(Belated) Travel Liveblogging

Travel Status: In Progress

from Sea-Tac airport

Since I don’t have trustworthy internet, I’m writing this in a Pages document to be posted later. At any rate, my journey has begun! I got up at six this morning (much more impressive, Geoff got up at six this morning, and with much less incentive) and got ready to go. We made it to SeaTac a little late, assuming you’re supposed to allow two hours for international travel, but no harm done. Saying goodbye to Geoff was the hardest one of all. Apart from everything else, he’s the only one I’ve never had to say goodbye to for long before.

I always worry going though security, and I never have any trouble. (Apparently airport security doesn’t find ernest looking young white women very threatening. How surprising...) Now I’m waiting to board my first flight, from Seattle to Calgary. Then Calgary to Frankfurt, and finally Frankfurt to Graz. I already saw a woman arround my own age wearing a shirt that said, “I speak Denglish, for better or for Wurst!” My sister’s boyfriend asked me to bring him the corniest tourist shirt I could possibly find. I think there’s going to be a lot of contenders...

from Calgary International airport

One time zone jumped, one flight down. I’m hanging out at my gate, despite having two and a half hours left before boarding. This next flight will be the big one. When we land, I’ll be in Europe for the first time, but I won’t be done flying yet. From the Frankfurt airport I have one more flight to Graz.

midflight to Frankfurt, 8 p.m. Bellingham time, somewhere between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. local time

After a beautiful sunset, it’s now full dark. So far I’ve watched a Hopalong Cassidy movie with dinner (both were surprisingly good), seen an episode of Scooby Doo while tipsy (an impressively surreal experience, and surely a good way of marking the first time I’ve been allowed to have alcohol in a public setting), and cringed at an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. By the way, everyone who told me Lufthansa was good was absolutely right. The seats are relatively big, the meal was good, and the availability of media is excellent. I even have access to electricity, although not internet. Some day...

Also, first class Lufthansa is beyond cool. Instead of forward facing seats, they have cool sideways sections shaped like the dividing line of a yin-yang. Someday, I’ll fly Lufthansa first class. I only hope it isn’t so far away that they’ve changed their seating!

I’m a little nervous about my transfer in Frankfurt. I wasn’t given a ticket for my flight to Graz at Sea-Tac; they swore up and down that I had to pick it up in Frankfurt. I also don’t know whether I have to manually transfer my luggage, or how much of a layover I’ll have. Thank god I understand German fairly well. This gives me a whole new respect for the courage of people who travel to countries where they don’t know the language. One of my good friends spent her summer in Italy and Turkey, when her only languages are English and German. Another is going to spent this next semester in India. She doesn’t speak any of the Indian dialects. On the other hand, this trip has also given me a new respect for my own courage. By doing a Direct Exchange, I’m relying heavily on my own organizational, linguistic, and practical skills. It seems like the other exchange students I know are flying on flights that were arranged for them, at times chosen for them, or are even going in groups. Weak sauce, my friends.

I don’t actually mean that, of course. Any exchange is a huge effort, and differences in how much are a matter of very small degree. The challenge of leaving the people and things we love behind and surviving in an unfamiliar context is the real thing, and that doesn’t change.

Graz, Austria, at Nina’s sister’s apartment

Wow, Nina, my Austrian mentor is worth her weight in gold. I hope they’re paying her, because she’s helping me a ton, and she’s doing it for three other people, too.