Insomnia...

It has been a long time since I had trouble sleeping because of excitement and nerves, but lately I have been feeling like it is the night before the first day of school. Since I am unable to sleep, I thought that I might do something semi-productive.

I have started getting ready to pack. My goal is to take only one suitcase and my carry-on. We will see how successful I am. Other than that, everything is set. My flight leaves from Phoenix on Wednesday. I then have a layover in Denver before the ten and a half hour flight to Frankfurt. From there, I will take the train to Braunschweig, where I will be picked up by Mario, a former exchange student to Purdue, with whom I have been corresponding. Then to my apartment.

I technically have an official minder, whose name is Dennis. Dennis is supposed to be picking up my keys and things to my apartment, but I have only corresponded with him once, and have no idea when I will be meeting him. Unless Dennis manages to find his email soon (his only email to me seemed to be a little on the scatterbrained side) and let me know when and where we can meet, I might be keyless. I hope that this will not be a large deterrent, since I am living in a University apartment and presumably they will have an extra set of keys.

I have been requested to be at the DLR at 10:00 am Monday morning. However, I will only be working part-time, so I will have ample time to explore the city and the University; as well as brush up on my German, which I have been sorely neglecting for the last two and a half years. Since I do not think that talking to yourself in German qualifies as keeping in practice. Especially since my German conversation was never very good. Luckily I think most of the work at the DLR is done in English, so I will have plenty of time to work on my German before attempting to take classes in it.

My plan is to write a bit while I am travelling, to keep track of my thoughts on the trip before I become overwhelmed (‘You can be overwhelmed and under whelmed, but can you just be whelmed?’) with the events of arriving in Braunschweig and getting settled into my apartment. If I do manage to keep to that plan, I should have a chain posting from the long trip sometime on Friday or Saturday. (8:00 am MST Wednesday to 4:00 pm Germany time Thursday equals 24 hours by car, plane and train from Flag to Braunschweig (ahhh!!), if I am correct in thinking that Germany time is eight hours ahead of Mountain Standard Time)