Anything That Could Go Wrong Did...But I Survived

Finally in Innsbruck and let me tell ya people, it was no easy task getting here.

My flight out of Dulles was an 1 1/2 hrs late leaving and with me only having an hr layover between flights I was screwed on making my connection before I even left the tarmac. I knew that United had already booked me for the next flight into Innsbruck but I was worried that since the Dorm office is normally only open until 1pm on Fridays I would not be able to check into my dorm until Monday.

Once I arrived at Frankfurt I transferred my boarding pass and my luggage to the flight into Innsbruck leaving at 12:20 and landing at 1:20. After finding my way through the maze of an airport and going through security again (being stopped for private screening for the second time that day) I finally made it to the terminal.

After grabbing a pamphlet from the info desk on how to get to their free 30mins of internet I sat down to try to get on to email everyone about the delay and try to work something out with the dorms. Once I got to the log-in page I had the joy of learning that the log-in required you to have a phone to send a text to with a confirmation code. Well duh-duh-DUH! Guess whose phone was off because it doesn't work in foreign countries?

Okay, plan B. After unsuccessfully trying to find a help desk I settled on an computer kiosk where I could pay for internet. I get logged on and go to my email. And I, being dumb and not thinking ahead, forgot to take the security text messages off of my email and facebook, so no contacting people. I instead went to the dorm website and found their office phone number and used that with a pay phone to call them. Once I figured out the phone I heard the wonderful news that the office was open until 4pm that day because of check-ins so I didn't need to worry.

Well as long as I wasn't going to be homeless I would survive. I walked over to the flight board took look for my gate and this very nice airport attended asked if I needed any help. After frantically explaining what was happening he smiled and told me that it was going to be okay and to not rush myself. He then sat me down with my computer and used his own cell phone to get me onto the internet so I could email my parents.

All free and clear right? Wrong.

Get off my plane in Innsbruck and claim baggage ect got in a cab to the dorm office. The office attendant rushed me through signing some forms and giving my key and calling me a cab and I was out the door in five minutes with a newly purchased internet cord in hand as she informed me there was no wifi in the rooms.

My new cabbie sees my address and purposefully drives me around the long way to get there, but at this point I didn't even care. We get to the area where my dorm is supposed to be and my cabbie tells me that the place where he pulled over is where the address is but that the only sign for a student dorm is two buildings over and so he took me over there and I got out.

So there I am with two 50lb rolling bags a rolling carry on and a purse and I try to go into this student home and it is locked. I go for my key and a girl comes up and asks what I am doing. She is quite snobby in telling me that I am at the wrong student home and told me that the place I was looking for was 10 minutes west. Okay. I start walking.

Dragging is more like. I can't find the strap I used at the airport to tie my carry on to one of my other bags and so I have it awkwardly stacked on top of another while trying to drag these bags down the sidewalk.

There was a girl that passed me who was college aged and asked her if she might know where it was and she was just as confused as I was but she was so kind and decided to help me. I swear God sent her on my path with nothing to do that afternoon so that she could help me. She helped with my luggage and we started walking down the direction that the rude girl had told me to go. We had probably gone 20 minutes when we decided it was too far to walk and so we should take a bus.

On the way to the bus stop I gave Pinar the phone number for the office and asked if we could call using her phone. When she called the office and told her what was happening and who I was the office lady told her where to go. We continued our back track to the bus stop and stopped at Pinar's appartment to drop off her things she was carrying. When she came back down she came with chocolate "for the nerves" she said. She was so very kind.

Once we got to the bus stop and waited we lugged these giant bags onto the bus, paid our fair and started our ride. The whole while I kept telling her that I could have sworn the dorm was supposed to be by the bridge we had just left but we followed the instructions of the lady on the phone.

We ended up back at the office. That office lady hadn't really listened to Pinar in the first place and had assumed that she was a new student checking in at the office instead of sending us to my dorm. This time we asked for pictures of the building. Luckily the woman took pity on us and gave us bus fare.

So we rode back, meeting some other exchange students along the way. When we got back to where we had started we disparagingly realized that the place we were looking for was only a street over from where we had begun and by this time it had been 2 hrs since I had met Pinar. At least we were finally there. Pinar helped me inside and we exchanged contact info and hugs.

Alone in my half occupied dorm room the first thing I did was set up my laptop to contact everyone to let them know I'd finally arrived. While doing that I ended up chatting with Evan on facebook and my computer started to die. No problem, I'll just grab my converter. Plug it all in and it starts making the most horrendous humming noise that cannot be good.

My computer slowly dying I am frantically trying different things to help the situation and nothing is working. My kindle has no wifi and my computer is now dead and I broke. For the first time (surprisingly) I let it all get to me and I had my expected melt down (after all I hadn't sleep more that 2 hours in the last 24 and everything kept going wrong).

Once I calmed down I went into the hall to talk to a girl who had introduced herself as I had come in and she told me we did have wifi just in the common areas. She then helped me set it up on my kindle and consoled me on everything. She reassured me that feeling overwhelmed was normal on a study abroad especially with all that happened. Katarina had also done a study abroad and knew exactly what I was feeling.



I still am quite amazed that all that and much more happened within a 24 hour time span. Baptism by fire. That's the only way to describe it. I quickly went to sleep after that right after meeting my roommate for a whole five minutes. She speaks no English and so I guess she will be my German practice.

I am very relieved to have all the traveling out of the way, now I just need to get set up here and I will good.

Thanks to all of you who have been supporting me in this!
Love,
Carly