Frankfurt Layover

Hey everyone! I'm back online again! I got to Germany a few hours ago, and thought I'd do a short post before dinner and bed. It's been a really long day! Well, it's actually been several days. We finished our Garden Route (posts about that will be coming up sometime in the next few days) and had to get up at 5:30 on Thursday morning to drive six hours back to Stellenbosch. We only had an hour in Stellenbosch to pack up before the bus took the first group of students to the airport. I was in the first group. There were 4 of us leaving at the time that I left. Most everyone else was going to be leaving at 11pm that same night. My flight was early though, it was at 6.

I was the only one going through Dubai, the other three girls with me were going through Amsterdam, so we had lunch, and then I went through security and everything to board my flight. It was nice, Emirates still has not disappointed me! It was really long though. I was on a night flight, but I couldn't sleep. I was having lots of trouble getting comfortable, so I watched The King's Speech and Lawrence of Arabia (guys, that's a long movie! Good though.) They served us dinner and breakfast on that flight, and I landed in Dubai at 5:30 in the morning. It's hot there! Even though the sun was just coming out when we stepped out of the plane (we had to use the stairs) it was already in the 90's. Back to the northern hemisphere and summertime I guess! Although I'm not sure how cold it really gets in Dubai winter...

My next flight left at 8, so I didn't have much time to sit around in Dubai, I definitely didn't have enough time to get out of the airport like I did on the way in. The next flight was relatively short (only 5 and a half hours, compared to the 9ish hour flight the night before). This one was a day flight though, so I definitely couldn't get any sleep. I got breakfast again and lunch too. Two breakfasts; good day! It was interesting, because flying from Dubai to Frankfurt for each meal they offered an Arabic meal and a German meal. I had the Arabic breakfast and the German lunch.

There was a really nice older couple next to me on the flight. They were coming from Australia to take a tour of Germany and Austria. They told me about all the traveling that they've done. They'd been to more places in the US than I had!

I got to Germany at 2 in the afternoon. When I was getting my tickets before I left, the flight that I wanted from Germany had been sold out, so I had to get a flight the next day. I wasn't too happy about it then, I had figured that I would just be ready to be home, but in the end it's a good thing. I hadn't been able to shower since 5:30 that morning leaving Mosselbaai, and I felt awful. Emirates had given me a toothbrush at least, and I was using it every few hours (partly just to get out of my seat for a while, because I can't sit still that long. Plus, it felt really good to brush, it kind of refreshed me on my flight.) It was really easy getting to the hotel though, there was a shuttle that came to the airport every half hour. The hotel is only about four minutes away from the airport, and they take me back again tomorrow morning. I spoke a little bit of German to our driver, which was cool. There was another Australian guy waiting for the shuttle with me and we talked about Rugby for a while. He said that he had been pulling for the Crusaders in that game I was at. Oh well!

So now I've had a shower and I feel much better! I will be getting my Garden Route trip pictures up slowly over the next week or so, I want to try to do the trip justice, because it was a really amazing experience all around. I'm about to try to go find something to eat, and then I'm going right to sleep (even though it's only 4:30 in the afternoon) because I haven't slept in two days. So I apologize if this post is a little bit long and rambley, but I'm really exhausted.