the exciting first days

First of all, sorry that it took so long to finally get this blog started.... I already got to Baltimore on Wednesday and arrived in Louisville on Friday, but I have just been so busy meeting people and spending time with my American family that I didn't find the time to sit down and start the blog.
(I did also cut back on sleeping... which seems to be getting to me now...)

In London I got to see the new terminal 5, which is pretty cool, very open and furnished with extremely comfortable chairs and couches! You might actually fall asleep there and not wake up every five minutes.
The plane to Baltimore was half empty (here that's a good thing...). The seat next to me wasn't taken, so I actually got to sleep after I hadn't slept very well the night before, because I kept thinking about what else I could leave in Germany to somehow make the new weight limit... Well all the thinking and not sleeping didn't help. I had to pay overweight. The flight was a little bumpy, but we got to Baltimore ok (only 50minutes late...)

On my first night on American ground, we had a Mexican dinner with homemade tortilla shells! Except for the hick ups, which I got from eating the supposedly not hot pepper, it had been a perfect first dinner! The next day I got to finally see the portraits of Vivien Thomas and Alred Blalock at John's Hopkins (they came up with the surgial technique to help the "blue babies"). Since I had seen the movie "Something the lord made" I had been wanting to see those portraits....
For the night my American parents had planned a special suprise... We went to see the Radio City Music Hall Rockets with their Christmas show. It was really good. The Rockets are pretty amazing... and they got legs, long legs, really long! After having been traveling so much and not really getting into the Christmas mood yet, that was a perfect night to feel a little more christmasy....
The next morning I had to get up early again (this time on purpous) to go to Louisville. We spend the day having my first Papa John's Pizza for lunch, doing errands and getting unpacked. At night we went to see the High School state championship seminfinals in Football (Trinity vs. St. X). For everybody who is not familiar with Louisville and it's High Schools: those two are bigtime rivals! St. X did unfortunately loose the game, but the best thing about the game was, that we got to watch it from the Papa John's Box!!!! ...nice and warm and with free Pizza, while there were barly 20°F outside....
Saturday was pretty lazy. I tried to sleep in, which didn't work too well (stupid body). I started to decorate my room and finished unpacking. In the afternoon I met with Jim to get my car. I was suprised at how well it drives. It's old, but the breaks and the engine work just perfectly. It feels as if I am getting along with this car better than with the one I had in Raleigh two years ago! At first it was kind of weird to not having to shift, but I got used to that pretty quickly. The evening was pretty great! I had my first Wii-Night. Gale invited us over initially to watch a movie...but that plan changed soon. It was awesome. I had so much fun playing tennis, bowling, mario cart and I also got to meet some of the rest of the family. I hope being in hospital will leave some time for more fun nights like that. I really enjoyed that... and Gale's Chili was really tasty!
Today I baked Christmas Cookies! It is so great that you can go shopping on a Sunday... I bought a little Christmas Tree for my room, while we were actually out to get cookie ingredients.... It was another pretty relaxed day before I will be starting my rotation at UofL tomorrow... I am already very excited...... At first I will have to get some more paperwork done, but once that will be taken care of I will meet my resident....