Flight

3.9.16
I've been slowly preparing for the trip, but it was really too slow. Traveling to other places is always surreal, and it never hits me until I'm thrown out of my rhythm. I started seriously packing about 2 days prior. This wasn't enough time, of course. I haven't ever been away from home for such a long period of time, and I didn't know how adequate my dorm room accommodations would be. I think I listed most of my things here:

Suitcase Clothes 18 boxers x 15 pairs of socks x 11 shirts x 1 bed pants x 1 sweatpants x 1 dress shirt x 1 dress pants (light) x 1 jeans 2 nice shorts x 1 leather jacket x 2 winter jackets x 1 sweater x 1 hoodie x 1 extra pair of sneakers 1 pair of flip flops 1 umbrella 1 towel 2 reusable shopping bags 5 microfiber cloths 2 Type F converters 1 3TB HDD, 5 smaller flash drives 1 wired mouse 1 wireless mouse 1 mechanical keyboard Toiletries (lots) Medicine (cold, diarrhea, antibacterial) Carry-on backpack Bag PS Vita + charger 3DS + charger 2 Type F converters 1 jacket 1 smaller bag 2 in-ear headphones 2 notepads 5 pens 2 bottles of hand sanitizer 1 pair of sunglasses 1 spare glasses 2nd Carry-on, backpack Laptop Filled up with stuff from the other bags, forgot.


Let's see what I forgot. I could've brought sore throat lozenges, a shaver that converts voltage (the one I brought doesn't, so I can't use it here. I've already tried), more plastic bags, gloves, scarf, snacks, water bottle, laundry bag. I'm glad I packed the stuff I did. It's helped to have this much stuff already.

I stayed up all night to pack. My sister wanted to celebrate a little before we left, so we ate some ice cream together. Unfortunately, because I stayed up all night, the ice cream caught up with me and I felt a sore throat coming on. It wasn't hurting, yet, but you know when it's coming on. I was not feeling hot at this point. I was wiping all my computers and hard drives, only leaving a backup copy of my pictures on one hard drive. I left instructions for my brother to remove my accounts and cleaned my room as he's going to use it.

My favorite ice cream flavor, artificial mint chocolate chip.

The living room

My battlestation

Materialism

My flight departs at 7 AM. That means we need to get to the airport around 5 AM. We planned to leave around. We left at 4:30 AM-ish, but I forgot my wallet. We went back and got it. We arrived at the airport around 5:20 AM. There was no place to really say goodbye. I said goodbye to my sister and mother.

It was an emotional moment. I've been away from home for weeks at a time, but never months or years.

When I was younger, our family spent a lot of time together. We would camp at national parks, go to the beach, visit relatives, go to church. As we got older, it fell off. As I started living away from home, I realized the importance of the traditions that we have. All of us live very different lives, but we're satisfied knowing that everyone is under the same roof. If someone is away, I worry if they're out too late. I don't care what they're doing, as long as they're safe.

I moved a lot when I was young. Not like my body, but our residences. I was born in San Francisco, moved a couple times there, and then moved to LA. My dad attended UCLA and we lived in the Sawtelle and Sepulveda apartments. There were other families living there and I had a lot of friends to play with. It was great! I have really fond memories of living there. And then, when I was in 5th grade, we moved again to Cerritos. We'd move a couple more times, but stayed in the Cerritos area.

It's always interesting to me when people tell me that they've lived somewhere their whole life. I can't imagine it. I'm no stranger to dropping all the friends I knew and starting over anew. I mean, when you're young, you don't have a say in the matter. You thank them for the memories and plan your next steps. I think moving frequently had an effect on my independence. I prefer to do things myself, if possible. I don't really want to depend on people. I'm comfortable spending time by myself.

School wasn't any different. You lose people going from elementary to middle school to high school to college. It sucks, but whatcha gonna do? On your way out, you extend your hand to your friends and hold onto those that stick with you. I'm really lucky in that sense. It's crazy to think about it, but I have friends that I've known for 14 years. I'm so lucky to know so many people and even luckier to call some of them my good friends. I can count on them, and they can count on me. Just knowing that makes me really happy. It gives me peace that I can leave, because they are good people. It doesn't matter if it's been 1 month or 1 year, they'll still invite me to eat, ask me to hang out, tell me their stories, and share their happiness with me. Hopefully I've already shown my love through my actions.

When it came time to leave for Germany, it was hardly my first move. I chose this, and I know what to expect. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't care about what I'm leaving behind. I love my family and my friends. I love my books on my bookshelf, my board games, my collection of games, my desktop, my bean-filled pillow, my fightstick, my car, my cookware, my dogs. I value them even more now that they're gone. They know as much as I do that this is an incredible opportunity. I'll do my best to make the most of it.

I waved goodbye to my sister and mom.

I passed through security.

I arrived at my gate. Air Canada.

