Culture shock

I am sitting in the Frankfurt Germany Sheraton Hotel Lobby thousands of miles away from home all alone. I thought I would share with you, my Blogger friends, my first thoughts about this amazing adventure called GCSU Study Abroad 2016.  I have to admit there have been a few times during the last 36 hours that I have wondered what I have gotten myself into.

I am functioning on very little sleep.  Friday night I was so excited that I kept waking up thinking about all the things that might go wrong.  My biggest worry was that my carry on would be too large even though I measured it several times.  That was a total waste of time because other people had much larger bags than mine. And for some reason I was put into the Special TSA line at the Airport so I breezed through the Atlanta Airport, no searches at all.

I spent the first leg of my trip trying to figure out how to access the Internet on my phone and iPad...complete waste of time.  Should have done that before I left.

The second leg (from Washington Dulles to Frankfurt) was spent dozing and eating...I brought food but that was a waste because they kept bringing food and free wine. United Airlines is great, except for legroom. NOTE TO SELF: don't get a window seat because you have to crawl over sleeping people to get to the bathroom and you are captive if your seatmate begins to throw up, which she did several times.  And spring for Economy Plus for the extra legroom.

Did zou know that if zou use a German kezboard that zour sentences will end up like this?
It took me forever to figure out how to tzpe @ because  there is a kez at the bottom of the kezboard called Alt Gr that lets zou access a third character on some of the kezs.  And as zou have probablz noticed the z and y are reversed! And also this kezboard automaticallz capitaliyes most words.

I spent the first two hours in Frankfurt wandering around looking for a place to charge my IPhone. For some reason it died even though I didn't use it on the plane.  I had failed to write down my hotel name, so I was very panicky.  I consoled myself thinking if worse came to worse I would camp out at Terminal 1 until Monday morning when I meet the rest of my Group.  NOTE TO SELF: always write down the name of the hotel! Don't assume you can access info on your iPhone or iPad whenever you want.

Frankfurt Airport does have cellphone charging stations, but they look very different and of course, you have to have an adaptor...I almost cried with relief when my phone finally vibrated and came back to life.  I had my IPad but for some reason couldn't access the Internet at first.  

The clerk at the Sheraton was so kind, as were the several red vested employees in the airport who struggled to understand me.  I tried very hard to look confident so as not to be vulnerable, but at times I seriously considered going in the bathroom and sobbing.  I have never been so happy to finally enter a Hotel room.

My biggest thrill has been using the little German that I know and people start rattling off, assuming that I speak German.  Doesn't take long for them to realize I don't have a clue.

I am so thankful that most signs have English subtitles and most employees speak at least some English.  And that this lobby computer recognized my Google account, even though it took several tries.  But I managed to figure it out all alone.  Pretty good for an old girl like me!