Germany: Dachau, May 14 Part 2

Wednesday's second stop was the small town of Dachau, just outside of Munich. Dachau is known as the site of the Third Reich's first concentration camp, established in 1933. We spent roughly two hours visiting the site, which is now a memorial museum. We were able to utilize a head-set in order to listen to various portrayals of what actually transpired at this site for the duration from 1933 to 1945.

Visiting a concentration camp is not something easily put to words so it is rather difficult for me to explain the experience. I can tell you some things addressed while listening to the head-set:

1. It is illegal in Germany to deny the Holocaust.

2. It is illegal in Germany to portray a swastika.

3. It is illegal in Germany to demonstrate the former Nazi salute.

4. All school children in Germany are required to visit a concentration camp as an educational experience.

5. Prisoners brought to Dachua were led to believe that "work brings freedom" so they were convinced to obey all rules. These words in German are still on the gate's entrance.

6. Dachau was not an extermination camp, but a place for prisoners and those who opposed the Nazi regime.

7. People from various backgrounds were brought to Dachau as prisoners including German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, other political opponents of the Nazi regime, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, Gay Men, Asocials, repeat prisoners and Jews. The different colored-triangles that prisoners were sometimes forced to wear were memorialized in an exhibit.

8. Something like 180,000 prisoners were held in Dachau over 12 years.

9. Something like 28,000 prisoners died while in Dachau.

10. Doctors often used prisoners as subjects in experiments, trying to test things like torture techniques.

11. Prisoners occassionally committed suicide rather than continue to be forced to succomb to the ways of life at Dachau. One method was throwing oneself into a chain-wire fence. This act was memorialized in one of the exhibits.

Visiting a concentration camp is just a bizarre experience. Like I said, it is hard to put to words so I guess that's why I settled on reporting some facts.

Germany: Eagle's Nest, May 14 Part 1

After a great night's sleep, we loaded the car again for our next adventure. The plan for the day was to head to Eagle's Nest first, which is located in the Alps above the town of Berchtesgadener. This drive provided another scenic tour of southern Germany, with amazing snow-capped moutains in the distance.

Today, Berchtesgadener is predominately a tourist stop, where people come to stay near mountains for hiking and biking and even skiing. Nestled throughout the local mountains are various salt mines, where tourists can don miners' clothes, hop in a mine wagon, and learn the salt-extraction process. Sadly, we didn't have enough time for this, despite our interest as children of the (coal) mining industry.




Berchtesgadener is known to historians as one of Hitler's spots during the Third Reich. The town served as a retreat for Hitler and his party leaders, namely Martin Bormann. They lived at times in small villas nestled in the hills at the base of the mountain. For Hitler's birthday, Bormann decided to honor him by building Eagle's Nest, also known as Kehlsteinhaus. It's referred to as Eagle's Nest because the house was built nearly 2500 ft into the summit of a mountain.

There are some strange elements about this, in my opinion.

First, the road to the top to actually go into Eagle's Nest is unbelievable. The road is an insanely winding road stretching higher and higher to the summit. The views are absolutely spectacular. In fact, in my opinion, the views are the ultimate "thing" to experience here. It was truly the most amazing part of the whole trip. What is strange about this is that Hitler was afraid of heights. The story is told that as he was driven to the house, the window's views were obstructed so he could only see within the car. Odd.

Second, the house today contains an outdoor patio that is a restaurant. Hitler never ate food prepared IN the house. The story here is that all of the food Hitler ate while here was cooked at his villa down in the town and driven to the top. He was afraid of being poisoned. Maybe not as odd, considering Hitler for Hitler.

Third, being in this house in general is just strange. I mean, you walk throughout the house and you are able to stand in the room with a fireplace that was a former meeting place for Hitler and his top officials. He plotted some sick, nasty, immoral acts here. It was downright creepy to think about and experience.

Eagle's Nest was an interesting experience, and we were fortunate to even have it. The day we visited was only the third day it was open to tourists; even though it was mid-May, a great deal of snow had just cleared away enough of the path to make this stop accessible. All in all, this was a thought-provoking experience, and the start to a very strange day of tourism - weird Wednesday, as I'm referring to it now.

Austria: Salzburg, May 13

We had another amazing European breakfast (sarcasm noted) before checking out of our hotel room in Munich. We then loaded up the car, prepared Mr. T, and continued our adventure south to Austria. This was perhaps one of the most beatifully scenic drives I will ever take. Despite the hot sweaty car, the drive was extremely enjoyable as we approached the Alps more and more with each kilometer.

