Frankfurt Airport and Home!!!

7-1-08

I woke up today at around 4:30. Got up, decided not to shower, since I showered last night. Matt and I both did this, plus we left all of our shampoo, etc, in Germany, because there was no point in bringing them back and adding extra weight to our luggage.

Laura and I ate breakfast, only a bowl of the infamous LIONS cereal that we have come to love from Deutschland. IT is chocolate and carmel thingys. like Coco puffs, but not found, they were flat and almost....half circle shaped. But they were so tasty, I will miss those!

After breakfast, we quickly packed watchever had not yet been packed and headed out for the trainstation with all of our luggage.

It was... a trek thats for sure, and we don't even live that far away from teh train station, but let me tell you, pulling luggage up hill on a steady incline on top of a cobbblestone pathway. It sucked, lets jsut put it that way. lol. I had so much. a purse, a backpack, a pillow, and two rollaway suit cases, one large and one small.

As we reached the Train station, Matthew and his Host mother pulled up in her car, she had kindly brought Matt and his stuff to the train station. We said goodbye to her, though I must admit, it was a teary goodbye. Matthew and I have really come to care for his family, they are incredibly sweet people, and have offered to put us up anytime the two of us are in Germany.

We said goodbye, and promised her that if we were to ever sing in Europe (me, hahaha, not likely) that we would tell her where and get her tickets, haha, she's so sweet.

Anyways, we got into the train station, and matthew did jsut fine getting up the stairs, though I must admit, I had quite a hard time, when I fianlly reached the top, I had a huge blister on my right hand! Lovely!

We waited for our train and reminisced about Mayen, the Mayen Ost Train station, etc. When our train arrived, we got on immediately. It was early, but I think we were all wide awake.

After the usual like 20 stops to Andernach, we finally arrived. We had to go down the stairs from platforms 2 and 3 to get over to platform 1 where our next train would be pulling in. My luggage fell on the way down and a nice young man helped me finish getting it to the bottom.

Then I had to rush over to the next staircase. A train was already arriving, though it was not ours, but we could take it and get to Koblenz earlier than expected. I was still at the bottom of the stairs and had to yell up to laura to come and help me get my stuff up the stairs so we could make the train.

We did make the train thank God!!!

After like two stops, we arrived in Koblenz and found our next train to Frankfurt. However, it was running 30 mins late. lol. We thought that this was unfortunate, but we knew that we still had time. Laura thought it was funny, so we took a picture of the sign saying that our train was 30 mins late. I kid you not, 30 seconds after that picture was taken, the sign changed and said that the train would be 60 mins late.

Well right there, we freaked out. Over the loud speakers, we heard that we could catch a regional train from Koblenz to Frankfurt, so we all moved down like 5 platforms. Of course we had to go down stairs and up stairs. Let's jsut say, I probably treated my luggage rougher here than the air plane people would.

My luggage again fell down the stairs. so I just let it go, it was faster that way. Then when we got to platform 1, where the regional train took off from, of course it was one of the only platforms to not have an escalator. So, guess what. Thats right~ I had to lug my luggage up yet another huge flight of stairs. A kind man again asked if he could help me and I said yes. (many kind people helped me on this trip I will add).

We made it onto the train, and were very thankful for it, apparently we were not the only ones held up by this lovely debocal. So everyone and their mother was rushing for this train.

The train set off and it was going alright in the beggining, however, after a while and we kept getting closer to our destination, our train started stopping for longer and longer at every stop. Which there were hundreds!!!!!

We were starting to freak out, Laura kept saying how she just wanted to go home, lol, poor Matt, he was the only one who wasn't freaking out. Finally after what felt like forever, we finally reached the Frankfurt Airport trainstation. Which is a trainstation for the airport right underneath the airport. How cool?

We had to get above ground and find a tram to our terminal. When we finally found Northwest, our plane was already boarding! For luggage, each is only supposed to weigh 23 kilograms. Mine weighed 26 kilos, but the lady let it slip, but Matthew, his was 31 kilos. So guess what, we had to pay 50 Euros for it. Thankfully I still had a 50 Euro left, it was all I had left, and I paid the lady on the spot. Laura had gone ahead, her bag weighed 26 kilos too, however, the lady she had made her pay 50 Euro for it, she was not happy.

So we had to go through passport control, then through security scanning,etc. Finally when we reached our gate, we were so stressed out we got ourselves checked in and got on the plane. Matthew and I were quite lucky in this, because we had a two seater. So Matthew sat by the window, and I sat by the aisle.

Everyone made it on the place, Laura, and Tyler as well. How we beat Tyler, I am unsure, but we did. haha. we were pretty far back in our section, right next to teh bathrooms, but I was thankful for this, because I knew it would be at my advantage to be closer than farther away.

So the flight started, they passed out drinks, and then dinner, I had the pasta and Matthew had the Chicken. Both were good! We also had merlot with our dinner, complimentary if you can believe it!

I watched four movies on the way home: Be Kind Rewind, Nim's Island, 21, and Run Fatboy Run!, I also started Drillbit Taylor, but I only 20 mins in before inflight systems were shut down for landing.

For "lunch" we had cheese and chicken sandwiches on the plane, and then more merlot, accompanied by Mountain Dew(Matt) and Tomato juice(Emily).

When we finally arrived the Detriot airport, we got off as soon as we could. First we had to go through pasport control, which sucked for me, everyone else gopt through yippy skippy. Me on the other hand, I ended up having to stand in liek 3-4 different lines, because as soon as I would get close to teh front, the person in front of me would have a problem and they would have to close my line!!! GAHHHH!

When I got through, I had to grab my luggage which toook forever to come, then we had to go through customs. That went quicker though even though there were only like 3 lines open for around 700 people, I might be exaggerating, but I can't be sure, tehre were a lot of people!

We got through customs, and put our luggage back through, hoping that it would make it onto our next flight. Then we walked from basically gate 12 to gate 38. The detriot airport is long, and their teminals have a lot of space in between. Let's just say it was quite a walk.

We got ot our gate and about 10-15 mins later, they started boarding. We were so close to home. Matthew got the window seat and I got the middle. The flight went by marginally quick, but I think it was made longer, because we were just so excited to get home!!!

We landed in Minneaoplis with no problems. When we got to our luggage pick-up, Matt's dad Mike and My mother Lathy were waiting for us. My mother had brought like 4th of July insipre Red, white, and blue flowers for me! yay. We chatted and waited for our luggage to come.

One of my bags had made it, however, the second bag, they had had to put on the next flight. After a while, I told Matthew and his dad to head for home, my luggage was coming, we just needed to wait a bit longer.

When my luggage finally came, we booked it out of there and spent a lovely day at home.

When we got home, we played with the boys a bit (my two dogs, shih tzu's, Oscar (13) and Bailey (2)). Then we went to the Eden Prarie Mall for Barnes and Nobles (yay more books!!!!!).

The evening was rounded out by panera, a nice walk around town, and a good nights rest.

So that is the end of our Germany excursion. I must admit that life has been ....pretty boring since coming home, lol, no not really, we've been busy for sure.

I will still post picutres, I am buying batteries today, so hopefully, picutres will be up by monday!

Thanks for staying tuned, and trust me, you want to see our pictures, because they are fantastic!!!

Biss Dann! ;)