The alarm clock sounded at 2:30 am, and we were out of the house within an hour. The
cool nighttime Colorado air, combined with the anticipation of returning to Europe,
temporarily compensated for the lack of sleep. Despite the fact that we arrived at
the US Airways counter thirty minutes prior to the posted opening time, we were
promptly checked in and, after a brief security delay, arrived at our gate by 5:00
am. I was already exhausted.
Our connecting flight arrived in Charlotte slightly early, and we began a 3½ hour
layover. We called our house sitter to verify that all was well with the Boston
Terriers, and then had a long lunch at Chili's in the airport food court. The
international concourse at the Charlotte airport is small, consisting of only about a
half-dozen gates. The departure areas were decorated with framed posters of various
European destinations. Appropriately enough, the subject of one poster was the
Fountain of Justice in Frankfurt, Germany. Within 24 hours, we would be taking our
own pictures of this historic German landmark.
Our transatlantic flight left on schedule and we settled in for a nine hour
voyage. The movie was Lord of The Rings, which we had already seen. As with all
evening flights to Europe, we experienced the "short night," the darkness that
lasts for less than five hours when flying opposite the Earth's rotation. On our
return, we would experience the complementary "long day." Years ago, we became
familiar with these flight-induced distortions of day and night during
our trips between the US and Japan. That was when we discovered the havoc
that they wreak on our sleep cycle. On this trip, however, a disrupted sleep
cycle was a price that we would willingly pay for the privilege of another trip
to Europe.
Onboard the plane, the atmosphere already felt like Europe. Announcements were
given in English and German, and I overheard bits of conversation in French and
Italian. Somewhere over the Atlantic, I put my monochromatic US dollars away, and
replaced them with the colorful Euros that I had ordered from my bank. By sunrise,
we were already over land. Of course we weren't just "over land." We were over
Europe. Soon our flight would arrive in Frankfurt and we would begin a long
anticipated driving adventure through Germany, France and Luxembourg. By the end
of this trip we would traverse nearly 3000 km of countryside and wander more than
80 miles on foot through various cities, towns and villages. We would see some of
the best that western Europe has to offer and have the refrigerator magnets to
prove it. We were almost there.
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