Planes and Airports

So I had to get up at 5:30 this morning to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare so there would be no chance of missing the plane and being in a bad situation, anyway I got to the airport and I spend around 25 minutes just hanging with my mom having a coffee so she could have some final time with me before I left the country for 2 months. So eventually its time for me to go through security and right after I go through the security I immediately manage to read my ticket wrong and ended up at the wrong gate. I was at the complete wrong side of the airport and it was like 5 minutes till my plane started to board. I'm still not quite sure how I managed to get lost in my home airport but I still made it to the plane and got there right as they started boarding my section. The plane trip itself wasn't that bad, there were several babies, seemed like 6 months maybe a year but they were mostly quite for the flight and even when they did start to cry I had my Ipod so I just cranked on some music and drowned them out. Flight didn't seem too long, I slept for maybe an hour and mostly just listened to music but I also read maybe 35 pages of my first book for the trip, Shantaram. So far I'm enjoying it, my mom suggested the book to me and its like 950 pages so it should keep me occupied for awhile. I have a 2 hour layover at Dulles so I'm just kicking it near my gate, might grab a bite to eat and I will write more when I get to Frankfurt.

P.S. I really could tell I was at the right gate since a lot of the people really look like mad German.

Mackenzie

Part 2: Frankfurt Airport

well I made it too the airport, my flight managed to get in like super early (I'm not sure about the actual numbers but I think it was like an hour early). Anyway my Aunt was supposed to meet me at the gate when I arrived but my plane beat hers in so I had to figure out her arrival time an now I'm waiting for like an hour until her flight gets a gate assigned, anyway figured it was a good time to blog about the plane trip. The overall trip was good except I fell asleep and no one woke me up for the meal service so I missed that, thankfully I had a ham and cheese sandwich in my bag so I ate that instead. The plane seemed to take forever (the planned time was around 8 hours I think), made me really think about how long a direct flight from Portland would have been (I think around 12 hours). Also the difference between economy, business and first class was huge, the dudes in first class had like giant bed like seats with tvs and remotes and all sort of goodies and I barely had room for my feet. They decided to put the electronics for the tvs under the window seats, they were packed inside of metal boxes that took up half of my foot space so plus my carry on I had almost no space, I had to put it next to my feet instead of underneath the seat in front so I could stretch a little.

Overall the flight was okay though, nice and quite, we arrived early and I was actually able to sleep.

Mackenzie

Part 3: Frankfurt

So me and my aunt had planed to meet at gates but as I said my plane got in early and I could not find the gate so I spent 2 hours moving around the various exits to the airport trying to find my aunt. After that I went onto plan B. I hopped on the train to Frankfurt, unfortunately I got on the train headed in the wrong direction and only realized after 3 stops. I had to hop out and immediately shift to a train going the back the other way. I eventually found my way into Frankfurt and was going to stay at a youth hostel, turns out there pretty hard to find without directions so I ended up wandering around Frankfurt for a good 45 minutes before finding a cyber cafe and finally being able to both email my aunt who said we would meet at a youth hostel and also get good directions to the youth hostel and thats pretty much what happened. We also ate a really good dinner at a restaurant near the hostel that served traditional Frankfurt food

Mackenzie