Salzburg is famous for Mozart and The Sound of Music, so it was only fitting that we decided to have lunch in Mozartplatz. This lunch was noteworthy for me because the bread that accompanied our meals contained anise seeds, which you just don't get everyday. My family would have gone crazy for this bread so I made sure to make the most of it. After taking a stop to see Mozart's statue, we headed for Hohensalzburg Fortress.





The Fortress sits atop the mountain and overlooks the city. Perhaps one of its most fascinating characteristics is the fact that it was bult over 900 years ago. That's a seriously old landmark. Another fascinating charactertistic is the ride to the top of the mountain, via furnicular, which I happened to greatly enjoy. It's not every day you get to ride one, you know? We spent some time exploring the Fortress and enjoying amazing views of the city.

Salzburg is honestly a beautiful city, with lots of great sights. We spent time exploring Salzburg's Cathedral, St. Peter's Cathedral and Cemetery, Mozart's birthplace and residence, and Mirabellgarten (or Mirabell Garden). Throughout much of the afternoon, we enjoyed great weather as we explored each of these sights. Each was unique in its own way.

The highlight of the trip to Salzburg was our evening at St. Peter's. Since no trip to Salzburg is complete without experiencing classical music, we decided to attend a Mozart Dinner Concert at St. Peter's. We were seated with two couples from Australia. Between courses, a four-string qaurtet, a male singer, and a female singer performed pieces of Mozart's music in this intimate setting. There were only at most forty people seated for dinner, so it was quite an elegant experience. Even the dessert had a Mozart twist. All in all, it was a fabulous evening, not to mention a great relaxing and rewarding day.

Germany: Neuschwanstein, May 12 Part 2

After our morning tour of Munich, we headed south of the city in route to Neuschwanstein via Brandon's hot sweaty car. Views of the Alps in the distance, as seen in this photo, highlighted the drive along back rural roads. Honestly, it was such a beautiful afternoon, and the views were quite spectacular. This is one of my favorite photo because it almost seems like the clouds touch the moutains.

Neuschwanstein is another fairly large tourist attraction, as it is the name of a castle, not actually the name of a town. This fairy tale castle was built by Ludwig II, former Bavarian ruler, between 1869 and 1886. The King only spent a few months here - apparently, he was declared insane and later found dead in a river. Suicide or murder? No one really knows.

There were only two points during the entire trip where I wanted to smack Brandon, and this afternoon brought the first. Brandon told me that we'd have to "walk up a small hill" in order to get to the castle itself. Brandon is, at times, a liar! Small hill, my ass. After a heavy lunch, he was so kind to leave us with just enough time for a brisk speed walk up this rather steep mountain. As you may recall from my departure retelling, I am clearly in no shape to be walking up steep mountainsides; by the time we reached the top, my calf muscles felt as if someone took a 40-pound mallet and smashed them repeatedly. Needless to say, it took me a while to appreciate being at the top of the mountain.

Once I was over my pain and misery, we were able to take a tour of Neuschwanstein. Most of the castle was never finished inside, but we were able to tour a bedroom, a living room, a chapel and a concert hall, all of which were fairly elaborately painted and decorated. As you can see in the photo, it is quite an amazing castle. I mean, I still don't understand how an insane person can think this up - seems pretty spectacular to me! Walt Disney seemed to agree, as it is believed this castle was his inspiration for the famous Cinderella's castle. That's some good random trivia knowledge; I hope it helps you someday.

Another interesting stop here is Marienbrucke, or Mary's Bridge, which is where I took the photo of the castle. You can freak yourself out on this bridge, standing over a huge gorge between the mountains. It's seriously insane - little wooden boards fastened on some tiny metal. I didn't think heights freaked me out, but with all of the tourists trying to take photos, it was all very dramatic. Still, pretty amazing.

In this area is another castle called Hohenschwangau, which is much older. Apparently, Napolean destroyed it, but it was later restored (as is most of Germany for some reason or another). We didn't tour this one but we could see it very well from the bridge and from many stops along the treacherous mountain walk. So I was able to get a pretty great photo of this as well. These castles provided some seriously amazing sightseeing. We had an adventurous day near the castles, and as previously noted, I got in a pretty serious leg workout as well.

