After spending the night in Tower A with the other students, I woke up around 8 a.m. and got ready to head to the airport. The bus arrived at 9:30 a.m., and we left for the airport for our 12:30 p.m. departure. This was the first time I had really spent time with the other students in the program, which allowed us to connect before leaving.
After arriving at the airport, we checked in our bags and headed to the terminal. The process was smooth since most students had already moved out. We then boarded our flight to New Jersey. After arriving, we had a three-hour layover until our next flight. At first, I thought this would be the longest three hours of my life, but it turned out to be the exact opposite.
We walked around the airport for about an hour looking for food and ended up getting hamburgers. After that, we played card games for the rest of the layover. It was a fun experience and made the time go by quickly.
After the layover, we boarded our next flight to Munich, Germany, which was about eight hours long. When boarding, we were told the plane was nearly full. However, once I got on, I somehow ended up with no one sitting next to me. This meant I had both a window and an aisle seat. I enjoyed this so much—I had two pillows and two blankets and was able to fully stretch out and sleep.
For the first half of the flight, I watched the in-flight entertainment. I watched a movie about the Nuremberg Trials, which gave me some background on Germany. After that, I played a few games on my phone and ate dinner, which consisted of chicken, salad, and cake. Then, I forced myself to go to sleep. Larry had consistently told us to sleep on the plane so we could adjust to the time difference and have energy for the day.
The sleep was very much needed. After arriving in Germany, I didn’t feel the jet lag until later in the day—around when it would have been the start of a normal day back in America.
