Sorry that these posts are way over due! Be ready to read a lot!!
Yay I am alive! I survived 3 plane rides, traversed an ocean and met my host family.
This is going to be a long post, so I'm breaking it into 2. So much has happened within these past few hours.
First of all, let's start off with my flight. I was extremely lucky that my flight did not get cancelled after Lufthansa went on a 24hr strike Friday. My flight was one of 12 from the US that did not get cancelled. Overall, 2/3rds of regularly scheduled flights got cancelled. So that's around 1000 flights-yikes! Like, I said I was extremely lucky! My first flight was Syracuse-JFK, then JFK-Frankfurt and finally Frankfurt-Marseille. A total of 9 1/2 hours of flying time and 14 hours all together including waits. Each flight went pretty smoothly. Take-offs were good, landings were fine and turbulence was limited, if at all.
One of the best things of flying international is meeting people from different places. On my Syracuse flight I met a New Yorker who was very friendly and helpful. While waiting in line at JFK, I met a lady from CT and a girl from Hungary. Both were world travelers. However, the most exciting and engaging encounters were three siblings from Austria. I met them on my German flight to Frankfurt. There were 2 brothers and a sister. They were exceptionally nice and we formed a brief camaraderie on the plane. The eldest brother was a jet setter. He was a sailor for the Austrian military and had been all over Europe and just went to South America. The sister was still in high school and she was very cool. Then there was their 4yr brother who was so easy going especially for being on his first international flight. I found the eldest brother most interesting because he had done so much already. He and his sister gave me very useful information regarding Europe. For example they told me which cities and countries had the most inexpensive food. According to him, Poland was the cheapest and France was the most expensive. (i.e. for a whole meal: Polish cities=3€ and St. Tropez, FR=40€. I do not doubt what he spent but I can't rely upon his word because I don't know which restaurant he went to and what exactly he bought there. Therefore, I will do my own investigation and report later with all the cities I've been to. Nevertheless, the information shared was still informative! As we landed, we exchanged a few good bye words and went our separate ways. I really enjoyed talking to them! I even learned how to pronounce some Deutsch :).
Positive moment of the day (saturday to be exact). When I landed in Germany, I needed to call my mom. I tried using their pay-phone and obviously that did not work because I don't speak German. So I went up to the service desk and the nice gentleman kindly let me use the airport phone to make the call. I am very thankful for that!! Thanks again mister.
The flight from Frankfurt to Marseille was 1hr 20min, not too shabby. Everything went smoothly and no lost luggage occurred!! Now I will go into detail about my host family and what we've done so far. Read the next post for more info! Pictures will be up soonish.
Yay I am alive! I survived 3 plane rides, traversed an ocean and met my host family.
This is going to be a long post, so I'm breaking it into 2. So much has happened within these past few hours.
First of all, let's start off with my flight. I was extremely lucky that my flight did not get cancelled after Lufthansa went on a 24hr strike Friday. My flight was one of 12 from the US that did not get cancelled. Overall, 2/3rds of regularly scheduled flights got cancelled. So that's around 1000 flights-yikes! Like, I said I was extremely lucky! My first flight was Syracuse-JFK, then JFK-Frankfurt and finally Frankfurt-Marseille. A total of 9 1/2 hours of flying time and 14 hours all together including waits. Each flight went pretty smoothly. Take-offs were good, landings were fine and turbulence was limited, if at all.
One of the best things of flying international is meeting people from different places. On my Syracuse flight I met a New Yorker who was very friendly and helpful. While waiting in line at JFK, I met a lady from CT and a girl from Hungary. Both were world travelers. However, the most exciting and engaging encounters were three siblings from Austria. I met them on my German flight to Frankfurt. There were 2 brothers and a sister. They were exceptionally nice and we formed a brief camaraderie on the plane. The eldest brother was a jet setter. He was a sailor for the Austrian military and had been all over Europe and just went to South America. The sister was still in high school and she was very cool. Then there was their 4yr brother who was so easy going especially for being on his first international flight. I found the eldest brother most interesting because he had done so much already. He and his sister gave me very useful information regarding Europe. For example they told me which cities and countries had the most inexpensive food. According to him, Poland was the cheapest and France was the most expensive. (i.e. for a whole meal: Polish cities=3€ and St. Tropez, FR=40€. I do not doubt what he spent but I can't rely upon his word because I don't know which restaurant he went to and what exactly he bought there. Therefore, I will do my own investigation and report later with all the cities I've been to. Nevertheless, the information shared was still informative! As we landed, we exchanged a few good bye words and went our separate ways. I really enjoyed talking to them! I even learned how to pronounce some Deutsch :).
Positive moment of the day (saturday to be exact). When I landed in Germany, I needed to call my mom. I tried using their pay-phone and obviously that did not work because I don't speak German. So I went up to the service desk and the nice gentleman kindly let me use the airport phone to make the call. I am very thankful for that!! Thanks again mister.
The flight from Frankfurt to Marseille was 1hr 20min, not too shabby. Everything went smoothly and no lost luggage occurred!! Now I will go into detail about my host family and what we've done so far. Read the next post for more info! Pictures will be up soonish.