Maybe the real abyss was Philadelphia all along?

       Last week was my final week on the study abroad, and this marks my second to last blog post here.

      Now, on my first day home (yeah, first day home, I'll explain in a moment) I'm filled with a lot of mixed emotions. My final week in Germany was as wonderful as the rest of my time there, and in particular I had an amazing time with the My Berlin Day experience. I know it, along with the rest of everything I experienced over in Germany is something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.

    The night after our My Berlin Day presentations, my friends and I got dinner outside at a restaurant near the Brandenburg gate. There was live music on the street next to us, and while we sat and ate, we suddenly heard it stop, and then we heard fireworks begin. I had completely forgotten, and I think most of my friends had too, but it was the Fourth of July. So we stood and watched the fireworks display going off, above a museum in Berlin, on my second to last day in Germany, and I could only think how surreal and wonderful it was. It was the kind of moment that you know, right as its happening, that you're going to remember for years and years.

     I'm not sure when I'll be back, but I do know that I want to be back someday. I also want to keep learning German, and maybe look into doing a graduate degree in Germany, where I can do it for free. I don't have any concrete plans yet, but it's nice to know that there are options. Whenever my return to Germany ends up being, I honestly can't wait. I'm incredibly grateful that this trip opened my life up to a place that I otherwise might not have visited, and might never have known that I'd like so much.

    I also think I feel a lot more confident coming out of the trip. I'd known that Dr. Wasser had said that we would be changed by the experience and the things that we learned on our trip and that we would feel the impact of it years down the line. And I believed him, but, I didn't exactly expect for that to be tested about a day after the trip ended.

    Enter Philadelphia.

    Our flight from Berlin into Philadelphia was entirely smooth, if a teensy bit delayed. However, the group of us who were getting the next flight to Dallas got hung up at baggage when they took an hour to unload our things that we needed to recheck for the next flight. We rushed through security and straight up sprinted to the gate, and got there just in time, but they'd already sold our seats to standby. We got rerouted onto new flights at the help desk, and everyone got on the next flight to Dallas, but since I was connecting to Albuquerque, I said it was OK for them to reroute me through Phoenix instead.

     This is my first mistake. I should not have trusted Phoenix.

    But the Dallas group boards their plane. An hour later, I board mine. The weather is a little hairy, but the flight board still says on time, and I'm lulled into a false sense of security. We board the plane, and then we sit at the gate. About thirty minutes passes when the first announcement comes on. We're a little delayed because of the weather and the crew can't get the planes loaded, but the baggage should be in soon an we'll be ready to hit the air. Another thirty minutes passes, the bags are being loaded now, and then we'll get in the air.  Another hour passes, and the bags are loaded. We get out to the runway, and the staff does the safety rundown. I'm hopeful that I just might make my connection. Then another hour passes. We get an announcement that a weather delay has been imposed again, and if we take off, the crew will go over their flight hour limits, so the flight is not taking off. We're going to be going back to the airport and getting off the plane, and they'll try to get us a new crew,  but there's no gates open. We're going to have to wait some more.

     Five and a half hours after our original flight time, we get back to the airport and get off the plane. We're not getting a new crew, the flight is cancelled. There is an utter mob at the desk, and we are all told that, because the weather is an act of god, nobody is getting any hotel vouchers. I manage to eat some lukewarm food from the last place open in the airport and get onto the online flight change website for the airline. It says the soonest flight out is on Tuesday. After some more waiting, I manage to get onto a flight Monday. One day better.

   Then, I go downstairs to try to find my checked bag, all of which have been offloaded from my cancelled flight, plus all the other cancelled flights, so I have clothes for my two day stay. It's not there. The line to talk to the luggage clerk wraps around the baggage carousel, and I decide that finding out whether my bag has been lost is something that will have to wait for later. I have to find a hotel.

     First, I attempt to book a hotel online. I think I am booking for that night and the next, but when I look at the final confirmation page, it says that I had only booked for one night, because they were full the night before. I call to see if i can cancel, but no, I can't because it's past midnight now and it's technically the same day of by booking. So I guess I'll have to stay in two different hotels. I call around multiple times, but I can't find an others available. I end up on a help line with a very friendly lady who tries to get me into one hotel, but while we're booking it, the room gets taken. Finally we get to a second hotel, all the way in central Philadelphia. There's no airport shuttle, but there's a ten dollar service called Lady Liberty transport that will take me there, and I can book it through the hotel front desk.

    So I call the hotel front desk and ask, and am told, curtly "Lady Liberty transport doesn't exist. It hadn't existed in a long time. You can't get that here, okay? Goodbye." and have the phone hung up on me.

    And I'm not proud to admit it, but I did cry for a little while sitting on the floor of the airport after that. Then I stood up, cleaned up in the bathroom, and went to go find a cab because goddammit it was 8 am Germany time, I had been up for over 24 hours, and I just wanted to sleep.

    I've never been more grateful for a hotel room king sized bed, let me tell you. Finally, I got there, got to sleep. Then the next morning, I woke up, changed hotels, and accidentally watched the Us women's team win the world cup while I hung out in the hotel sports bar for three hours until check in-time for the second hotel.

Now, finally, after another full day of flying, I am home, and the reason for my long-winded explanation of my airplane woes was this: I'm not sure if I could have done it without my experiences from the study abroad and my confidence gained there. I might have given up. But I didn't, and I got home, and now I have one more story to tell, even if its not a very pleasant one.

As much as I'll miss Germany, I'm just so happy to have had the experience, and I'm excited for what lies ahead my junior year.