I made it to the mother land.

I have arrived! After 12 hours of flights, I finally made it. My plane out of Tallahassee was delayed about an hour and a half, but I got to Charlotte just in time to run and make the plane to Frankfurt. On the huge, huge plane, I was sitting in front of the old married couple whom I sat next to on the previous flight from Tallahassee. On the way to Frankfurt, I sat next to a nice young man who's from Jacksonville, Florida and stationed in Germany in the Army. We made the best of it from figuring out what the food was we were served on the plane, to watching the Incredible Hulk and trying to figure out the blue monster (Grover) from Sesame Street, to bonding with family photos, music, and the like, to finally attempting to sleep and getting equally pissed off that we couldn't. I'd say I lucked out. Once we got to Frankfurt, we had to find the train station, Fernbahnhof (long distance train), so we trekked forever to find the ticket place and then even more forever to find the actual train we were taking. Again, so weird how we both left from train 5 but only a few minutes apart, as we were going different places. The train ride wasn't very long, maybe 30 minutes. I was standing by the door, so I could see the places we passed along the way. Everyone was speaking German, so I listened carefully to try and understand as I watched how they moved and acted in junction. I finally got to Mannheim, where I saw Sibylle (the mom) and Benjamin (the boy) waiting for me outside the door. They greeted me with open arms, and we walked to find the car. They drove the van for one of the two wineries, so that was pretty neat to ride in. We went through the town about 20 minutes until we pulled up to the house. The house is connected with the winery of Klaus (the dad), and it's enormous! It's surrounded by vineyards of theirs and of other winemakers around. There's snow on the ground all over the place. When I got here, we ate lunch, which consisted of breads and cheeses. Apparently, this is what we eat every lunch, and I'm okay with that! After, I went out with Klaus and Benji on the land. We walked through the snow, which was very difficult in cowboy boots. Up on the hill overlooking the town and vineyards are some Roman ruins they found where they lived and made wine. This evening, then informed me those ruins were from far back family--making wine ever since! Sib and Klaus dug it out and saved it, and it's now available to the public for viewing with information about it posted on the walls like you'd see in a museum. I'll have to go back and take pictures because the view from up there is stunning. Nap time is also good because I have a bit of time to myself to read or check up on the computer, although most everyone back home is sleeping because I am 6 hours from the future here! Tonight, Robert and Moritz came over. They posted the most recent post in German, and it's absolutely ridiculous. They're pretty fantastic, but they told me not to write about them, haha. I will anyway! Then we had a good dinner like every night and talked about duties and activities. Benji's half sister, Mira, is having a party upstairs in her room tonight with lots of cute 15 year old German boys and girls! Granpa Adolf lives upstairs, too, in his own area. I took pictures of this today. This house is more than nice. I'm now settling down in bed for the evening as it is 11:30pm. Tomorrow shall be another fun-filled day!

Gute Nacht alle Freunde.