Germany: Munich, May 12 Part 1

We started our day on Monday with a small breakfast in the hotel, which was managed by a woman with a lazy eye. I only remember this because Brandon said it about 15 times from the time we arrived on Sunday until the time we left. Breakfast in Europe has always fascinated me - I just don't understand the desire to eat salmon and cheese or salami and cheese on bread or crackers at 8am. I usually settled for nutella on whatever is available because, well, why not? It is nutella, you know?

We set out early to do a walking tour of downtown Munich, which was led by a very nice British man - again, love the accent. Munich is the country's third largest city, and despite utter devastation during World War II, much of the downtown has been rebuilt to resemble former facades and the buildings are quite beautiful.

Perhaps the most striking building in Munich is the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus, located in Marienplatz. The building's tower houses a famous glockenspiel, which is basically a moving clock. The glockenspiel consists of 43 bells and 32 life size figures, which move and dance to tell two particular stories. The top half tells the marriage story of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata - you can see them in the center. There is a joust with knights on horseback that move around them. The bottom half tells the story of the Schäfflerstanz or the coopers' dance. Apparently in the 16th century, there was a plague in Munich - people were afraid to leave their homes, but the coopers (or barrell makers) were the first to risk it - so this shows their dance. At the end, the little yellow bird at the top chirps. I thought this was pretty fascinating, considering it has been around for over one hundred years.

Two interesting tour stops were churches. The first is called Frauenkirche, which means Cathedral of Our Blessed Lady. This is a Gothic style church. There is a footprint in the back, said to be the devil's footprint from when the devil protested the building of the church - apparently, the devil believed there would be no windows, but the builder tricked the devil so he left this footprint when he stomped the ground in fury. Good story for tourism. The Pope, prior to being The Pope, used to have Mass here as well.

The second interesting church was St. Michael's Church, which is Renaissance in style and has two onion-shaped domes. It honestly looks like churches you would see in Italy, not in Germany. This is where I discovered the museum feature on my digital camera - it takes some seriously amazing photos, like this one. No blur - spectacular!

Another fun tour stop included the English Garden in the middle of the city, which is the largest public garden in Europe. This is a seriously huge green space, where people run, walk, and bike. Not to mention on nice days, like the day we spent, it's also a place where the locals sunbathe naked. Sadly, most of the nakedness was seen in older, larger, hairy men, so it wasn't much for looking. The stream that runs through the Garden even has a wave break, which is always filled with locals and their surfboards. Who knews Germans had a place to catch a wave every once and a while!

The tour covered some history of Bavaria, since Munich was the former capital, including its

former rulers and their buildings, which was interesting at the time, but now I just can't seem to recall a whole lot of it. We did also get some more World War II information, since Hitler spent a decent amount of time here. Brandon could probably give you those details, but I just can't seem to recall much of it at this point.

We ended the tour in Viktualienmarkt, which is a pretty solid outdoor food market. The plaza was also home to this maypole, which depicts for visitors all of the local sites to see.

Germany: Hofbrauhaus, May 11 Part 3

No trip to Munich is complete without a visit to the Hofbrauhaus, one of the world's oldest and most famous beer gardens. This place has been brewing beer since 1589, the time when Wilhelm V was the duke of Bavaria - he played a role in this place's creation. (I didn't know this at the time, but I learned it the next day when we toured Munich.)

The Hofbrauhaus remains famous today because it is the site of the yearly Oktoberfest when thousands of beer lovers flock here to get rowdy for hours upon hours.

Because it is such a famous place, it was fitting that this was our choice for dinner on Sunday night, after our adventures at Olympic Park. We settled down at a table in the outdoor portion of the beer garden, which was filled with tourists from all over the world - it was an excellent place to overhear conversations flooded with people's accents, which I definitely do love.

Brandon won out on the choice of dinner. He had the authentic meal of pork schnitzel; I know this because my sample of it was quite delicious. My dinner choice, on the other hand, was not as savory. I chose the meatloaf because I wanted a hearty meal. Instead, my meal could best be described as "a slab of hot dog" or "hot dog loaf". Now, I do love hot dogs typically, but this loaf wasn't the greatest thing in the world. The potato salad, however, was authentic and delicious.

Just about every tourist who drinks and dines here has some version of this photo, so here's my memory of beer-drinking at the Hofbrauhaus. Brandon would title this picture "The Poser" because the only beer I drank at this famous beer garden was the amount necessary to take the photo. These steins are gigantic, and I'm just not enough of a beer fan to give this the true go. I did sample, though, and I can tell you, this beer is definitely worth its Euro. Thank you, beer wench!

