Saturday, July 13, 2019

Aaaand back


Getting up at 5am for an 8:20am flight is so much nicer than 3am for a 6am flight. My mother dropped me off in Waiblingen, I took the 6:10am S-Bahn to the airport and an easy 40 minutes later disembarked less than 100 meters from the check-in counter. For now Stuttgart is still a small airport with short walks. Stuttgart 21 will likely "fix" that convenience.


Boarding was planned for 7:50am, but the inbound flight arrived only by 7:55am. My connection in Frankfurt just got a little bit tighter.


To my surprise we got out of Stuttgart with only a light delay and upon touch down the pilot hit the brakes very hard to catch the shortest path to our parking position in one of the most remote corners of the Frankfurt airport. Since my seat was in the middle of the airplane, I was one of the last people getting off. However, that meant I got to enjoy the ride in the second bus which was not only almost completely empty, but also faster at the terminal than the first bus.



After the usual US passport and security check nonsense I settled into my seat for the long-haul flight to SFO. Along the way I got to observe melting inland ice on the west coast of Greenland.



Isn't that Mount Shasta in the distance?


In the last turn before lining up for final approach into SFO.  Hi, Carl!


Almost home.

1 comment:

Hakk said...

San Andreas Lake on the west side of I-280 visible in the distance. The particularly tree-covered neighborhood is Atherton, with Menlo Park in the foreground.

Welcome back to California, Herr Beck!


Hakk