31st Caretakers of the Environment Conference
Oregon, USA
July 1 - July 11, 2017
We started our journey on the 1st of
July in the morning at 3 a.m. With a shuttle bus we went to the airport
Vienna-Schwechat and took the plane at 6.55 a.m. to Amsterdam. During this
first flight nearly everyone fell asleep and was trying to catch up some missed
sleep from the night before. After our arrival in Amsterdam, we spent an hour
for the extensive security checks due to the American safety regulations. When
we were finally allowed to enter the USA, we were quite late for our flight and
so we ran over the airport in order not to miss it.
Fortunately, we left Amsterdam on time with the
Delta Airline plane at 9.55 a.m. We passed our time with chatting, listening to
music, eating and, of course, sleeping. Time flew away, and after 10 hours of
flight, we finally arrived in Portland at 11.30 a.m. After some final security
checks, we luckily all had our luggage and stood in front of the airport.
There we already met some other participants
from Poland and also from Hong Kong. All of us were really excited and we were
looking forward to arriving at the Wester Oregon University. After our busses
had arrived, we went to the University with one of these typical orange
American school busses. Tired of the long journey, we were happy to move into
our nice rooms. After a short settling-in period, we completed the feeling of
the university life as we went over to the cafeteria and had one of many
following traditional American dinners, including pizza and fries.
Repleted and exhausted we collapsed into bed,
looking forward to the next day and to meeting all the nice people from all
over the world.
Birgit Gall