alrighty... home stretch.
27th
we woke up as usual and i enjoyed my second to last breakfast. we wanted to play tennis again so i needed to eat something and make sure to drink my apple juice with bubble water. i'll miss that... it's pretty freakin good. like apple champagne. i wasn't feeling super well, so we laid around the room for a bit, but made it down to the tennis court around 11... walking of course, no bikes.
we went to play tennis and it wasn't horrible... but it wasn't great either. i didn't get frustrated and played pretty consistently. bruce got a bit frustrated actually and, with the rain coming and going, it wasn't the best day for us all together. 7-6 was the first set... and that was it. we left around 1:30 with full intention of coming back to play again. but with having to walk to brannenburg for lunch stuff, we didn't want to stay and play until mid afternoon because if we were to eat too late, it would throw off our dinner (you'll see why that's important).
got our lunch stuff. ate it on the balcony. no lox... they were all out.
after lunch, it was already getting late. i decided to pack my stuff and bruce packed most of his. we were ready to leave... we showered and organized our clothes for munich and the return trip as well as figuring out how to get all of this absinthe, license plates, glasses, and whatnot into our tennis bags.
at 5:30 we left and took the train to oberaudorf one last time. remember, it was georg's birthday, and he had invited us to his place for dinner. we got there around 6:30 to witness christine riding around on a new vespa scooter that georg had bought for his birthday. he'll ride it to work as to leave the car for his wife, daughter, and soon arriving baby. pretty cool. we went inside and were greeted by christine's parents, georg's wife and daughter (lisa), tony (georg's friend), bruce/darla/lucas (friends from 6 years ago), and Andy (a friend bruce knew from the northland group from 6 years ago as well). we were immediately offered beers with the clarification as to whether or not we wanted beers "kuhlschrank" cold or "keller" cold (fridge or cellar). apparently, they keep beer at different temps for people to enjoy based on preference. we both chose keller cold. i drank mine. bruce wasn't feeling very well, so i drank his also. then i had another one. awesome.
dinner was a lot of fun for our last night. we talked with the family, i had conversations with everyone in german, it was a nice family/friend get-together with drinks, food, and fellowship. lisa, the daughter, also happens to be the cutest thing in the world... so we played together pretty much the whole time (bruce/me/georg) with all of her animal toys as she showed us her favorites. for dinner we ate wurstsalat (meat kind of like bologna, onions, salt, pepper, vinegar), noodlesalat (the lisa helped her mother make), breads with homemade spreads, and something that reminded me of a cold bread pudding with onion, tomatoes, and oil/vinegar. it was really tasty but interesting... at first it looked like pork cutlets, kinda round with different shades of color, but they were more like dumplings. i ate about 7 of them... and i wish i'd eaten more of the wurstsalat. it was delish. bruce still wasn't feeling great and, after taking a walk outside and talking with christine's dad, came in and only ate a little bread. too bad really, but... it happens.
we stayed for a bit after dinner where her parents showed us pictures of a hike that they'd recently gone on. bruce was feeling better and we were all sitting together at the table like a big family. this was really special. we talked about a little of everything and all of them were just so incredibly nice and thoughtful... as if they were our own german family. we didn't stay too late as we had to catch the train and Andy had offered to drop us off. we got back to finish packing, skype, and go to bed. tomorrow we begin our journey home... but i cant think of much of a better way to spend our last night, thanks to the fankhausers.
28th
leaving flintsbach...
sad. breakfast as usual, but was surprised to find 2 beer glasses wrapped in bubble wrap (brent) and paper for us to take with... gifts from astrid and her mother. we'd mentioned wanted glasses before but didn't say anything else about it... but astrid remembered and had them ready for me. it was really thoughtful and they are pretty sweet glasses. we were taking the 11:02 train to munich, so after breakfast we had about an hour to finish packing and kind of just chill out, throw stuff away (like our rafts), and take some final pictures. we thanked astrid, turned in our key... and left. it was over.
we saw astrid's mom (our german mom who did our laundry) at the train station and she rode with us to munich. she was heading up north for a funeral and poor astrid was left to do everything herself for the weekend. her mom had opened up to us toward the end, so were talked a bit about what bruce and i will do when we get back, what our plans are, etc. oh... i thanked her for the glasses also. the train to rosenheim/munich always sucks and is always full. so naturally, bruce and i didn't have seats and sat in the doorway between two cars of the train for the hour or so ride. we had all of our stuff too, so we sure weren't making it easy for people to get on or off the train... but whatever. we were tired and we had no where else to go. oh, and we didn't care.
