Arrived.

Like any journey, my travel day to Berlin began with a little chaos. Alas, a few tears and some Staten Island traffic later, I arrived at JFK to wait.  The lines were somewhat held up do to the nature of the current events that occurred in the city yesterday at the Empire State Building.  (I would love to divulge into the prevalence of gun violence and the need for gun control in a society that idolizes violence, but I wouldn't be able to do that adequate justice today.)

Of course, the next step is to find a companion to accompany you on your next leg.  This happened to be the person sitting to my left.  Neither of our screens worked, so we indulged in some very nice "get to know you" conversation.  However, I never managed to catch her name.  At the age of 19, she moved from Poland to NYC to work as a painter and then later went to school.  She is currently working on her Associate's in Business Finance and is very surprised on the poor command of English that many of her young American classmates have. 

Otherwise, my flight was uneventful and relatively sleepless.  The most exciting part of my airport experience is that I had the opportunity to use my Irish passport for the first time, and I spoke German without a retort to me in English. 

Chad, the father of the family that I will be staying with while in Berlin, picked me up and we left rather quickly.  When we arrived at the house Kristine, Siri, Kjell, and Eric were waiting at the door.  They had a very nice welcoming ready.  After that, I let the jetlag set in and am anxiously awaiting 18:00 when my old friends will come over for "grillen".