Day 17: Flight - 10 hours and 50 glorious minutes of it (this is sarcasm)

We left our tiny hotel room and fought the train to the airport. There we checked in, got a tax refund, and checked our one bag. Then we waited for a short while before boarding our plane and going to Frankfurt. The Frankfurt airport it huge. When our plane landed, we took a 10 minute shuttle ride to the gate, then went up, then over, then down two, the over, then up again. We were in terminal A, which was probably as big as the entire Salt Lake airport. We explored the terminal, then plopped until we could figure out what gate we were departing from.

When we were assigned a gate, we found that the security here was strong. To get to the gate, we had to show our boarding passes, then we had to show our passports and get them stamped (yay!), which was unusual, but fine. What was really annoying though, was what we had to do to get on the plane. When they started boarding, we stood up and got in line. But as we slowly made our way to the front, I realized something horrible - they were checking for some sort of security sticker in the back of passenger's passports. So then we were diverted to another line where we had to show our passports and answer some questions about our luggage. Then we had to get new boarding passes printed. Then we had to show the boarding pass and the passport to get on the plane. It wouldn't have been so bad if they had some sort of sign, or announcement. But we didn't find out about this sticker until we had been waiting in line! I asked if something had happened to make security so annoying and was told this was standard - for United. We all swore this was the last time we flew United internationally.

For international flights, you really want to have one of those personal entertainment systems to keep you from insane boredom. This plane didn't have those. It did have a bunch of screens so that it was easy to watch a movie. But the movies shown were horrible. Don't watch "The Adjustment Bureau".

But we survived, and made it to San Francisco alive and sane. Myra went on to the connecting flight, Rich got taken aside for questioning, and I continued on unmolested. I even made it to my hotel! But that is part of a different trip, one that will not be recorded here.

So our journey came to an end. We saw much, did much, went everywhere, and spent way too much money. Did we get homesick? Myra and Rich did pretty much every time we saw something cute and fluffy. "I miss my kitties!" someone would say. But other than that we were fully absorbed in our travels and didn't miss home too much. But we are still very happy to be back in the land of the free! (and much lower prices, and a reasonable amount of darkness, and shops open before 10 and after 5, and.... Need I go on?)

Travel is great, but exhausting, and there really is no place like home!

~Mia