Start my journey to Germany! (Say that ten times fast!) I will be leaving from Tri-City (MBS) at about 5:00 PM. I'm hoping not to get involved in the Northwest labor slowdown, but I guess I have no say in the matter.
Well plans have changed slightly, and I might be leaving at 3:15 instead of 5:00, because the second plane is a "puddle jumper," and the the person that we talked to at Northwest said it would be better to get to Detroit early, rather than late.
I left from Saginaw early because the person at Northwest that we talked to about confirming my reservations said that it would be a good idea not to risk it and try to get to Detroit as soon as possible, so I took an earlier flight that left Saginaw a t 3:15 PM.
After I arrived at Detroit, I tried to read in the terminal, but couldn't because the TV was too loud. Because I took the earlier flight, I rode on a larger plane (DC9), and this put me in a different area of the airport. If I would have stayed with the little plane (the one at 5:15) I wouldn't have had to waited for a transfer bus. Oh Well.
Northwest switched gates for my flight from F14 to F12, which isn't a big deal because the gates are right next to each other.
My flight has been delayed until 8:00 L
My flight was delayed again until 9:00 so they thought, but we didn't leave the gate until 9:30!
This plane is pretty big, but it's not as big as I thought it would be. The plane is full, and there aren't any individual air vents for the seats.
There where TVs in the plane that displayed information about the current location on a map, direction, speed, distance to destination, local time (relative to the time yone we where over), destination current time, current speed, outside air temperatu re, and altitude.
My seat was 25a (a window seat on the left side of the plane) right beside the front of the wing. The flight attendants handed out the digital headphones, not those cheap hollow tube ones, for free before take-off.
According to the map it looked like we traveled right over Blue Water. (Our church's camp ground near Lexington Michigan)
At about 11:00 (our time) they started to serve Dinner. First they came around with hot towels, to clean our hands or face, then they collected them. They then came and asked what we wanted to eat, schezuan chicken or pasta. I choose the chicken. I t was quite good, but I couldn't finish it because I had eaten some of the chicken I brought with me from our lunch at KFC. There where also some veggies that had tomatos in them, so I didn't touch it.
We landed, and then we didn't have a gate to goto. The pilot said that the reason was because the airport was putting in new equipment in the control tower and there was a temporary slow down while they learned about it. We waited for about 20 - 30 m in.
After we de-planed, we had to go and get new tickets to complete our trips. There where quite a few people in line, but I was pretty close to the front. The waiting in line didn't bother me, but I really had to go pee! After 8 hours of hardly moving and two meals I was quite ancy.
My plane was suppose to start boarding at about 11:30 (Amsterdam time), but when I got to the gate, at about 11:50, the plane wasnät even there yet! When the plane arrived and got loaded we finally got off the ground at a split time of 16:17.
On KLM they serve good food/snacks! On this flight they didn't have hot towels, but they did have wet towels (like baby wipes). After that the flight attendant came back with our snack, but it wasn't the expected small bag of peanuts. It was a nice sized ham, cheese, and letuce sandwich (It was pretty good).
They then came around for drinks. I ordered a Coke. He went to the back of the plane to get it and brought back a little Coke can with a cup. The cup was 150ml, or about half the siye of our regular cans. That is one things that I will try to bring back.
I like flying on KLM, but so far they aren't prompt, and their planes appear old on the interior.
Well I'm finally on the ground in Germany, almost... Ok, now the wheels are on the ground! :-)
I can't see much of the scenery, even though I have a a window seat. My row doesn't have any windows.
None of my checked lugage made it through. It did come that day though, it was about 9:00 P.M. when it arove.
Most cars here in Germany, as Mike said when he was staying with us, are stick shifts. When accelerating away from a stop light you see all the cars teeter-tottering as they shift. There aren't any trucks or larger cars. If we brought our Buick LeSab re over here, it would be one of the biggest cars on the road.
The rest of the day I spent looking around Venzke's house, or trying to sleep. I was unsuccesful at sleeping though.
