It took the help of no fewer than nine complete strangers for me to arrive at my German destination.
German? But Lauren, you're supposed to be going to Scotland! you must be thinking.
Well, I'm starting my trip with a week between Germany and Prague. So here I am.
Somehow during the trip here, we managed to avoid anything like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I16_8l0yS-g
My first, shorter flight arrived without any further problems than being bumpy. But my second flight was delayed due to the rain, so I was already and hour behind as far as getting to my train upon arrival. Other than that, the nine hour flight was a complete joy. I was properly drugged up on motion sickness meds so the turbulance didn't bother me, I got a window seat and no one sat in the only seat next to me so I had all sorts of space and three pillows (the woman in front of me dropped hers too many times), it was nice and dark, and Delta had a great selection of movies for me to watch (however, it was probably a mistake to watch the movie Chef when the only meal you have to look forward to is airline food).
I made it through customs and just barely made it on my first train. They had changed the platform and only listed these directions in German. At my stop to switch stations, I didn't have enough time to grab all of my bags, get past the people getting on, and get off the train. The lady next to me didn't speak English, but I've read enough books to know what schnell means. But I couldn't schnell enough. I had to ride the train to the next station.
After a slower ride back to my station on a regional train, I had finally arrived at my destination for my friend to pick me up.
Only seven hours here and I've already gotten to talk to some interesting people.
So here I am. Typing this on a German keyboard (which has a different layout with different keys) with all of the website's functions displayed in German (I couldn't get the Internet to work on my laptop, let's hope that problem doesn't persist in Scotland).
But I actually flew over the UK on my way here! I could see it in all of its island glory! There will be plenty of time to see it close-up next week (and for the following four months).
I'll put some pictures up as soon as this Internet problem is remedied.
(Pictures now up.)