Safely back home, again. Read the mail, went shopping for food, turned on the hot water and the furnace, and went over to mom's for dinner, last night. Today is raking and mowing the yard, as well as cleaning up some mouse evidence and laying more traps. Balanced the checkbook, the only mistake was in writing down one of my pay deposits while we were gone by $0.01.
On our trip back, we took the train from Spittal to Munich and stayed at a hotel directly across from the Ostbahnhof. That was intended to make the next morning's trip with the SBahn easier, as there is a S8 that goes every 20minutes from Ostbahnhof to the airport.
Before going to sleep, I remembered to look for the Clear wireless stick that I hadn't seen. I searched for it again in my bags before enjoying a good breakfast at the hotel, and then, right on time, we got out of the hotel, and 10 steps away is the stairs to the underground passage that connects to the train station. The bi-directional escalators had impressed Helene the night before, as they go in the direction of the first comer. This morning, we couldn't get them to budge. I headed down the stairs with my bags and expected that Helene would stay up top, so I could fetch her 50lb bag and bring it down the stairs. Once down, it can be rolled all the way to the elevator at the Schnell bahn platform and not be lifted until check in, on to the scales. She was anxious about our missing the S8, so headed down and pulled something after about 4 steps. I fetched her bag and she was able to push her's on its four wheels. Once on the platform, we waited for the two minutes before it was scheduled, and then there was an announcement that it was suffering a delay. That was only another 2 minutes and we were heading out the to the airport on the 7:04 departure with scheduled arrival at the airport at 07:33. It was maybe a minute late by the time we got there.
There was a train load of people heading up the escalators, so I was happy to look around for an elevator, which we didn't find. We used up some more time when a young man begged for our tagescarte, since he figured that we wouldn't be using it any more. I asked Helene to give it to him, and we later realized that it was only a multiperson one-way ticket to cover our trip. I'm sure he realized it eventually, and figured "dumb tourists" Then through to check-in, with a preliminary passport check before you get in line, then again it's swiped at check-in. Helene's bag was 23.1kg, and mine was 22.6kg, not enough to trigger overweight fees. The two yarn bags were both about 8kg.
Then up through the EU passport control, then security check. That got us to a zone with food and bookstores. We headed for our gate and needed to go through another passport check (for all America bound flights), I'm guessing that the servers from the check-in were browsing for any record on my passport number that would give the TSA or whomever grief. Then for good measure, one more passport check, for ?? reason, like we would have changed persons in the last 50 meters??
Nothing noteworthy, except our seat assignments were toward the front of the tourist section, so it was a bit smoother. We started out in the aisle seats of the middle section, but the center person came, so I traded that seat for mine, so I could sit with my wife. She was pleasant and kept getting the vegetarian meals that were meant for Helene, and gave them up. Only negative was one of stewardesses didn't give a "rat's ass" so if she offered something, and you didn't immediately respond, it was too late.
Once in Newark, we faced a 7 hour layover. The customs areas was well layed out and actually quite fast. Helene needed to be fingerprinted and her photo taken (without glasses), and I just got a stamp.(after he'd swiped my passport). The bags came soon theeafter and on the same level, was the declaration time, where they collected our customs forms and we went down a ramp to drop the bags off again. Then a train service to Terminal C and going through the overwhelmed TSA screening took about 20min. Once in the terminal, we had a Jamba Juice and walked around, and looked for a place to have dinner, in a couple hours, before departure. The Starbucks did not have free Wi-Fi, just the Boing service at the airport for $7.95/day. More waiting, then a really good dinner at the wine bar near our gate C131. It was a bit expensive, but the quality was comparable to a in-town restaurant, so I did not feel gyped.
Then the flight to Portland was all on time, thankfully, and we started to get really tired. It was around 2AM (for European time) after they served a snack We did have three seats to ourselves, so Helene was able to lie sideways some of the time. I got some sleep, from pure exhaustion, after some turbulence over Lake Michigan. The sleep was relief from the butt soreness of sitting for so long.
Once in Portland, our bags were all together and they came out early! The White Van service was out on the parking strip just before the car rental offices. Smooth ride, and good to be back home by 10:40PM
I did find some mouse droppings under the bathroom sink, and the next day found one trapped up in the attic. So stocked up on traps at A-Boy and cleaned up the under sink area, and will do the same to the attic.
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