Die Reise beginnt! 08.02.2014

Hello and welcome to our blog! This site has been created to document the "maiden voyage" of what we hope will become many more study-abroad opportunities for students attending the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. This ten-day journey brings five students: Sumner Williams, Chris Engel, Emily Leising, Quashawn Chadwick, and Kelly DeLameter (and of course, our beloved professor, Herr Dr. Hans Gabriel) to major European centers of artistic culture. We will be exploring Salzburg, Vienna, Berlin, and Aachen in the week to come, indulging in their rich histories of art, music, and culture.

We met at 10:00am this morning in the Academic House on campus to organize and discuss some final travel details. From there we drove to Raleigh to embark on our first full day of travel. upon arrival to the airport, we checked bags and survived the routine security scans. We then grabbed a quick lunch and waited to board our first flight. Sumner made use of this respite to snag some practice time in order to stay sharp for his up-coming lessons and performances. The group began conversing in German as much as possible, hoping to lessen the impending culture shock.

We boarded the first (rather compact) flight at 2:00pm and arrived at Dulles International Airport less than an hour later. We then rushed from the tarmac to what seemed to be the opposite end of the airport, taking a short train ride and scurrying to arrive in the waiting area for our second flight. Another brief wait and we had boarded the next flight and prepared to leave the country (for the first time for many in our group)!

As the first day comes to a close (and the second begins, thanks to a six-hour time difference), we greet the world from our Washington D.C.-Munich flight. Most of the gang is either sleeping or enjoying the luxuries of modern air travel via the variety of in-flight movies, games, and music available for each passenger. A remarkably tasty in-flight meal was enjoyed by all, and per the request of Dr. Dean Steve Lacosse, Kelly spent the majority of his time learning music for the up-coming production of The Gondoliers (although he took a break to indulge in one of the movies, nobody tell Steve!) As night turns to day we grace the heavens above Paris as our flight enters its final hour. That's all for now, We'll be checking back in tomorrow evening from Vienna, Austria!