munich... we've seen munich. we've seen munich a bunch of times. we weren't too interested in seeing it again, but what the heck. we stuff all of our stuff into a locker and set off on a mission to buy a doener, find a particular bible that bruce wanted, and spend our remaining euro on the cheapest beer we could find. we walked around a bit kinda north of the main tourist area... it was nice. bruce didn't find his bible but did buy the first harry potter book in german. i told him it was about time he read them... so he compromised and bought it. found a doener... ate the death out of it. and for the beer... we went on the search. we went from tourist-city marienplatz (4,40 euro 0,5L) to the neighboring blocks (3,90-4,10 euro) to finally, and to our surprise, the famous hofbraeuhaus (3,50 euro). they were the cheapest... who'd of thought? but, still to touristy, so we walked to one of the city centers where there are tons of little biergartens and imbisses and bought our 3,70 euro beer. it was nice and relaxing... we sat outside and talked, enjoying munich one more time.
finished beer. time to go. subway to ostbahnhof, sbahn to airport, shuttle to hotel- this took about an hour. we checked into our hotel a little after 4, printed our boarding passes, took showers, and turned the air conditioning on. sometime around 6 we decided to walk to dinner and so we walked to the same little italian restaurant that duck/brent/bonnie had suggested. now, we really had to spend the rest of our euro. i ordered the cheapest pizza they had, bruce had gnocchi, and we both had two beers. we took our time because we had nothing to get back for... and were amused by all of the other americans that were also at the restaurant. we would be home soon. we went back to the hotel, watched "burn after reading" again, and went to sleep. last night.
29th (4:20 am or 10:20 pm on the 28th to all you east coast americans)
we're up. it's early. we ate some breakfast and had some juice and coffee as we waited for our 5am shuttle to the airport. the shuttle dropped us off at the baggage check area which, slightly surprising, already had a ridiculous line of people by 5:20. we waited in line for almost an hour before we finally dropped our bags off and headed through security. our flight was at 7:10, we got to the gate about 6:30... where we sat and eagerly awaited boarding.
we land in london/heathrow, deboard, through customs, and reclaim our bags by about 8:30 london time (9:30 germany time/3:30 am america time). we had to transfer airports because there is a raquet in place to rip off all travelers to and from america unless you're flying to like 5 particular american cities. orlando is not one of them... so we cant fly out of heathrow, we have to go to gatwick. 40 pounds later (like 60$), we board this bus that takes us through the less-than-scenic parts of outer london on an hour long ride to our terminal at gatwick. yippee. london sucks. tired and carrying our heavy bags, we check our bags at gatwick, lie about the contents of our bags (no liquids great than 100 ml... yeah right), go through security, and have about an hour to waste. we walked around, spent our remaining pounds on drinks and candy, and waited to board the main flight home.
which of course was delayed. we had all boarded, but for some air traffic control glitch, we sat on the runway for 45 minutes... great. the flight is long, but we were expecting that. you cant complain much about it... they feed you, you can watch movies... its just long. after your third movie, it gets a little boring. and bruce and i had the window and middle seats, so we had to keep climbing over this poor girl to go to the bathroom. during "invictus", i'd held going to the bathroom for so long that i considered going in one of my bottles. but, because we were on a plane and not in the back of a car, this was an accident waiting to happen that could potentially ruin the trip for many of our fellow passengers. i sucked it up and asked her to move. from then on (and especially while she was sleeping), we just climbed over her. lean.
we land in orlando at 3:45 pm (9:45 in flintsbach... we'd been up over 17 hours... not too bad), go through customs (which always sucks and I almost forgot my vuvuzela), and finally make it to the terminal to be met by our loving parents. it was great and we were really happy to see them both.
but i'm not quite finished... remember, i live in atlanta. we check my bag in (waiting maybe 30 minutes) and proceed to chili's to kill some time, visit, and eat some chips/salsa/beer. we told stories but couldn't tell much because both mom and dad knew everything from the blog already (like all of you do), so we really just talked about other stuff... that was nice. we hadn't talked to dad much the whole trip, so catching up with him was very enjoyable. we spent about an hour together.
but, once more, i had to go. i said goodbye, went through security, got to my gate, and could not sit still i was so excited... i was almost home. or so i thought. i of course find my plane delayed... ok, 20 minutes... not bad, whatever. we finally board... delayed again, this time because of a storm. an hour later and after 3 false alarms, we finally take off. at this point, many of those with connecting flights are less than thrilled as they're surely going to be cutting it close. we land around 8:50... deboard, baggage, and duck!... she was there! she had parked and come in to meet me... totally by surprise. she makes everything better.
traffic on I-85, we finally get home around 10 (4 am munich time- almost a good 24 hours). it was finished, we'd made it.
No comments:
Post a Comment