Clever fellow that I am, I didn’t find my notebook before I left, so I will need to pick up one of those some time. We had a stunningly uneventful trip, starting at the stunningly uneventful airport in Huntington (HTS) where the check-in agents run back to do security screening (one flight at a time) and gate agent duty. All flights were on time to slightly early, despite menacing-looking weather in Charlotte.
In Charlotte Alana spotted a Lufthansa plane with the nose painted as a soccer ball… cute. We heard that Brazil had gone up 1-0 in its game and from what I’ve heard that was the only action to be had in that match.
The flight to Frankfurt was long and sleepless as usual for me. An old couple behind us kept their reading lights on for the duration, providing relief from the stereotype of screaming kids keeping me up during the flight. I had an aggressive recliner in front of me, of course.
Frankfurt brought the dreaded bus treatment on arrival. It was a kneeling bus so when it got up after we boarded it was a bit of a dizzying shock for most people.
Passport control was perfunctory and Customs a walk-through (and a quick one without checked baggage for us). Happily, the immigration officer added to my stamp collection with a faint standard Schengen entry.
After a long but quickly moving line in the airport’s train station to validate our Eurail passes, we made it to the Frankfurt Hbh (central train station) pretty easily by S-bahn. We also reserved seats from Frankfurt to Dresden on the ICE (Intercity Express highspeed) at 1009, a few hours later, which would turn out to be a couple Euro well spent.
Frankfurt was in World Cup fever and I was in (very tired) heaven as we wandered through and around the Hbh. Lots of uniforms, flags, and decked out fans were on display. Indeed, when we finally got on the train, it was choked with fans headed to Leipzig for the Spain-Ukraine match at 1500 (Spain crushed Ukraine 4-nil–we saw some of it at the house here).
After four hours or so we made it to Dresden, within five minutes of the schedule or so. Maria, who had exchanged in Alana’s house, picked us up at Dresden Hbh and drove us to her parent’s house, which has been remodeled a bit and is very nice. We were very well stuffed with grilled meats and tomato salad last night before settling down to watch Germany play Poland in Dortmund. Unfortunately the trip was hitting me hard after dinner, and I went to sleep at half time. After a false start, waking up at 0030, I managed to sleep until just before 0730. Our hosts are off to school and work and I’m getting ready for a long-anticipated shower and switch to the correct time zone in my head (CEST is plus two hours, EDT is minus 4, so I’m lagged by six).
Weather is gorgeous and downright toasty–about 90 yesterday afternoon, very Spanish-feeling.
The free Internet will soon come to an end when we leave Dresden in a few days, so don’t expect posts of this length all time time. I will try, though, and after I get a notebook there will at least be a record to update when we return Stateside.