Day 1

Sunday, we went to Cedar Rapids by airplane, however the journey lasted way longer than we expected! In the morning, we drove to Dusseldorf Airport with our parents and after we checked in our luggage and went through custody we flew from Dusseldorf to Chicago. This all went fine, the flight was good and it lasted even shorter than we expected. When we arrived at Chicago, we had about 4 hours until our flight to Cedar Rapids should depart. Unfortunately, the flight got delayed by 2 hours and eventually this became 3 hours... But after these hours we finally could get on the airplane and take off. In Chicago, the weather was really bad, which also caused the delay. During the 1 hour flight to Cedar Rapids we had a lot of turbulence and it even got so bad that we could not even continue to fly to the airport of destination anymore. So when we landed on an airport, the crew told us that we were not in Cedar Rapids, but in Moline, a city 100 miles away from Cedar Rapids. There was a storm above Cedar Rapids, which was the reason why we could not go there anymore. No one inside the plane actually understood what was going on and when we would continue the flight to Cedar Rapids. After a while the pilot told us that the airplane needed an inspection because we flew through thunder and that the plane had to stay in Moline overnight. The next morning, when everything was inspected, there would be a flight for us from Moline to Cedar Rapids. This meant that everyone on the plane should look for a hotel, because we were actually stranded at the airport, as the flight company did nothing to find a hotel for us. Iris and I did not really know what to do, so we went to look for someone who was willing to borrow us his or here mobile phone, as we run out of battery. But then a woman came up to us telling that Becky and Dennis, our host parents, were on their way to pick us up in Moline. We were very happy to hear that of course, because otherwise we had to look for a hotel for that night. So when it was 2 am, we got picked up from the airport in Moline and arrived at their house around half past 3 am. After the long journey of about 24 hours, we finally could go to sleep!