Old Retired Guy Blog

July 14 - 15, 2010

The Munich Airport

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Note: This is the last part of the authorized edition of The Anderson's European Vacation.

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After breakfast at the abbey we finished packing, said good buy to some of the nuns that we had seen regularly for the past six days, and then called the Müllers.  They had offered to take us to the train station.  It was not a long walk to the local train station but they offered to take us to the regional station where we could catch the train that would take us directly to Munich.  That saved us from having to transfer and allowed us to get on the faster train right away. 

It was sad to say good bye.  After waiting 18 years to visit them, six days went by too quickly.  They had been very kind to us during our visit, as had their entire family.  We were, after all, essentially strangers attending their family event, but they made us feel very welcome.

We spent our last night in Germany in a hotel close to the airport, the Regentpark Hotel Munich Airport.  We had a light dinner and turned in early since we had to get up for the hotel's "early-bird" breakfast and then catch their shuttle bus to the airport.  During the night an invigorating thunder storm poured down on the hotel.  We got up and stood on our balcony for a while watching the lightening and listening to the loud cracks of thunder.

Although our flight was with Delta, our ticket said the first leg was a KLM City Hopper flight.  After looking around a while for our gate we were finally informed that we should report to the Air France gate.  (If someone can explain the logic behind a Delta flight operated by KLM flying from the Air France gate, I would love to hear it.)  Other than that, the flight from Munich to Amsterdam went without a hitch.  In Amsterdam, however, the boarding took an hour and a half.  Every passenger was interviewed by airport security before being allowed to board the plane.  This was after already going through all of the usual security procedures.

The only real problems with our return flight took place in Detroit.  When we finally arrived there from Amsterdam my checked luggage was missing.  It apparently had decided to take another day or two of vacation.  I was informed that there was nothing they could do to help me in Detroit but that I should report it missing after I got back to Madison.  Then our flight out of Detroit was delayed.  First there was no plane due to storms in the Northeast.  Then there was no pilot since the one that was originally scheduled had reached his maximum allowable hours.  Then there was no available crew.  After 4 hours of waiting, we finally boarded the plane for the last leg of our trip.  We arrived home about 25 hours after we started.  My bag arrived two days later.

Some final thoughts and observations:

• We had a great time and would love to take another trip to Europe if time and finances allow.
• It was very helpful to have read Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and his Germany travel guide as well as any other relevant guides that we could find in the library. 
• We planned to work with a travel agent but they seemed to be pushing packaged trips.  After agents from two companies didn't get back to us as promised, we decided to make the plans ourselves.
• Although Daniel Boone never got lost, it is said that he was once a might befuddled for a few days.  We never tried to schedule things too tightly to allow for a little befuddlement.
• The people we encountered were generally very friendly and helpful.
• It took a couple of days to readjust to the 7 hour change in time zones.  We're still readjusting to American beer.

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