Welp. We got here. I cried. I freaked out. And then I kind of got over it.

Got up at 5 in the morning on the 2nd. Drove with mom and dad to the St. Louis Airport and said a teary goodbye. Got on a plane with about 8 of my friends. The first flight was a little over an hour to the St. Paul airport in Minneapolis and then we waited for a little over 3 hours for the flight to Amsterdam. Man that was a long flight. 8 hours. So, a movie, and 2 airplane meals later we landed in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, at about 7 in the morning. We had some trouble finding the cabs that were arranged to pick us up, and lost the part of our group that did find them, but we finally found them and drove the 20 minutes to Leiden.

Leiden is so beautiful! My room's view is right off the canal and I the trees and boats glow with christmas lights at night. It really is breath taking. When we first got here yesterday, I was completely overwhelmed. We went to the grocery store as a huge group with Christine Benninger, the woman who is kind of in charge of us here, and we were just in everyone's way and didn't know a lick of Dutch. Honestly, it was pretty embarrassing and we didn't really know how to handle the situation. But, we have all been doing our best to look up needed dutch phrases and basic words to be able to exchange polite greetings and all that.

I got to talk to my mom and dad on Skype. It was really good to not only be able to talk to them, but also see them. I'm hoping to be able to talk to my sister here pretty soon, although I know she's really busy.

I should mention that I over-packed. Arriving at the airport and immediately looking like a tourist with my 3 suitcases and struggling through the airport was a major wake up call. First goal of the trip, to come away with the ability to pack lightly, even for long journeys. So let that be advice to all of you who wish to travel. Maybe you won't be as silly as I, but I definitely should have taken my dad's advice of packing everything you want, and then taking only half of that and a lot more money.

I'm a little nervous about classes starting, but I only have 2 the first 8 weeks, so I don't think it will be too much to handle. We'll see though. I am also VERY excited to meet the other students here! Hopefully make some friends that are locals and that can show us around all the hot spots! We went to a bar last night, and I had a conversation with two British guys at the bar who told me that I was "SOO American..." well, Goal number two of the trip: learn how to act so I'm not called "American" like it's a bad thing again.

Today I went to breakfast and to the grocery store with some of the other kids who are here from Webster. I think we're going back out in a bit to get some other stuff. The major things on my list: a phone and calling card. It's been so weird not being able to just call the people we're with. I didn't realize how much I depended on my phone until we were on opposite sides of the airport from the other half of our group and had no way of seeing where the other group was. It's kind of scary, plus I want to be able to call home if I want to.

Well, I know that's a lot, but that's all I have for now. I am so glad to be feeling better about being here now that we've settled in a little bit. We've already started talking about traveling on weekends and I am sooooo excited about that as well. I can't wait to start the semester!