, when it was time for me to go we made it pretty quick. I just hugged my father, mother and brother and tried to hold down the tears. I went through the securities and found my gate soon. 

A funny thing that happened, was that I sat right next to a friendly Indian man when I was at the gate, and I sat right next to that same friendly Indian man in the plane as well! 

During the flight I just watched movies, tried to sleep a bit or looked out of the window, sunken in my thoughts.

Taking the connecting flight in Chicago.

My parents were soo worried about this part of the journey. Anyone who knows me a little bit better, knows that my sense of orientation is not the best. I just so often take buses or trains in the wrong direction, or not find my friend's house even though I was there many times. I'm just like that haha. 

So when I got out of the 8 and a half hour flight from Düsseldorf to Chicago, everything went so fast. I got through the passport check, had to pick up my suitcase, had to check that in right in the next minute, had to take the airtrain to my terminal, and then – basically just find my gate. But I didn't find it! I walked and walked and searched and searched, because on my information papers there was clearly standing "terminal 2". But it wasn't terminal 2! After an hour of walking with my heavy bag, I asked a woman and she said that my flight would be on terminal 1. So I went there, with my fingers hurting from the bag, and finally found my gate. I had to check it 3 or 4 times until I was completely sure that it really was the right one, and even though I was really thirsty, I didn't dare to move from the right gate.

After I landed from that 1 hour flight everything was really easy. My host parents and my Rotary Counselor picked me up, took my luggage and then we went out eating something. I was awake for almost 24 hours at that time so I was really tired.

The next morning.

When I woke up for the first time in a completely different bed and location, it was pretty hard, and I missed my family and best friends already. I couldn't sleep that well either, even though I was so tired. The jet lag was definitely there, since it is a 7 hour difference to Germany. I got up at, like 10 AM and thought “Oh man it's already 5 PM in Germany and I'm just getting out of the bed now!”.
But apart from the morning, the day was fun. I went to Downtown with my host mother and it was beautiful! Forget everything I said about Iowa! It is rural outside of the city, but inside it's so pretty, it has a lot of trees, art everywhere, nice boutiques and real good cafés. 

Also, I will probably write a blog post about the American food, but let me say one thing now: I was afraid about not finding so much salad here, and since I told that my host mother and Counselor, I've had salad everyday! It's not just burgers and fast food and you can't imagine how glad I am about that!

My Rotary Counselor Deb.

Then it was decided that I would stay a couple of nights with my Rotary Counselor Deb, and she and her husband are so lovely! I really love their house too, it's decorated in an old fashioned, but luxury style and it's really pretty. I'll be sad when I leave here again. Deb also has two horses that we went to see today, and she said that it would be great if we could ride them together some time, so I'm really looking forward to that.

Iowa City? Great!

So to end this long blog post, I have to say that Iowa City is, from what I have seen so far, really nice. I mean, I definitely want to visit the bigger cities, and do the touristic activities too. But for living, this is so much more real, and settled, and beautiful.
For now, the nights are hard and the days are awesome. The only thing that I would say isn't so great, is that I've only met old people until now. I've also been to a Rotary meeting this morning (at 7 AM!), and not to be rude or anything, but they talked about their grand children and stuff like that so maybe not really my kind of topic. I guess that will change when I get to school, which starts on August19th, but I am soo scared of that! I don't really know what kind of people there are, and how I should go to them, but until now all the Americans were really nice people, so I hope I'll manage with that somehow!

Alright, stay tuned! There will soon be more.

Bye ⍟