Herzlich Willkommen

I already have a couple interesting stories I can share with you all about my experience in Europe so far and it hasn’t even been a week since I arrived in Germany. Let’s start with the whole dilemma regarding my arrival in Germany…prepare to gasp a few times.

Leaving San Juan, Puerto Rico (original)

My dad and I checking in the bags.  (original)

The day was finally here. August 20^th. As I mentioned in the other post I was very excited but at the same time a little bit sad to leave all of my friends and family behind. Like I mentioned, I guess it’s all part of the process. Most of all, I was scared. I had a to-do list for all the things that needed to get done before I left for Germany and as always there are some things that you leave for the last minute that should have been done first. In my case the whole dilemma was about having some sort of communication once I got to Germany because I hadn’t properly researched international plans that I could use abroad. By the time I knew about one, it was too late and I needed to leave so my parents decided to call my phone company and put me on an international plan that had unlimited text messages and limited data (at least until I figured out what I would do once I got to Hanover) so I could communicate to get to my new apartment. This issue was resolved and it sounds like it wasn’t too complicated but trust me I was sort of freaking out when I realized I had no way of contacting the person who was picking me up at the airport (and I was arriving almost at midnight) nor I knew where I lived so I wouldn’t have any idea of where to go from the airport. So my first advice if you’re traveling for a long time guys, DO EVERYTHING WITH TIME. Even if you think you have everything down (trust me, I thought I had it all). Check again. Make sure you’re 100% ready to take that plane and if you are, you should be set. It was definitely stressful for me and my parents to try to figure some of these things out a couple days before the trip (considering I’m going away for a year). It seems like a very general and obvious piece of advice, but trust me it isn’t. We sometimes keep putting things off until we NEED to do it. Don’t. It would’ve been the worse if I didn’t have any sort of plan at all. You’ll soon find out why…

Going back to the day of my departure. I was checking my bags at the airport back home in Puerto Rico and I had chosen to pay a bit more so I could have two heavier bags (one with winter clothes and the other with summer clothes) sent to Hanover. It seemed like the most convenient thing to do since I was going to be away for so long. So two of the bags with basically all of my clothes were checked in and the lady said they would be sent directly to Hanover (even though I stopped in Frankfurt before flying to Hanover). Everything seemed to be going the way it was supposed to and as I said goodbye to my parents and my best friends I boarded the plane and went to Frankfurt. It was about a 6-7-hour flight from San Juan directly to Germany (which was great). Then I had a layover of what seemed to be more than 10 hours in Frankfurt. I was supposed to board my next plane to Hanover at 10pm and I got to Frankfurt around 9am. This is where everything starts to get interesting.

I was hospitalized 3 days before leaving for Germany. I have asthma and so I had an allergic reaction in which my trachea got completely blocked. I ended up in the emergency room and thank God everything was okay. It was definitely a wake-up call as to something that COULD happen while I was abroad. I was lucky to be with my family and friends and in someplace as small as Puerto Rico because everything relied upon getting to the hospital in time to be treated and given oxygen. I realized that now I am on my own and that I need to pay attention to the location of the hospitals and need to take better care of myself because there won’t be anyone doing these things for me. I always carry my Epi-pen and my inhaler from now on with me and I am sure to say in every restaurant before eating that I am extremely allergic to seafood (cross-contamination was the reason I had my asthma attack). This being said, I was on a lot of medications after this happened so nothing would trigger my allergies again. I was still feeling a little bit tired and out of it if you could say and having a 6-7-hour flight did not help me feel any better.