Venzke's have a nice large three story high house. The street level floor is the doctor's office, and the two other stories above, are the house. I'm staying on the top floor, all by myself, the Venyke's all have their rooms on the second floor, alon g with the kitchen, living room...
I went to bed at about 10:30.
Then Mike and I waited for a zip drive to come so I could start giving him some fo the programs that I brought with me. It came and we spent the rest of the afternoon copying the contents of the zip disks to his hard drive.
Tonight Mike, Sebastian, and I are going out tonight and should be back around 11:00 because tomorrow is going to be a long day.
Then Mike is going to have a party, which will probably last well into the night. That should be interesting.
After French class the whole class and a few more went to sports class, or gym class. After a warm up run, the students split up into two groups. One group went outside to play soccer, and the other group stayed inside to play volley ball. I stayed inside and played volley ball. Both of the classes that I went to lasted two periods.
After we got home, at about 12:30, we started to get ready for Mike's birthday party. We set up two grills upstairs on a balcony, and I moved my things downstairs. The party started at about 6:00 P.M. when the first three guys arrived and lasted unti l the next morning when the last few guys and gals left. The party here was much like an american party except all of the participants weren't breaking any laws... I went to bed early though, because I was tired and was getting tiered of not being able to understand what people where saying when they weren't talking directly to me.
At about 10:00 I went downstairs and played some card/board games with Kathrine, and Tine. I sort-of learned how to count in German! Sort-of, I had to use a cheat sheet...
The party was also a soccer party, for Germany and Croatia where competing in the World Cup. Sadly to say Germany lost to Croatia with a score of 0-3.
Over all most of the people that I have met in Germany have been able to communicate quite well with me. That has made it easier.
When I woke up I had a light breakfast of only one bowl of Choco Flakes (Kellogs brand). Then I went online checked e-mail, replied to a few ICQ messages, and replied to a few e-mails. Then the last remnants from the party left, and the clean up from the party was finished soon after.
Then the rest of the day was pretty much like any normal sunday for me, we lounged around, and didn't do anything that didn't have to get done.
For lunch (3:00) Mike and I had left overs from the party. Kathrine, and Tine already ate, and Mike's parents went to their other house to clean.
For supper we had a pot roast with some different tasting gravy which was sour/salty. I didn't much care for the gravy, but the meat was very goodand tender. After Dinner Mike and I went downstairs to the Office and tried to figure out why one of thei r computer's floppy disk drive wasn't working. It turned out that it was either a loose power connector, bad drive, or bad cable...
Now I'm waiting for some backups to finish on Mike's computer, so I can go online, and post this page, and try to figure out why some people can't get to the www page. Also it is difficult at times to type on this keyboard, it has the "y" and the "z" switched, and also the keys to the right of the "p" "l" and "m" are different...
After we came home on the bus again, it started to rain as we where walking from the bus stop to the Venzke's home. Luckily Marion drove by and picked us up.
At 3:00 Joe, Michael, and I went to Mölln, the home of Till Eulenspiegel. After we had a look around the Venzke's home which is getting renovated, and getting a bite to eat with Mike's grandparents who live above the house getting renovated, Mike and I went downtown. We walked to the church and saw Till Eulenspiegel's grave. We also walked down the mains street and walked by several of the small shops that lined the street. Mölln has a population of about 18,000, Joe told me.
The part of Mölln that the Venzke's house is in is part of the old part, and because it is there, they have some restrictions that they have to abide by while they are remodeling. They replaced the ceramic shingles on the roof, added insulated windows on the inside of the house, re-tiled the floor, put in a very nice looking fire place, built a doc into the lake, covered all the walls and cielings, and are having the doors all restored. So far the walls are pretty much done, and the doc was be ing built while we where there. It is going to be a beautiful house when it is done. The house itself is over 300 years old.
I rode in a Mercedes Benz today, from Mölln to Nusse. Joe's parents own it. It wasn't a stick shift either... Joe's father was a prisoner for five years in one of the wars that Germany was involved in. He is a very nice, and talkative man. His Eng lish was quite rusty though, he learned English while in prison over 60 years ago.
