Traveling to Europe

I made it to Arnhem!!

My parents took me to the airport on Tuesday.  We left our house about 11 and had been driving for about 45 minutes when our battery just suddenly died.  Luckily, some one driving by stopped and gave us a jump.  My grandparents happened to be eating lunch in the town that we got stuck in.  We were able to drive to the restaurant and trade vehicles with them.  Dad thought he knew how to get the airport in Chicago but then we decided to follow the GPS which proceed to take us on the seenic back roads and at times we had no idea where we were or if we would ever make it! But we made it with plenty of time to spare to the airport.  My mom came with me to check my bags and get my ticket.  I checked two bags both within the weight limit.  We had no problems going through security and our plane left only about 15 minutes late.  We ate supper on the plane but it was not the best.  The plane ride was smooth though long and boring.  It took us about 8 hours with very little sleep.  We arrive at Schiphol Airport about 9:15 Wednesday morning.  We went through passport security which just stamped our passport and asked us a few questions about our visit and then we picked up our bags.  There were quite a few students on our flight, but most were going to study in Amsterdam.  We did meet one guy on the plane, Stephan, from Canada who is studying at our school.  Together the four of us managed to figure out how to get a train ticket and get on the correct train to Arnhem.  It was a little difficult getting on the train with all our lugage! We were about half way through our train ride when our train broke down at one of the stops so we all had to get off and find the train that we were suppose to switch to.  It was more running around and hauling our suitcases up stairs! But we made into to Arnhem where some one from our school was waiting for us as well as some other students who had just arrived too.  We waited for about an hour for a van to come pick us up and took us to sign our housing contracts.  When we were signing out contracts we had to pay the rest of our balance.  In the email they sent us they told us that is was okay to pay with credit card, but when a few of us went to pay they said that they did not accept Visa.  We could only pay in euros or do a wire transfer and we had a week to pay the rest of our balance.  Luckily I had the contact information for the person at my bank who did the wire transfer for our down payment for the dowms and was able to email her the information and she got it through for me right away. Then we loaded everything back into the van and they took us to the dorms.