Germany: Olympic Park, May 11 Part 2

After a great afternoon in Rothenburg, we hit the road again, and with the help of Mr. T, easily found our way into Munich. I was excited about visiting Munich because I wanted to see Olympic Park, among other things, so we felt this would be a good place to start.

We found a hotel, checked in, and then headed to the train station. We hopped a train across town to Olympic Park. As we departed the train, I noticed a great deal of people walking toward the park who looked like they were attending a rock concert. Just as I was saying to Brandon, "Um, I think there might be a concert here tonight," a large line of serious fans wearing KISS ARMY shirts were walking toward us. Brandon was immediately intrigued, and we did in fact confirm a KISS concert was on schedule in just a few hours. In fact, it was KISSMANIA, and had we known, we could have painted our faces and got into the concert free. Too funny, I tell you.

We also caught the very extreme end of a Nissan-sponsored dirt bike competition. Olympic Park is a rockin' place.

Anyway, since I didn't feel like spending 70 Euro on scalped tickets (I think Brandon is still upset about this), we played tourist and checked out the Olympic Park sites. Munich hosted the 1972 Summer Olympics, which are sadly remembered for the fact that 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, which is referred to as the Munich Massacre. Sadly, it's history, and as Germany well knows, we can't forget the past.



Olympic Park is pretty amazing. There is an awesome tower, which we took to the top for outstanding views of the Olympic facilities, the city of Munich, the BMW headquarters, and the Alps in the distance. It was pretty frigid at the top of the tower because the sun was setting, but the views were amazing.





This is a photo of Olympic Stadium, where soccer is obviously held. The stadium is still used today for local soccer games. Pretty awesome view of the stadium field.



One of my favorite parts atop the tower was this sign: DANGER TO LIFE. Not just danger, but danger to life. BEWARE TOURISTS.



Olympic Park lived up to the hype, and since I am a huge Summer Olympics fan, it was really a great experience for me to see the facilities. First stop in Munich was definitely a winner!

Germany: Rothenburg, May 11 Part 1

After an invigorating night's sleep, Brandon and I awoke somewhat early on Sunday to pack for our first road trip. We loaded our bags into the hot sweaty car, and Brandon took a few minutes to prepare his Tom-Tom. Generally speaking, this navigation system was quite impressive, most notably for the fact that the voice belonged to Mr. T. That's right, Mr. T joined us for the remainder of the week, telling Brandon "to enter the motorway" or "in 300 meters, turn left" or "slow it down, fool, slow it down!" Seriously, entertainment in the simplest form.

We set off to Rothenburg, a small medieval town that is magical, quaint and peaceful. A wall runs completely around the town. We walked a good part of it in order to see the town from a higher view. This is probably my best photo of the wall itself.


Rothenburg exists solely for tourism, and we somehow picked one of the best days to play tourist here - thank you travel gods and karma! We happened upon the town for Medieval Parade Weekend. The townspeople draped themselves in medieval lederhosen and wandered the streets with the aim to entertain. Numerous townfolk could be found on horseback...







...or walking with dead animals on shovels...















... or firing off cannons. The Medieval Parade element was really a quite fun surprise for our day of tourism.






Some other highlights during the day in Rothenburg included an amazing lunch of a summer salad with fresh fruit and fresh veggies, followed by a gelato dessert. Real authentic gelato is perhaps one of my favorite foods in Europe, and it was definitely enjoyable on this beautiful day. Rothenburg is also famous for Christkindlmarkts - those stores that exist solely for Christmas 365-24-7 (which we all know I don't fully support, but tourism is tourism). These shops and stores were on nearly every corner. The architecture of the buildings here was also quite impressive. All in all, Rothenburg was significantly amazing.

Germany: Wurzburg, May 10 Part 2

After our adventure on the monastery's mountain drinking beer with the aggressively adventurous Germans, we drove to Wurzburg for a late dinner with some of Brandon's co-workers. Having already had a traditional pork meal for my previous two meals, we felt it best to dine on something other than pork. Brandon's friend suggested sushi, which I am not really a fan of, but the restaurant had other Asian meal offerings and that was good enough for me.

