Thursday - Rome to Home

The taxi driver who took me to meet Isaia on Tuesday spoke serviceable english and asked if we were going to need a ride to the airport. He seemed like the kind of guy you could trust, so we agreed that he would meet us at the hotel Thursday morning at 7 AM. We checked out, and he was there!

The first leg of our return trip was a stop in Frankfort (flying Lufthansa). We had 1 hour and 10 minutes between flights. 

The Frankfort airport is enormous and laid out like a long freight train (most airports seem configured like octopi, with smaller octopi branching off from larger ones), and for reasons that have no doubt to do with traffic and spacing, our plane was parked near the caboose, and we were bussed to the main terminal. The plane was late in arriving. The bus was late in arriving. The bus ride was at least 10 minutes, so our flight was already boarding when we were directed by signs through long areas of duty free shopping to the Z gates (we arrived at an A gate).

And of course, as we were leaving Germany for the US, we had to go through customs! And so did dozens of other people, all of whom were in danger of missing their flights (including ours). We finally got to the gate, racing all the way, just at the last minute. So much for German precision logistics.

We arrived safely at Dulles Airport at 4:15 PM local time, 10:15 body time. Breezed through US Customs and found our luggage waiting for us! We took a Flyer to Nick and Joelle's house where we had left the car, and then drove an hour to home. It was a long day, and I was very happy to sleep in my own bed again.

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