Arrival in Germany

 Friday, 16-June, 2023

Later Gram

Hello, I'm writing this a week later looking back because the days have been so full of sight-seeing and visiting and eating and talking and pointing and smiling and nodding and trying to pronounce German words, and then each night collapsing into bed exhausted to write much at all. But I scrawl a few notes in my journal, take a lot of photos to remind me where we've been, and so, I try, to keep a record, because my memory is fleeting. It feels a little like age has changed travel for me. At 55, the exhaustion at the end of the day is much deeper, and in the morning, the memories of the day before a little hazier. 

Just getting here

Look, you know you're not over the States
because the farmland isn't square anymore.

So, to continue the transit saga, we flew first to New York, then from New York to Paris, then Paris to Hannover. It was cheaper and/or easier to use Robert's miles this way - I haven't been terribly attentive to the details, only grateful he had the hindsight a couple years ago to start using a Delta card for everything. I was skeptical at the time: "An annual fee! I'm not paying a fee to use a credit card!" But then he got all our tickets for hardly anything at all. Ah, I see.

Alas, the flight from JFK to CDG was delayed by a mechanical problem, turning a 5 hour layover into an 8 hour one, and making us guaranteed to miss the flight from Paris to Hannover. Damn. We had the whole layover in JFK for Robert to book an alternate flight to Hannover, which cost a fortune, though not more than we would have spent w/o those nifty miles anyway. It was basically two days of travel, and I was so groggy I left my beloved new Kobo eReader (loaded up with books I now can't imagine when I would have had time to read) in the pocket of the seat ahead of me on the flight to Paris. And our one checked back got separated from us, so we were left to hope the luggage would show up in Hannover eventually. Luckily, Robert suggested we each take a carry-on with enough to survive a weekend should the checked bag get lost ... Oh, I see. I've already spent a lot of this trip saying, Oh I see.

Old friends

Martina and Hartmut (more and better photos in my next post!)

Robert met Hartmut at Kalamazoo College in Michigan a long long time ago, and they've remained friends ever since. They haven't seen each other in 16 years, and Robert has told me how excited he is to finally see him again about a hundred times in the last couple months. Hartmut and his wife, Martina, picked us up at the airport with many hugs and tremendous joy. They are both teachers, like Robert, though Hartmut is now retired, and Martina intends to retire next year. They both teach at a school for the blind. Hartmut's English is astoundingly good. Martina's is more limited though way better than I'd expect for someone who apologizes and says she doesn't really speak English. Lucky for me they all are willing to do a lot of translating.

To be honest I don't remember much, except that they hugged us a lot and smiled a lot, and our luggage didn't make it, but a stern lady took our report that we'd like to know when it did arrive, thanks. And then H&M drove us to their lovely house, fed us, and we crashed into sleep like a train hitting a wall. I remember saying "I think I've never been so tired as I am right now." And then we slept about 12 hours.

Adventures in Hannover next ...