I ordered some lo mein, while Brandon and his friends ordered Sushi Boats. I wasn't sure what that meant, but it was quite the site once the boats were brought to the table. Sadly, I don't have a photo of the Sushi Boat, but I can describe for you that the waitresses brought two wooden boats. The boats had wooden planks, masts, etc. and were at least two feet in length. Seriously, I'm not exaggerrating. Spread across the length of each boat's deck were roughly 30 pieces of a variety of sushi. This is not something you see every day, and I'm still upset I didn't capture it on film.

Brandon's friend lives in Wurzburg so he described for me some of the sights. There are only a few things I remember about the city. One of these facts is that Wurzburg is home to a university and often flooded with college age students. I also remember that the River Main runs through the center, and Brandon's friend, who is an engineer by trade, detailed for me the intriguing set up of the city's canal system, which can be seen here. I remember being fascinated by the facts about the canal and thinking "that's some good engineering" but I honestly can't remember what exactly made the canal's set up so intriguing.

Brandon's friend also pointed out the castle as seen here, called Marienberg Fortress. This building is like 500 years old, which is pretty incredible. It looked magnificent at night, and I was able to experiment with my camera's features in order to take this excellent photo. However, this is as close to the fortress as I was able to get. It does look pretty cool, I think. American doesn't have buildings like this, you know?

I didn't spend a ton of time in Wurzburg, but I can tell you that it seems like a pretty unique city and possibly a fairly fun place to live. And I did have two excellent meals there, so that's usually good enough for me. It's not every day you see a Sushi Boat, right?

Germany: Kreuzburg, May 10 Part 1

On Saturday, Brandon was so generous to allow me to sleep off my jet lag; I think he was surprised when I surfaced back to life around noon because I probably could have slept all day. He informed me that we had a small excursion to Kreuzburg planned for the afternoon.

Brandon was generally giddy because the weather was just amazing. Seriously, he spent hours before my arrival saying things like, "Bring rain gear" or "It's probably going to be rainy the whole time you're here." But magically, karma and the travel gods were on my side, and the weather was already proving to be magnifcent.




Kreuzburg is one of Brandon's weekend hot spots, so when the weather is nice, a visit seems appropriate - that's what he told me anyway. Kreuzburg is situated on a mountain. These are the steps we had to climb to get to the top.

This is a view from the top of the mountain, which I think it quite quaint and beautiful.





Germans love this place. It attracts a great deal of locals who come out to hike and bike. There are lots of trails on top of the mountain, and the steps to the top can be a workout themselves. Germans love the outdoors, and they are fairly aggressive about their time spent in the sun. Many of them dawn spandex, some inappropriately short, and gear up to attack these trails via bike. Others grasp their walking poles in both hands in order to attack the trails via foot. It's all quite intense really, and I felt intimidated by their dedication to outodoor adventures.

Tourists also love this place. The mountain also plays home to Kloster Kreuzburg, which is basically a monastery - a monastery that serves beer. Yes, that's correct, a monastery that serves beer. For hundreds of years, the monks brewed beer and sold it atop this mountain. The monks stopped breweing the beer in 1985, but it is still served. So, I guess there's nothing better than to grab your stein and join in, because really, what could be better than drinking beer at a monastery on a Saturday afternoon?




Well, eating a giant fat soft pretzel with your beer makes it a whole lot better.





I think the Germans are on to something, by the way. I wonder how many Americans would work out more aggressively if beer was the reward atop a holy mountain?

Germany: The Arrival, May 9

Despite the drama of my departure, my arrival to Frankfurt was quite the opposite. The flight was fairly smooth and there were no major debacles. I couldn't sleep, probably because a two-year-old cried for most of the flight and his mother felt it necessary to rock him right near me. In any case, we actually arrived early. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and everything felt amazing.

I zipped through customs. I love customs, by the way. Since this was only my second ever trip outside America, I looked forward to the passport stamp, and of course, I loved the 3.8 seconds it took the nice German to actually stamp my passport.

Waiting for my luggage took a while longer, which gave me ample time to observe some of the German passengers waiting for their bags. The Germans love, seriously LOVE, those carts to drag all of their luggage in one haul. Seriously, almost every German had a cart. Weird.

Anyway, I grabbed my bag and found Brandon patiently waiting for my arrival.

As I mentioned, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful morning in Germany. Sitting in Brandon's twenty-year-old BMW with dark green exterior and black leather interior, it became immediately evident that the sun was beating directly on my face, and it was hot. If only the air conditioning worked...