When I got to Frankfurt I was feeling weak and not very well. It was definitely the lack of sleep, the change of time, the long flight and now I had to wait 10+ hours in the airport so I was definitely a bit frustrated but took a deep breath and realized I would be going to Italy in a few hours with one of my best friends from Northeastern so everything would be okay. I spent the entire day just sleeping in different corners of the airport, reading, writing, eating; anything I could do to keep myself distracted. I even watched a few movies. However, I was always paying attention to the screens so when they posted the gate my flight was at I could go there and just sit there until it was boarding time. Around 7pm, I still did not see anything on the screens. I was starting to get a bit worried because if you haven’t been to Frankfurt

Frankfurt International Airport 
Picture from: www.thelocal.de

International Airport let me be the first to tell you: it is not the type of place you want to get lost in. It is such a big airport that getting from one terminal to the next could take you forever. I am big on being on time for my flights so I can just relax at the gate. I decided I was going to ask more about the flight in the information desk and when it was my turn the lady saw my ticket and said, “You are not on any passenger list. You don’t have a flight what you have is a train.” I was so confused and so my first thought was, “Where are my bags then?” And my thought eventually translated into a sentence because I was still in shock of what was happening. She said my bags were supposed to be picked up in Frankfurt when my flight arrived (aka 9am in the morning), but in Puerto Rico they even gave me a ticket saying the bags were going directly to Hanover. It didn’t make any sense. The airline never told me explicitly that my flight was not a flight but a train ride and I had just spent all day waiting in the airport for the supposed flight I was in. In this type of situation, I tend to freak out for a second and then get to work and think of what I can do at the moment. So I had to take a train ride instead. No biggie. I just had to make it on time to Hanover so I wouldn’t miss my 6am flight to Milan. The problem now was: My bags. They clearly weren’t in Hanover if I wasn’t on any passenger list. I asked the lady where they could be and she had no idea. She kept feeling sorry for me because it was hard for me to understand everything. She called the representative of the airline I flew in with from San Juan and the lady just basically screamed at me saying how she couldn’t do anything but give me a train ticket “pick-up number” to go to Hanover whenever I wanted to. So I took the information and ran outside of the gates to see if anyone in baggage claim could tell me or had any idea where my luggage was at. *It was 9pm as of now by the way.* 

As I start asking around where lost and found is everyone is pointing to different directions and are not really wanting to help me which was frustrating for me. When I finally get to lost and found, they had just closed. There was nothing I could do.

In the midst of all this chaos, I was in contact with Sarah (another NEU student that’s co-oping in Hanover as well). This was her second year coming back to co-op in Leibniz University and she was also the one picking me up at the airport (now train station apparently) so I had to keep her updated of everything that was happening. This is where I was so grateful my parents decided to put me on an international plan because I was able to communicate with them and Sarah while all of this was happening. Sarah told me there was a train leaving from Frankfurt Main Station at 10:22 pm. It was 9:30pm. I had to take a taxi and go there, pick up the supposed ticket Condor had for me and then take the train. I ran outside of the airport and got a taxi. Told him to take me to the station as fast as he could. And he did. He definitely did (he drove so fast). When I got to the station everything was in German (let’s remember I know nothing) and even though most people in Germany speak English for some reason it was getting hard to explain to people where I was headed or what I needed to do. The station was certainly overwhelming after the day I had had so I wanted to get my ticket and get on a train as fast as I could. When going to the office to pick up my ticket, it was closed. Of course. It had to be closed. So I had to buy a 90-euro ticket to Hanover (something I was certainly not counting on). Now the next part was figuring out which train was going to Hanover and how to know in which stop I should get down. I was able to talk to Sarah for a bit through Whats App messaging and she definitely helped me out but I had limited data so I had to be turning on and off my data in order to talk to her. When I got on the train apparently I was in first class so I got kicked out of there and had to run to the available carriage praying the train wouldn’t leave. At this point you can imagine me, sweating, panting, with my carry on and my backpack just sort of looking like I had the worst day ever. I guess this image was what made Juan Pérez talk to me and take pity of my situation. You must be wondering, “Juan Pérez? Who is she talking about?” I know. I know. Confusing. I guess you’ll have to read the next blog post to find out the rest of the story and what ended up happening…

-Ana Gabriela