Euro Tour - Day 1 - Tuesday - April 14

Day 1 ? - Tuesday - April 14

Welcome to the Balmorhea European tour portion of the blog. The line up includes: Rob, Mike, Nicole, Travis, Bruce (from Mom), and myself, little ishtar. Welcome back. Please feel free to blog stalk us, and leave comments if you've got some words of wisdom, encouragement or um, a comment. Alright! Here we go!

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Germany! I'm writing this in the backseat of our Sprinter ( the strangely tall white van that we'll be getting comfy in for the next 30 days), in hopes that we'll reach an internet connection in Leipzig. After spending over 12 hours on a plane we are finally here! That is of course, only after the following occurred:

-a half hour flight from austin to Dallas
- a surprise greeting from Mike's mom in the airport holding a sign that read: "Balmorhea: Number one fan!"
-(She contributed: lots of motherly/ex-flight attendent-y advice, a McDonalds lunch for all, and lots and lots of excitement. That would've been a dull layover if not for her)
- a 2 hour delay after boarding the plane because a few dogs were mistakenly or incorrectly loaded into the wrong cargo area...(yeah, weird. i thought so too)
-dinner-free movies/tv shows on our personal screens, breakfast and a smoooth landing.

We are en route to Leipzig, with an eta of 3:45ish. I am having a hard time remembering that it is tomorrow, that is, tuesday. I got out of my bed at 8:05am. Boarded the first plane at 10am and the second at 3pm. I missed the sun set, missed any sign of night. After an uncomfortable jagged sleep, I woke up at 8am again, still on the same plane. Now, it's 1:30 in the afternoon. It's felt like one long day, but I suppose we'll call this day one. First show is tomorrow. The German countryside is beautiful, full of trees all abloom. White and golden flowers and leaves peak through the green and we're surrounded by hills and mountains. Goood start so far, I'd say.*

*save for the fact that the van is standard and we asked for an automatic. After calling the guy, he said there were no other free vans to rent...so we're just gonna soldier through. Moms/gfs, don't fret; Travis, Mike & Rob know how to drive standard. Also, the GPS was pretty crazy initially. German highways are strange to me. sooo many signs and colors. We've turned around three times already, haha. Leipzig, here we come!
-aisha