Travel Writing

Lindsey DeHaven
English 103
Travel Writing
Friday Sept. 14, 2012
Traveling to Europe
Hearing “Gate 7” over the loud intercom sent shivers down my spine. My family of six sat down in our tightly packed blue seats and waited for the plane to take off. I was in shock that I was actually going to fly across the world into an unknown place.   Just a twelve hour flight until we would be landing in Frankfort, Germany.
We arrived in Germany during the afternoon later that day.   We were taken from comfortable to unfamiliar, surrounded by foreign language and generic Hollister brand clothing. I was stopped in my place.   I didn't know how to take it; even the smell was different.   We were warmly greeted by a girl's family we knew as she was our foreign exchange student a year before.   Little did we know, this would be the last time their family would be this warm.   As we walked out to the car, drove to the house (which looked just like one another), and went into the home, I observed the relationships between this family of four.   “Welcome to our home” the mother stumbled to say in English. This is one of the only times she would try to speak English to us. She didn't want to hug us either.   The daughter's name was Eileen Kiernan and she had an older brother named Brendan.   They didn't talk to each other much, only when needed.   Their parents were not very “touchy feely” people and barely looked at us as we spoke.   Eileen's father, Patrick, is of Irish decent and spoke very good English. Her mother, Angela, grew up in Berlin, Germany (which is where we were staying at this point).   I hadn't spoken to any people other than the family we were starting to get familiar with, but the surroundings were enough to make me to notice a difference; the smell, the architecture was bland and unoriginal, families and the cars were tiny.  
Waking up the next morning, the “culture shock” had just sank in.   I panicked thinking I wasn't where I was supposed to be, my parents and...