I have arrived!

We landed safely and soundly in Berlin, Germany at 3:55am EST. Was the world quiet and dark? No, it was 9:55am here and the hustle and bustle had begun. 

These are a few of my travel-mates. We waited in line for an hour at the currency exchange desk. Not surprising since the Atlanta airport is the busiest in the world! Right, Brandal? At the desk, it seemed to take at least 10 minutes per person to get Euros instead of dollars. We quickly learned that our dollars didn't get us far in Euros, which we had expected. I gave $100 and only got 56 Euros. Crazy. 

For the first flight from Atlanta to New York I was in an aisle seat. However, on the 7 1/2 hour, overnight flight from New York to Berlin I was not so lucky. The layout of the plane had one middle seat per row and guess which lucky girl was in the only middle seat of our group. . .yours truly, Katie Kelly (Kate, take notes on the previous statement). The photo above shows me with one of my travel-mates, Kim. She is korean and takes more photos than Meggie Meyer or Terri Sizemore ever thought of taking! Who knew it was possible, right? The flight wasn't terrible, I took a few sleeping pills and had no trouble sleeping through the night. 

We arrived at our hotel around 5am, or should I say 11am? We are staying at Motel One. It is really modern and cute.

These are all photos of the lobby and eating areas. I would have photographs of my room but as soon as we arrived a smoke alarm went off, which leaves me where I am now. We have set up camp in the lobby while firemen and police men check the building. It is kinda really exciting, I didn't know I was going to be able to interact with German fire fighters during my first hour in Berlin! 

Hopefully I'll have some equally exciting stories to share later. As for now, we are finally able to retreat to our rooms! I hope all is well where you are! 

xoK