What a day. As I write this, the German countryside is flying by outside of my train window. We’re headed from Berlin to Dresden and from there to Lobau, where someone from the base will (hopefully) be picking us up and taking us to Herrnhut. My two travel buddies, Jennifer and Corey, are here but our luggage, on the other hand, is not. Yes, that’s right… our bags are still in Sweden right now. When we first learned of this unfortunate situation, we decided to wait until they came in on the next flight. After finding out that we would not be able to get a train to Lobau tonight if we waited for the bags, we decided to tough it out without any luggage and head to Herrnhut. Our luggage is supposed to be delivered to us by the beginning of next week, and we’re just hoping that’s true.
Before Sweden, our travels were going well. No issues at St. Louis, the eight-hour flight to Stockholm went very smoothly and didn’t drag on too terribly. We had only an hour between flights in Stockholm. Generally, this would be plenty of time since they were on the same airline and everything. However, we ended making it to our gate at final boarding call due to a passport check and another security screening (pretty annoying). Needless to say, no missed flights…just missing bags.
I’m anxious and nervous and excited to get to the base. Mostly, I’m excited to shower and sleep. Luckily I have an extra of everything packed in my carry on and also some toiletries so I think I’ll be ok for the next couple days. Definitely not ideal, but I’m not too worried about it. Mostly, I’m just hoping that I can feel calm and happy and take a moment to enjoy being abroad. So far it’s been so much chaos and confusion and uncertainty that I haven’t had a moment to just take it all in. I’M IN GERMANY!
Happy update coming soon.
Jenna
(Written on 9-1-11)