The drive back to Brandon's place was a little over an hour, via the autobahn where, of course, there is no speed limit. Thankfully, the Germans are pretty good drivers and the truckers didn't seem to be obnoxious like they are sometimes here in the states.

I used this time to take in the German countryside. Tiny red-roof towns, more like villages really, dotted the splendidly green landscape for miles. It was so picture-esque to see each little town with its church steeple jutting from the center. Each town could be deemed "the middle of nowhere" but it was so beautiful to imagine life in such a tiny place.

We arrived at Brandon's to give him time to change for work, and I spent the afternoon experiencing his work life at Conn Barracks. I met many of Brandon's friends and coworkers, each of whom had some colorfully wonderful story about Brandon or work. It was quite enjoyable.

Feeling some serious jet lag at this point in the day, Brandon was so kind to allow me a one-hour power nap before a delicious dinner with his friends in Wurzburg (more on the city later).


Dinner consisted of an amazing piece of pork (clearly!) with an almond crust and some tri-tater like potatoes, coupled with an excellent bottle of white wine. This, of course, led to a lengthy night of carousing at a local bar, where I was forced to sample warm beer for a multitude of hours. I also impressed some female German with my knowledge of American politics and my outlook on life. She apparently thought I was a genius American because I wasn't her redneck family members who were raised in the sticks in Tennessee. Bonus for not being a stupid American!





The bar played a multitude of American hits, including songs like "Summer of '69", which the Germans seemed to love. The walls were also dawned with American redneck paraphernalia, which you may be able to see behind Brandon in this photo. Yes, it's a John Deere tractor.

The night ended with a pretty serious argument between one of Brandon's friends and some German guy. The hookah couldn't stop the battle being waged about world knowledge, politics, and history... honestly, I don't even know what really happened. It was nearing 4am and I was utterly exhausted.

Germany: The Departure, May 8

On a fairly last minute whim, I convinced my friend Brandon to allow me to visit him in southern Germany for a much-anticipated vacation. In reality, it wasn't hard to convince him - Brandon lived in Germany for four years because of work, and he had always offered me the opportunity to visit. Feeling the extreme necessity to escape my job, Memphis, and the American lifestyle for a few days, it seemed like an opportunity I couldn't resist. I found a great flight deal and everything seemed to fall into place.

On Thursday, I packed my suitcase in stellar fashion. Honestly, the pack-job was impressive. It must be noted how outstanding I was able to roll my clothes and fit them like pieces to a puzzle strategically within the suitcase.

Anyway, I set off to the airport early to make sure my travel day was as stress-free as possible. I got to the airport with good timing, basically before the businessmen and their afternoon flights. I grabbed a quick lunch, watched some CNN International, and settled in for an hour or so to watch the usual airport chaos.

I knew I had exactly one hour between my connecting flight, which basically meant I should have enough time to get off one plane, walk down the corridor, use the restroom, and get settled on my flight to Germany.

So much for stress-free.

There was chaos on my first flight. For starters, the plane we were to take landed late, and the turnaround was awful. On top of that, the first captain had to be switched because the original's wife went into labor and he had to leave the cockpit. Next, there were eight flight attendants scurrying about the plane, trying to figure out who would actually be the crew for the flight. Then, it took four staff members another 15 minutes to help a wheelchair passenger onto the tiny plane. Needless to say, we were extremely behind departure time and schedule, and I was in panic mode. I was texting my roommate furiously, asking her to use the internet to gauge my plane's actual take off, hoping that I wouldn't miss my second flight.

Once we finally took off, I was able to calculate that I had exactly no time to spare once the plane landed. No joke, I had no buffer zone. When we pulled into the gate at 5:15pm, I knew the majority of my fellow passengers to Frankfurt would already be boarded. Once I was able to get off the plane, I had to sprint down the terminal a distance of 30 gates. Mind you, I haven't actually sprinted since the gruesome days of high school track in 1999. Thankfully, I wore sneakers instead of flip flops. But seriously, I was in a dead out sprint to the gate, and I wanted to die. My chest actually burned from all of the air I was sucking to make it to the gate on time.

I showed up with seconds to spare. The nice flight attendant at the door even allowed me to use the restroom before the eight-hour flight. As soon as I took my seat, the last call was made, the doors were closed, and I was able to sigh significant relief that I was on the plane. My throat hurt from sucking so much wind, and I was actually starting to sweat, but I was seated, belt and all, and ready for my flight to Frankfurt.