Breakfast with Amber

June 2022: Edquaman

The summer of 2022 truly was one for the books. As I mentioned earlier, I went to Germany. I don't know how I'm going to fit it all into 4,000 words (this chapter and next because I was also in Germany for most of July), so I'm going to waste as little time as possible and just get into it.

Our departure date was June 2. My parents drove me to the airport as I ate my last Whataburger for the next six weeks. We met up with Hugh and Jake, two other students who were also flying from Houston, and their moms, and they sent us on our way. We actually had two flights. The first would be from Houston all the way to Frankfurt, and the second would be a quick hop from Frankfurt to Berlin.

I sensed that this would be a long flight, so I watched Encanto on the little seatback TV, ate my airplane dinner, and got some sleep. I must have gotten some good sleep because I woke up and discovered that everyone was eating breakfast without me. Then a flight attendant noticed I was awake and handed me some breakfast. We landed in Frankfurt just fine and made it through customs. It was the second flight that was late. The airline never officially delayed the flight, but it was 40 minutes after boarding was supposed to start, and the plane wasn't there.

We did eventually make it to Berlin, even if we were a little late. We actually got lucky. Out of our 28-person posse, about half were hit with massive delays, some of them preventing people from joining us for days. And then there's James, whose person arrived in time for our overnight trip to Heidelberg on June 5 but not his luggage, so he had to buy his wardrobe for the next few days from various gift shops in Heidelberg.

Anyway, we took a shuttle from the airport to our hotel, the Adina Apartment Hotel in Hackescher Markt. It was a really nice hotel, and Trinity was paying mad euros for us to stay there. The most annoying part was that the lights wouldn't operate unless one of us had our room card in a special slot, and I didn't realize that they never gave us top sheets. I thought the duvet cover was a top sheet that was just folded in a weird way, and every night, I'd remove it from the duvet and sleep in it like a top sheet cocoon.

My roommate's name was Gabriella. We were both in TUPS, but I don't think I was as aware of her existence as she was of mine because at the information session in April where we picked our roommates, she walked up to me and asked, "Hey, you're in TUPS, right?"

And I, vaguely recognizing her face, said, "Yeah."

And she said, "Wanna be roommates?"

And I said, "Sure."

She really is a sweet person, but as roommates, I don't think we really vibed. For one thing, she has really sensitive hearing. She could hear my music even with headphones. If she was sleeping or needed to focus, I'd just sit on the other side of the room because my music has to be at just the right volume for me to feel it properly. She also took issue with the USB keyboard my mom had shipped to me, but I told her some of the keys weren't working on my computer, and she let it slide.

That's right, it's time for My Keyboard Hates Me–Part 3. Once I got home from campus, we took my laptop to a Lenovo service center twice to make sure all the keys were cleaned and functional for study abroad. Two days into my trip, all the keys that were giving me trouble stopped working again, and I had left my USB keyboard at home because I didn't think I'd need it, so Mom ordered another USB keyboard and had it shipped overseas to me.

Gabriella would also stay up past midnight working on assignments for the theatre class being offered during this study abroad, which is a great way to transition to the classes I took. There were only classes in the morning. At noon, we'd get lunch at the nearby Mensa, and the afternoon was for scheduled afternoon activities or just relaxing if we didn't feel like going out. Mom encouraged me to get out there and see the sights, so I went to most of the activities.