After the concert we went to one of Mike's friend's house and watched the soccer game of Brazil and the Netherlands. Brazil won. A few people didn't like that, but they got over it.
Then after that we went to another party and stayed until about 1:30 A.M. Then we went home and went to bed.
After lunch Mike and I went over to another one of his friends house and played some network computer games on his lan of two Pentium 200 MMX machines. We played Quake, You Don't know Jack, and Command and Conquer. He wasn't much of a Quake player... Mike and I both beat him. We played games until about 6:30 P.M.
For dinner we went over to Mike's uncle's house to have dinner. After dinner us kids (Mike, his sisters, and I) walked along the river that bordered the house, and walked to the lock to look around. There are several locks in this area of Germany tha t are still in use.
After dinner, we came home and checked e-mail and found out that some of the systems at school had been broken into, so I talked with Mr. T for a while and didn't update my journal...
Earlier in the day Mike and I went over to one of his parent's friend's house and explained Windoze 95 to him because he just had it installed on his computer. Mike explained it, and I sat and played a game on his old 286 laptop. It was a pretty chal enging game. He also had a modem for us to install for him, but we had to go back to the Venyke's for lunch. Then in the afternoon Mike went back to his house, and I stayed back and played games on Mike's computer.
That night everybody except Kathrine went out to eat. (Kathrine went out to a party.) This restraunt was in an old barn which had been turned into a a museum/resuraunt. I had pork stirfry with fried potato slices, it was seasoned perfectly. It was v ery good, but the meal was quite pricy too. For the five of us it was about 150 DM which turns out to be about $82 American.
Then after we got home, Mike and I tried to get his network working again. I finally got it working at about 2:00 A.M. Then I went to bed.
Then Mike and I went into a Luthren church. It was HUGE! I took a picture of one of the lower stained glass windows. It has two spires, which can be seen in the picture with the gate and I in it. It was about four to 6 times larger than the catholi c churches in our area back in Michigan. That's just the base, it's about twice to three times as tall as the catholic churches in our area. One of the churches looked like the church in the "Hunchback of NotreDam," but Mike said that it wasn't.
After we came home, Mike and I played some tetrinet on his two computers, and then we had a dinner of sandwiches and bread.
After that I was told that I had an e-mail from my mommy that said that I needed to tell her what was going on because they haven't heard anything since Monday, I didn't think that it was that long ago that I updated everyone, but I checked and sure en ough, it was Monday. So here I am asking Mike what we did two days ago because I can't remember. Good thing I'm keeping this current... :-)
The bus tour took us around to the main parts of the downtown area of Hamburg. It pointed out Their historical church, the city building, the councelates, and many other things that I can't really remember. It was quite interesting. The boat tour to ok us around some of the numerous rivers and the harbor of the city. Hamburg is suppose to have more bridges than Venice, and London combined. The city looked pretty new and clean, but the tour wuide said that it was that way because most of the city ha d been destroyed twice in the last 150 years, so there wheren't any old buildings. A great fire, and WW2 where the reasons for the destruction. Also if those two events didn't destory the old buildings the people of the city did the rest. Now the city is finding the importance of historical buildings and is trying to restore some areas to their former looks.
After we got back to the Venzke's we had a very nice dinner with some of Marion, and Joe's friends from Müln. We had deer, potatos, green beans, pheasant soup, and whait and brown chocolate moose. It was a very nice meal.
After the window shopping Mike and I met two of his friends, and we watched a German movie. It was actually German, which is unknormal because they don't have the hollywood industry that the US does. You could tell that they didn't have the equipmen t and resources that a mainstream hollywood movie does. There where places where the movie wasn't spliced corectly, and the movie had streaks from either excessive use, or bad reproduction. The movie itself was pretty god, but I couldn't understand any of the jokes. I grasped the overall meaning of the movie even though I can't speak but 5 words in german...
