cardio, queues, and an angel

And so it begins, I have officially arrived in Gaming, but not without quite an adventure. While I would like to think that my stories could live up in writing to the excitement they actually brought (or at least have provided in my head), alas i believe that will not be possible, and thus i will simply do my best to convey them truthfully.

The day of travel began at O'hare with lines which were way too long, but soon we learned that this would be the least of our worries. The two of us boarded our plane in O'hare, headed to Frankfurt, Germany, assuming that things would be easy. We would land in Frankfurt at 5:45, head to gate B13 and board a plane which would leave at 7:00 a.m. in order to arrive in Vienna at 8:25, where we would await the arrival of everyone else. Little did we know that mother nature didn't want to cooperate, and a bad wind would force us to arrive at 6:19. For anyone who has been to Frankfurt airport, it apparently is impossible to get from one gate to another in a matter of 41 minutes.

First, there was the outrageous line for what they called a "passport check". The worker allowed us to cut the line there, which moved us through very quickly (although, the small Asian man who ended up directly behind Karl did not seem to find it amusing or okay that we had cut the entire queue-and yes, it took me a while to figure out what queue was). Despite the objections, we moved quickly through, and then passed on to the security checkpoint. Once again with a long line, the worker allowed us to cut to the front. We were slowed, however, by the necessity of each of us to be wanded and patted down. After one more sprint to the gate, we thought we had made it, only to find out that the plane had already left.

This may have been a very tragic occurrence, if, however, the woman behind the counter had not been an angel. She got us an on earlier flight, and then preceded to give us directions to the gate; which included the phrase "and that's when you run." When we saw the tunnel that she told us to run down, we knew we had no choice, and we tested our cardio.

Long story short, we arrived in Vienna. After a short search for the bus, we got to Gaming, and now are in the beautiful Kartause. And so here we are, in the most amazing place in the world. And now, it begins; we will start the adventure known as the semester of a lifetime.