Saturday 2nd August — Sunday 3rd August, 2008

The plane made a dramatic landing at Hahn airport around midnight, with the plane briefly bouncing off the tarmac before settling down on the landing strip. People clapped for the pilot as the plane taxied up to the terminal, something that I find is done quite a bit on smaller European flights and seems quite pleasant. Hahn is a small airport and the trip to the terminal involves a brief walk across the asphalt, and tonight a very light rain had started. As I walked over to the terminal I threw my arms up to catch the rain: I had made it to Germany! After almost missing my flight here and spending 45 minutes panicking the feeling of actually having made it was a lot off my shoulders. I had started my long journey home. At that moment in time I had no idea how long.

My next flight left Frankfurt International airport at noon, some 12 hours from now. Originally my plan had been to head into the city of Frankfurt, look around for a few hours and then head back out. I slowly reconsidering the wisdom of this plan for a few reasons. First while it is true I had twelve hours to look around, the twelve hours I had were midnight to noon on a Sunday. Second, whenever I told someone I was stopping off in Germany they would eagerly ask me where, and if that person had any knowledge of the geography of Germany the response I inevitably got was “Oh, Frankfurt” accompanied by looks of disappointment. Only one person had anything positive to say about the city, which was a lady who lived in there and told me that the city had a vibrant nightlife. In particular Frankfurt was well-known for its dance clubs. While I probably was a better dancer after my education in Bristol, after travelling for a couple of days the last thing I felt like was a night on the dance floor. The question was would I be an intrepid traveller, or would I be boring and stay the night in the airport?

My decision was largely influenced by how tired I was, and also a lesson in geography. The small airport that I had landed in was called Frankfurt (Hahn) airport, and so I believe that someone with no knowledge of Germany could be forgiven for believing that Hahn is somewhere close to Frankfurt. While different people have different standards for what constitutes “close”, I think that most people would agree that 126 kilometres is a little too far to justify calling it Frankfurt (Hahn) airport. (For contrast, Hahn airport is only 112 kilometres from Luxembourg.) I cannot fault the German public transport system, however. Even though I arrived on a flight that got in at midnight we were still able to get a bus that stopped at Frankfurt International Airport, and would then take us into the city of Frankfurt. It was 3 AM before we made it to Frankfurt International, and at that point I decided to be boring and stay in the airport.

While I am in no position to judge the city of Frankfurt, I will say that they have a nice airport. Scattered throughout they have large — and most importantly, flat — concrete benches that seem designed solely for weary travellers to sleep on. At 3 AM in the morning there were a fair number of people taking advantage of it too!

I was not tired enough to sleep in an airport, so I found myself a seat at one of the coffee shops that are open 24 hours. In an effort to be productive I started writing postcards, and started posting the tales of my trip across Europe. After my laptop battery was drained and my postcards written I turned to the copy of The Da Vinci Code I was given in Greece. I have written my thoughts on the book here, but the short version is that I was extremely disappointed.

My trip to Europe was almost at an end. It had been quite an adventure: from wandering through the start of democracy, buying orange juice in Greece, going into a giant cave, to late nights discussing physics and philosophy on a veranda under the stars and in front of the sea. Now I was heading back to the United States, where I would have a house, where I did not have to carry my things, where things were going to settle down again. Goodbye Europe, and thanks for the memories.