A birthday party for two of Mike's friends followed and lasted until about 1:30 in the morning. It was pretty much like all of hte rest of the parties that we've gone to. Almost everybody had their beir in their hands when they wheren't dancing. The few that wheren't drinking beir either had mixed drinks, or where the drivers. It was ok, but I grew tired of it quicker than most.
Us kids are all pretty tired now, and are ready for dinner which will be ready soon. Then we will do something for a little while and goto bed, for we will need to leave for Berlin at 6:20 in the morning to catch the bus. I would rather we leave late and goto bed late... We'll probably get to goto bed late... Tomorrow sounds like it will be a big day.
The bus was completely fun, and we where the last ones to get on the bus. As usual I couldn't sleep on the bus but more than 5 minutes at a time. We stoped once on the way to Berlin at a rest stop.
When we got to Berlin we went and bought the mass transit tickets that allowed us to ride the bus and subway. We throughout the day rode on the subway and buses several times, but we also did a lot of walking. It was just us young whipper snappers th at went, Joe had to work, and Marion went back home after she dropped us off for at the bus stop. We saw the Brandenburg gate (gate for east and west Berlin), and the check point charlie museum. An old church that was mostly destroyed from WW2, and a lo t of construction. Berlin is undergoing a major change, it's becoming the capital of Germany. Because of this big change the government buildings have to be built. Along with the government buildings, and a lot of other construction and renovation was going on too. We did some shopping and stuff and then got on tht bus to go home at 5:30 P.M.
After we looked around the farm outside we went in for coffee and cake. The "apretices" that worked on the farm also came in. While eating we talked about the crops and milk prices... They only raise grass, corn, winter wheat, and sometimes winter b arley. The wheat is aout 3 to 4 weeks away from being ripe because of the lack of sun for the last month. The average amount of milk that they shipped out every two days from the 70 cows that they where milking right now was only about 5,000 pounds, tha t's a little less that we ship out over the same time at our farm of 30 less cows... The farmer also said that their acerage per cow per year was 6000 Kilograms or about 13,000 pounds I think.
After we left the farm we came home, and had dinner and then had a leisurely evening.
I played that quite a bit until we left for The Baltic sea. We (Mike and I) took one of his female friends (I don't say girl friend, because she isn't a *girl* friend). We walked near the beach and visited a beach party. It was a tv stations public relations day. They had a wall climb, a grounded surf board, and quite a bit of other fun stuff, but some of it required swiming or getting wet, and the day wasn't nice enough to get wet. The started out nice, but turned into a cloudy cool day towards t he time we where to goto the Baltic.
During my whole trip we haven't really had a nice warm, or non rainy day. The Joe tells me that this is unnormal, but it has been pleasant most of the time. Tonight we where planning on going to an open air party, but because of the large amount of r ain that we got this afternoon Mike thought it would be muddy at the party site so we didn't go. Now Mike has another one of his female friends over and they are talking and I'm typing this because I can't understand much if any of what they say. Too ba d our school didn't offer German as a language :-( Maybe if I had taken a year or two of German I could at least understand some of it. Oh well maybe in college I can take German, and then the next time I come over I can at least feel that I know some o f their language other than the German I know from using thie German version of Windows.
Before we went to the castle though we went to the largest church in the city. It was also very beautiful. It was about 800 years old and had been kept up, so it looked very nice. One of the coolest parts about this church was that there was an obse rvation deck about half way up the steeple, which even though it was only half way up, it gave you a very nice view of the whole city. The observation deck was about 50 meters above the ground, that was quite a climb considering the stair way that we had to climb. The stairway was a circular style one that was built completely of stone. It's diameter was about 2 to 2.5 meters, so the steps where all about a meter long or less. This doesn't seem like much yet, but the distance between the stairs and th e stair level above you was about 2 meters, that makes the grade of the stairs pretty high...
When we got home I was expecting a brief period before we would leave again to go out to eat, but aparently Joe and Marion decided not to make plans, so we ate at home. I will have to bring up the subject again tomorrow... Or maybe I will just send t hem something sometime.
