Arrival in Dresden

What a crazy past couple days! I am finally here in Dresden after a whole lot of traveling, and I'm tired!

So, where to start...well I said tearful goodbyes and boarded the plane at about 8pm on Thursday, and my first experience of German culture hit me as I got onto the plane. I had waited in the airport terminal until my row was called, and it so happened it was in the last group called to board. There was noone left in the terminal when I went to board, and this should have been my first clue that something was different! Well, I walked down the long tunnel to the plane and as soon as I boarded EVERYONE looked up and gave me this look of disgust. Ok maybe not everyone...ok maybe just one or two people...but it felt like everyone was glaring at me as I feebly lifted my heavy carry on bags into the overhead compartment. No kidding, I was practically the very last person to board the huge 777 Airbus, and that's a lot of people! It then dawned on me that from my limited experience with Germans I knew they are very punctual people, and I guess they just couldn't get on that plane fast enough. I hadn't even left Edmonton and I was already feeling foreign-!

It was a good plane ride...long, but good. I watched 2 of the 3 films and that passed the time very quickly. The hardest part I started to notice about the jetlag was eating times--they fed us at like 11pm, and again at 430am. My head might be able to adjust quickly to 8 hours difference, but my stomach has a much harder time!

Arriving in Frankfurt presented me with another cultural experience, although this time it wasn't as surprising. After clearing customs it was time to collect luggage at the carousel, but as I turned the corner into the baggage claim area, I noticed that all 200 people that were on my flight were now crowding around the carousel (which wasn't nearly big enough for all 200 to stand around). Man! So now I had to remember possibly one of the longest German words and assertively announce "Entschuldigung!" (excuse me) when I recognized my bags...actually I should say, when I bent down and found a crack in the crowd big enough for me to peer through and see something that maybe might look similar to my bags...what a challenge. Welcome to Germany!

So the last leg of this incredible journey was meeting up with Randy Carroll, my supervisor and a current missionary in Dresden. He was a wonderful picker-upper and was waiting right outside the doors, and although I had never met him, I recognized him right away from pictures. We took my cart overloaded with luggage and headed for the train station, which OF COURSE was not in the same terminal of the airport. That would have been too easy.

After numerous escalators and elevators and then unloading, juggling, pulling, pushing, lifting and reloading the luggage, we made it on an earlier train to Dresden than expected. We sat on the floor since the reservations Randy had made were for a later train and we decided against waiting another 2 hours. I wanted to see Dresden!

It was a wonderful reunion with Amy in the Dresden Hauptbahnhof (train station) and crazy to think that it had been 4 months since we had seen each other. I said goodbye to Randy for the night and Amy and I took a taxi (it was a Mercedes!) to our new apartment. At 9pm, 17 hours after my journey started, I was finally where I would call home for the next 2 years...what a great feeling after such a long and exhausting day.