I had plenty of time before the plane took off, so I took a seat and starting playing Freedom Wars on my Vita. I couldn't change the control scheme until a later part of the game. That was kinda ass, because they have you fire and aim with your thumb. The game's okay so far. I can see it becoming really RNG based, which was a bit unappealing. I died a few times. I didn't expect it to be difficult, but only an hour in and it heavily punishes mistakes. It has some cool mechanics that make use of the touch screen that I enjoyed. The overall theme of being sentenced to 1 million years of slavery but trying to work to reduce that sentence is cool. The concept of trading abstract goods is really interesting to me. One app idea I had was to have people write and sign contracts using their phones. It could be dumb stuff like "IOU one lunch" or "You have to pass the exam or else you become my slave" or more heavy stuff like "you owe me 4 hours as a chaperone". Then I thought more about time as a commodity. I wanted to write a short story about a futuristic time where people traded time instead of physical goods, like a whole society of indentured servants. Then I realized that money is just the physical manifestation of that and it wouldn't be really interesting at all. Ah well. I'll see if I can still think of something interesting related to that.

I got the boarding confirmation for my tickets the day before, and I was able to change my aisle seats to windows from the comfort of my home. That was crazy. I chose window seats for both my flights, just in case I wanted to take a picture. I didn't eat or drink too much, so I would only need to go to the restroom at most once during the second, longer flight.

The first flight was 5 hours. I ate a sandwich. I thought it was complimentary, but no, I had to pay for it. I didn't know whether I could use my credit card, but apparently it worked.

The vegetables inside were very fresh. It was better than I expected. $7.50

I was hungry because I hadn't eaten much. The $7.50 price tag was easier to swallow because they didn't charge me for my slightly overweight baggage (I was a bit over 50 lbs). Go Air Canada! Whoo! I slept for most of the flight. I was pretty tired.

12 PM PST - Landed in Montreal.

1:47 PM PST - Waiting outside gate. French everywhere. Beautiful. Even the announcements sound nice. They start with "Madam and madamoiselle".
-No FreedomPop service here. No free wi-fi.
-I'll need to sleep on the next flight, since it's ~11 PM in Germany right now.
-These headphones work as great noise cancelers. Very snug.
-Met a minimalist techno DJ. She's sitting next to me on the plane to Frankfurt. Really nice and friendly. Free spirit. Recommended saucisson, a dry, french, cured sausage. She's been to Corsica, a french island, and it's beautiful.

Guten morgen!

4.9.16
7:47 AM CEST - Exchanged $785 to 560 euros. Definitely not the best rates at the airport, but what're you gonna do. I could not find out how to buy a train ticket to Saabruecken (Saarbrücken, but I don't know how to type umlauts). I just asked for a train and they suggested a direct one for 36.9 euros. It seemed expensive, but that's the price I pay for not knowing how to use their ticket kiosk. Or not really knowing anything, for that matter. Train leaves at 8:37 AM.
-It was correct to dress warmly on the plane. Jeans + jacket and I still got a bit of a runny nose. Throat feels better now.
-FreedomPop works! Free internet is so awesome. Lifesaver, really.
-Vita charging cord is a bit frayed. :(
-Already I would say it's not easy for non-German speakers to travel here. Announcements aren't in English on trains, neither on signs nor instructions.

It's weird to have 100 and 200 as coins.

There's a lot of mountainside farms. Charming.

Brick has much more personality than concrete.

9:11 AM - It's cold on the train.
-I'll probably reach Saarbruecken ~12 PM.
-Many German homes have a skylight. At least one, sometimes more. It's rainy and cold.
-Rustic architecture is charming.
-It's cold enough for scarf and gloves.
-There's so much greenery around. It's great. Fall means the leaves are strating to change color. The sky is blue. Super blue through the clouds.
-The train is for Saarbruecken hbf, but it doesn't say it's next.
11:03 AM I'm at Nuenkirchen (Saar). It better go all the way.
Okay, it is going. Phew.
I'll have to walk ~23 minutes to airbnb. It's raining.

 Saarbruecken Hauptbahnhof

I passed by some incredibly beautiful buildings

Outside my airbnb. Inside there is a shared stairway to get to your floor.

I love this stuff. I think I've already eaten too many.

Beautiful room I'm staying in. If only I can find a place like this for the next 2 years that won't cost me an arm and a leg. Note that German windows don't have screens. Apparently bugs aren't a big problem. I dislike insects.

Charming kitchen

Balcony.

Their incredibly friendly cat. Kinda exacerbated my nose, but worth it. Made me feel at home.

~4 PM went out to buy some food. Stiegler cafe. Bought bread and some cheese lasagna. Heated it up at airbnb, got really tired. Slept from 5-10 PM. Woke up and played wow (world of warcraft). Kevin gave me a small loan of 40k gold to buy a wow token (Kevin, if you're reading this, obviously it was a big loan, I'm just making a trump joke).

This is really nothing to write home about, but here I am, writing home about it. Not shown is some seating area in the cafe where you can enjoy your pastry with ein bisschen tee oder kaffee (a little tea or coffee).

I definitely need to eat more vegetables (Gemuese. I assume you put the 'e' after to make it an umlaut, like is Saarbruecken?).