The plane ride was intense. I've never been out of the country before, so I've definitely never had to sit still on a plane that long. It's tougher than you'd think to sleep. And I think we were flying against a lot of turbulence, because on the electronic tracker map they gave us on our TV, I watched us slowly lose time, and at one point, we didn't make any forward progress for about 45 minutes! But it was all worth it at sunrise, when we descended over Munich and saw the gorgeous German countryside.
It's been an interesting day. The city is so ornate; it looks like something right out of a fairytale...and we haven't even seen the Altstadt yet! When Shireen and I landed, we took a bus from Munich to Salzburg: about an hour and a half trip through the cutest little Bavarian German towns ever. We met a lady on the bus who didn't speak any English and I was actually able to communicate with her, which was encouraging. When I told her I was an American student, she asked me whether I was from California or New York. She'd never heard of Ohio before!
Once we got settled in, it was time to go grocery shopping. My roommate Laura and I went down the street to Hofer (the German version of Aldi) and it was definitely an experience. The food is really cool and there's really no brands that you would expect. Plus, there's tons of cheap wine that costs like a euro, 20 cents. The cashier kind of screamed at me when my Mastercard didn't go through and we realized once we checked out that we didn't have enough bags with which to carry back our groceries. We stuffed most of them into Laura's purse, but unfortunately, sidewalk/dorm lobby casualties included Laura's jug of Mineralwasser and bottle of red wine! (We cleaned it up.) Lesson learned: always carry enough bags to the market! They are not free. Neither are the shopping carts. You have to pay a euro to use them.
We went to a little pizza place for dinner, where the help was very nice, but then we headed back early, since everyone is tired from jet lag. Tomorrow we must go buy a plug adapter, since the ones we brought aren't compatible, and a hair dryer, since we just blew the fuse in our bathroom trying to turn it on!
This is without a doubt, the biggest thing I've ever undertaken, I think. Nothing's completely foreign, but every little thing is just a little different, from the beer in the dorm vending machines to the welcome mats that almost every room has outside the door. I like it though; it's very quaint. Tomorrow at least Zach and I are headed to the Salzburger Dom for church. Will write more then.
Let me know how the credit card thing is working out. Is it the gift cards only or both gift cards and your bank acct?
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