London to Leipzig
First I forgot some London stuff- There is so much traffic here. Ambulances can’t move and it irritates me. The guy on the bus told me that the symbol for London is a dragon, which I think is weird because the symbol for Scotland, per Gavin, is a unicorn and both of those are mythical creatures. I also learned on the bus that the river Thames is both fresh and salt water, that Daniel Radcliffe went to the Tower of London School, and lastly that London has an obelisk called “Cleopatra’s Needle.” An obelisk is an ancient Egyptian artifact [feel free to look it up on Google]. Also, at the pub I went to that night, I tried an Aspall Suffolk Cyder, which was very good and not too sweet. Additionally, I ate a cheddar [cheddah, as said by the typer] and pickle sammy, which I thought meant dill pickle, but unfortunately it did not [sad face]. It was still good but I’m not sure what kind of pickle it was because it was purple and brown, maybe it was pickled in beet juice?
Fri 9/25/15, Heathrow-Düsseldorf-Leipzig
I couldn’t sleep because I was terrified I wouldn’t wake up early enough (4:30am), but I did make it to the airport with plenty of time. I had to pay to check my bag, but that was okay because I didn’t have to carry it.
So last year, in Ireland, everywhere had Wi-Fi all the time- Buses, trains, airports, hotels, EVERYWHERE, for free. I assumed, ignorantly, that everywhere else in Europe would be like that. Edinburgh was great, the buses had an app for tickets and everywhere had Wi-Fi. However my London hotel only gave you 30 minutes and the London train station had none at all and Heathrow airport only gave you 30 minutes too. This pissed me off greatly. [Oy]
I was very early and got through security quickly. I did not have to take off my shoes and they did not swab my cast. My gate wasn’t listed yet so I had breakfast at place World Food, which was nothing special. But I did see a bunch guys in Lederhosen and a group of burly dudes drinking beer at 6am. They had a funny cutout where you could take your picture in it and #hashtag yourself in the Queen’s Terminal. But since I was not yet with Erica Zietzsch [me], I had to take a picture without me in it. My flight was good, I didn’t see any cool landmarks from the plane. We arrived in Dusseldorf about an hour late and being the special kid I am, I didn’t realize how big the airport was or that I had to go through customs again, because I was in another country.
Eventually when I wanted food, I was told I had to go through customs. And I got another stamp (photo 2) in the ole passport. [She didn’t say that, I did] I couldn’t understand anything because everything was in German [surprise, you’re in Germany] and since I only got 30 minutes of Wi-Fi, I couldn’t look anything up. The words “pretzel” [Brezl] and “beer” [Bier] were obviously to me. So I thought “why not?” (Photo 3)
I had a panic attack when I realized that I would have to take a bus to the tarmac and climb up stairs to get into the plane. I had never done this before and I am terrified of small planes. [I keep spelling plane “plain”…oy] To my surprise, even though we were going from a German town to a German town, they still said everything in German and in English. I thought that was very nice. I did not have a window seat, so I was also kind of freaked out about that. Being able to see calms me down, but I was kind of tired and had had a large beer, so I took a nap. When we landed, a nice lady whose outfit I admired, got my backpack down and put it on me. I thought this was very nice also. I love Germans! [Me too!]
I had to pay for 30 minutes of Wi-Fi in Leipzig in order to inform the Zietzsch’s of my arrival. I was very excited to see them drive up. [This was of course, after she waited nearly an hour for us b/c we were late due to traffic jams [sad face]] We were going to somewhere near Nuremburg for the race I was supposed to run with Marko and Erica and Jens [MZ’s cousin].
When we got there, we got to see Jens and Franzi’s new apartment and it was amazing. I am so jealous. I met Jens and Franzi in June, at Erica and Marko’s wedding. [Jens is Marko’s cousin, Franzi is Jens’ wife] Jens has 3 mice named Blackie, Happy and Summer, who was my favorite. I thought they were very cute and they really loved their wheel. We ordered pizza, noodles for the runners (CARB LOADING!!), and it was really good. Jens had a lot of alcohol and offered me something called “Radler” which is similar to our Shandy. (Photo 4) Then we got to have wine with dinner, but they didn’t have a corkscrew so we had to open it with a drill. It was funny. [They just moved, everything was packed] After dinner I got to try and Obstler, which is a shot of schnapps-it tasted like rubbing alcohol.
Franzi was very sick, so that made me very sad [There is a lot of over dramatics in that one sentence] but Jens was the ultimate host and I felt very welcome and I loved learning a bunch of German stuff. For example, when German houses are built, they are built without kitchens and then you get to make it yourself, which is pretty cool. Because people that cook a lot like their kitchens a specific way.