Day 1 in the Rhineland

Well its 18:50 my time (12:50 in the US) and I am sitting in the lobby of a Youth Hostel in Cologne (Köln). It has been almost 27 hours since my plane took off from Syracuse Airport. It has been a long journey and I am running on only one hour of sleep which I got on the plane. So both the Jet Blue flight from Syracuse to JFK and the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt went well, and I even arrived in Frankfurt early. It seemed pretty normal for me to board the Jet Blue flight and I still didn't realize the full extent of my journey. But when the engine on the plane started to rev, my heart started beating quickly and my skin was crawling. A feeling of pure excitement came over me as the small jet began to hurtle towards the end of the runway approaching 300 MPH. A huge grin came over my face and I almost let out a small yell of excitement, until I realized that the woman next to me did not seem too pleased that I had been hogging the window. I forgot how much I love to fly. The flight was quick and painless, I reclaimed my luggage and made my way to Lufthansa Airlines to check my bags. Quick and painless. I then started towards the security check and a kind looking German man took my passport and compared my photo. He kept looking at it, over and over. Then began to stare at my face intently, then back at the photo. I got a little nervious when this kept going on for over a minute. He eventually called another officer over and he began to check them. I gave them a polite smile and jokingly asked, "doesn't it look like me?" The man chuckled and said "well i guess it had better be" and let me through. So I spent the next 4 hours relaxing in the airport near the gate, enjoying a chicken parm and watching Seinfeld on my computer. The plane ride was nice, I met a group from Syracuse that was traveling to Florence for 3 weeks on another study abroad adventure. Sadly one of the guys from the group sitting next to me fell asleep on my shoulder during the flight, and I just didnt have the heart to make him move. After gettting to Frankfurt I met up with the other study abroad students. There are 25 of us ranging from sophomore to senior and from Montana to Boston to Memphis. There are 6 guys and 19 women (however we must remember the parking lot rule). At 9am Frankfurt time we boarded the bus and headed out to Cologne. The ride lasted about an hour and a half (we were pushing 85 on the Autobahn at times!) and we arrived at the youth hostel in the city. We then pushed into the city to the main church. It was massive and quite beautiful! We were then given free time to go eat and a few of us stopped at a small German restaurant. I ordered wiener schnitzel and boy was it amazing!! We then proceeded to a local museum. Cologne was a very important and well preserved Roman outpost, and the museum showcased a huge amount of artifacts that were unearthed when the current city was built. It was very impressive, and free for us! After the museum we headed back to the hotel for a series of meetings and get to know you's. Dinner of goulash and water was excellent! and then I purchased some internet time and started blogging. I am quite frustrated tho because I can not get onto facebook! And on a more interesting note to music majors at roberts, I met Sylvia Thayers twin. Its scary. Her name is Sarah, she plays viola at the Cinncinatti conservatory of music, talks the Sylvia talk, and walks her walk! Weird... anyway I will update the blog when I can and also will be on aim when I am online. Hope all is well. Auf wiedersehen!!