Good morning world.

Hello. I started out yesterday at 8am Germany time (1am Central Time.) I went to the Smelsers, we had breakfast at 9 til 9:45. I went back to the Duckeck’s, and waited til the Smelsers and the Knapps came and picked me up. Then, we got on the road about 10:20. We got to Hannover’s airport at 11:30, and checked in, and waited til 12, and got loaded at 12:30, then lifted off between then and 12:45. Then we got to Paris about an hour later, and only had about 1.75 hours to find our next terminal. We luckily only had to take 1 hour of that, and then went through their security, and got to the gate while it was loading. Then we lifted off about 4pm, and after a 10.5 hour flight or something, we got to Houston about 7:30pm (Central time.) Going through Customs, that was fun. I accidentally followed the guy that sat next to me in the flight into his line, and then I realized it was the visitors line. And I saw the American line was much longer, but I got it in anyway. And about 9pm, we took off for Dallas. It was only a short flight (I doubt we got past 20,000ft), and we arrived shortly after 10pm. Then we got picked up by a lady from LST, And at 12:30am, I finally was able to fall asleep. (Note: This would be about 23.5 hours of staying awake, with only about 30 minutes of napping.)

And just a while ago, I woke up. Fully awake, nonetheless! I noticed, however, it was dark in the room, with no light shining under the curtains. So I glance at the clock, and it says: 5:18. Yay JETLAG!

I’m here!

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So after 36-42 hours of travelling (depending on how you figure out the time…it’s complicated. I started 3am Mountain time, ended 9pm Germany time) I am finally in Peine! Seriously, I never want to see another terminal again. I spent about 60% of my time yesterday and the day before in terminals! 2 hours in Albuquerque, 2 hours in Dallas, 4 hours in OK City, 4 hours in Houston, and 5 hours in Paris! Oi vey.

Anyway, I’m staying with the Duckeck family. I’m in the top of the house with Johannes, their 17 year old son. He’s pretty cool. His movie collection is pretty sweet. For example…Braveheart, The Prestige, lots of James Bond movies, and others. And they’re in German, of course. Thankfully he speaks english really well, as does his whole family. Well…I’m not sure how much his sister speaks, because I’ve only heard her speak a few english words. They also have a little dog named Lucy. I took it as a good sign that she doesn’t growl at me.

This morning we went to church, and I tried understanding as much as possible, but it was a little difficult. Yesterday, on the descent during the Houston – Paris flight, my eye and forehead started hurting a lot. It went away for the most part when we landed, but then on the descent on the Paris – Hannover flight it started again, but not as bad. This morning it was hurting a little, and when I tried concentrating it made it worse. I took some Ibuprofen, so hopefully that will help.

No plans for today really, other than resting, maybe wandering around town, playing some board games (Apples to Apples FTW!) and just general fellowshipping. Tomorrow we’ll go shopping, after exchanging our USD’s for Euro’s at the amazingly low rate of 1.71! (I hope you caught the sarcasm on that.) (By the way, that means 1 Euro will cost us $1.71) (So if you feel generous, you can give us some more spending money. Just comment and I’ll tell you how.)

I think that’s all for now…I’ll send out an update tomorrow or after our Tuesday information meeting.

Mit Lieb

K.M.

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