Frankfurt to Barcelona

We took off an hour late from Philly because someone on the plane was sick, needed to leave and be checked out, then had to have his bags removed since he couldn't return to the plane. This is all heresay, as I was sleeping for the hour that we were sitting at the terminal. Takeoff was delayed because they were switching runways...so I arrived in Germany around 6:40 am...about 40 minutes late (they fly their planes fast, I guess).

We had a "remote terminal" which basically means we had "no terminal"...so we just parked our big bird out on the tarmac somewhere, got off all groggy at 6:30 am after a 7-or-so-hour flight, got on buses, and were driven to customs. It was very confusing because there was a split...one for "connecting flights," and 1 for "customs." But I had to do BOTH! So, I did the customs line thing after asking a security guy herding people around, stood wondering how long I was going to miss my flight (boarding at 7:20 am) by. I got through customs, no problem, but the girl suggested I contact someone in Spain about a living permit to carry when traveling? I wasn't too concerned as it was already almost 7 and I had no clue where I was.

My baggage was checked through to Spain and I was checked through as well, so I checked my ticket and it said Gate B6...yeah well...I leave the customs area and am dumped into the baggage claim...what?! I try to go through a door to the waiting area, but apparently it doesn't work that way and I had to walk around a hunk of concrete, known as a wall...to get to another set of sliding doors leading to the same place. This, of course, ddn't help me much as I couldn't find any signs to B6 nor did I see any help or Information desks...so I went up the escalator, and saw a sign to Terminal B. My brain decided this looked right, so I followed the signs until I got to a sign to B6, where I took another escalator to the top and found that there weren't any people at B6 except for the 3 taking a cigarette break (people smoke EVERYWHERE in Europe)!

Went to a Departure screen and saw my flight was leaving from Gate A34...Long story short: I ran through the airport with two carry-on bags at 6:30 in the morning not having slept, and the total distance between Terminal B, gate 6, and Terminal A, gate 34...is probably about a mile long. AWESOME! In the process of going through security one of the guards asked me in German if I had (enter listed items in German HERE)...I asked him (in German) to repeat himself. He looked at me like I was crazy, repeated, and I said "no" and he waved me to the next point...I still have no clue what I denied carrying with me-so if I end up in jail, you know why.

The flight to Barcelona was only about 2 hours long--Europe is TINY! haha. Somehow I got assigned the same seat as another woman...really not surprising considering the fact that my gate was changed to practically another COUNTRY!

It was fine, though, because they gave me food and I got a window seat instead of an aisle seat since the flight wasn't full.

I could see the coast when we flew into Barcelona. It was beautiful, and surreal, and WOW!

The Trip to Frankfurt

So we drove to Philly (Dad, Jess, and I), and I was feeling better than I had the previous few days. We still didn't have my test results or my debit card...so I left the country with my luggage, ID, an ATM card, and 100 Euro...AND my brain...which can come in handy.

I flew US Air to Frankfurt, and sat in the window seat of the last row of the plane next to a woman from Switzerland. We had pasta (which was spicy), vanilla yogurt, crackers with cheese, and bread with butter for dinner. It was hard to have such a long flight on the window seat, because my bag didnt fit under the seat in front of me, so every time I wanted something I would have had to make my neighbor get up...so I only asked her to get up once, then I took the opportunity to get to my bag when she would get up to go to the bathroom or whatnot. The TVs weren't working, so I listened to my iPod for a bit. I figured it would be easy to get on the European schedule if I could get to sleep for 7 hours or so on my plane ride, wake up when I landed at 6 am, and stay up all day.

That didn't really work because I was too excited...so instead I tried taking pictures of the moon, since we were flying so high above the clouds, and there were no lights to be seen in the ocean. (Here is an attempt...but after multiple tries I realized that double-paned glass is just not photo-friendly!)

Suddenly, I realized a huge difference in the view...land! I wish there had been an airplane radio station giving me a tour of Europe from the air! I was trying to get an idea of our location, but ended up just being sucked into the amazing amount of lights in one area and complete darkness in others. I wondered what the world was like before electricity, which was good because then I fell asleep.