The Long Trek Home

The train ride was absolutely horrible. I had my big suitcase right in front of me with my legs on top of it and my backpack in my lap. I was so uncomfortable and did not sleep one bit. The people in my cart were a little strange and I didn't really want to sleep in case something happened. I got to the Frankfurt airport at 6:30am and I headed to terminal 1. I got a little twisted but just asked people a bunch of times where it was. Frankfurt is a really big airport but I found where I needed to be eventually. I was really excited because my exchange student, Ola, was going to meet me there. I had emailed her the day before asking her if I could stay with her if my flight gets cancelled again. She lives really close to Frankfurt so it was comforting knowing I had a back up plan if I did need to spend Christmas in Germany. I was waiting in a really long line to check in and I saw Ola. It was so nice to see her! We talked while we waited in line, checked my bag and then got breakfast together. We were only together for one hour but we tried so hard to get together over the semester and it just didn't work out so I was so happy to see her! She walked me to security and then I said goodbye. She is planning on coming to the states again so hopefully I will be seeing her soon! I went through security and of course I got stopped. I swear that always happens to me. They had to wand me and then they had to dig through my backpack. They took out my iPod speakers and I had to go to a special room. They swiped something over the speakers and then ran it through a machine. It took about two minutes and then I could leave. It was kind of dumb but atleast I didn't have to get stripped searched like a lot of people did. They were brought behind this partition that was in the room where everyone was waiting. It seemed a little awkward and a lot of people were being checked. I got on the plane and everything after that went fine. The flight was really long though. I was in the air for 11 hours straight. The guy I sat next to was kind of strange and of course right when I fall asleep he wakes me up because he has to go to the bathroom. I never sleep on planes and of course this happens to me. I got to Dallas and found out that I had to grab my bags. I was not expecting that. I then had to wait in a line where a lot of people were complaining. There was this one crazy lady who freaked out even though the line only took about 15 minutes. It went really fast. I then rechecked my bag and went through customs which was a breeze. I always get nervous for that stuff but it was all find. I had a good hour before my plane left for Minneapolis which was nice. If I had an earlier flight I would have been nervous so it was nice that I had a good amount of time. I got on my second flight and it seemed long just because I was so anxious. I was so excited to be in the states and to be almost home. I got the Minneapolis airport and was SO excited to see Mom, Dad, Katie, Laurann and Pato there waiting for me. It was such a long journey and I was so excited that of course tears burst out of my eyes. There is no greater feeling then coming home! There truly is no place like home! We of course talked the whole way home and it was so weird walking into the house after being gone for four months. It was great! We stayed up and talked for a little while before going to bed. We had to get ready since the next day was Christmas Eve. It was so crazy getting home one day before Christmas but I was really excited to see everyone!

Finally made it home!