Alpine Summer

I feel that one more post is in order: the return trip!

The night before our return was celebrated in high fashion. A bunch of us hiked into the marktplatz and had a little farewell party at one of the biergartens. We finished it off with our last taste of German ice cream. The good Drs. Norwood and Noll headed back to the Universitätspark before dark, while we walked around for a bit. We found the Garden of Eden – who knew it was in a medieval village in southern Germany? It's this cool little garden surrounded by flats and the back of the bibliotheque. There are statues of Adam and Eve (( Eve is presenting the apple )), a serpent wound around the branch of a tree, an angel flying overhead, and a ram about to drink from the waterhole.

10 o'clock rolled around; we had promised friends and family that we would take advantage of the city's webcam set up in the marktplatz. It was extremely dark by this time, but we found the perfect place. If you look at the webcam image, you'll see a circle in the pathway where the red cobbles meet the grey cobbles. At night, the streetlamp just to the left shines directly onto the circle, so we assumed this would be the most visible place. We mainly just goofed off – the webcam image updates every 30 seconds, but no one knew when the update was, so we'd hold each pose for about a minute. I had come up with the idea that we all lie down and spell out “hi”. We did, and stayed on the ground for about 5 minutes. A few people walking by said hi to us, and most of the people in the biergarten began to ignore us after a minute. After a while, we waved bye to the camera, not knowing if anyone actually saw us, and headed back to the Universitätspark to finish packing.

Coming back to the U.S. was one of the longest experiences of my life. The day started promptly at 5 AM. I, predictably, did not get much sleep between last-minute packing and nerves. I realized, though, that this program is exactly the right length; any longer and I probably couldn't stand the lack of air conditioning much longer, and shorter and I'd probably feel gypped. But, for better or for worse, I'm on my way back to Georgia.

The 5 o'clock hour saw the packing of the carry-on bag with the morning things and the retrieval of my purse from Jake's bookbag. Breakfast at 5:45 AM seems a bit like heresy. I kindly explained to Dr. Noll yesterday that I wasn't entirely sure how well our departure plans will work considering I was not aware of a 5:00 in the morning. The evening, sure. But that early one seems the work of myth.

After breakfast, we loaded our luggage in the giant Mercedes-Benz bus -- shedding a little tear on account that I'll probably never ride in one again – and headed off to Stuttgart. For some reason, the thirty minute bus trip took over an hour. We were not late, though, because we seemingly got up on Dr. Noll's intuition of when we needed to leave. Through everyone's fears of overweight luggage, we managed to check in just fine. We said goodbye to Dr. Noll and headed to our gate. The airport gift shop took credit cards, which I suppose eased us back into American society a little.

The plane ride from Stuttgart to Paris was the worst of all of them. At one point, we were traveling through a storm and the pilot chose not to try to get us above or below it. The plane was rocking back and forth and losing altitude in short spurts. It was extremely uncomfortable and lots of people were freaking out. Everything was fine, though, and we landed in Paris a few hours later. What was really amusing to me was that I was sitting between Paul and Andy, the tall guy and big guy from the flight from Atlanta to Paris.

Charles de Gaulle airport was a little different this time. Last time, we went straight to our departure gate and then realized there was nothing to eat past the security point. This time, we food before we went to the gate – and even then we discovered the snack stands available there. Different terminals have different things, I suppose. The food was pretty gross and pretty expensive. I bought a salad with chicken, but the dressing was bad and there was one single piece of chicken on top. Also, cold potatoes – not so good.

As we boarded the buses to take us to the plane, many of us got stopped to be searched. I was one of them. Everything went smoothly, but I missed one bus and had to take another. I found my seat, and then Paul comes and sits next to me. I'm looking around for Andy, but he's sitting somewhere else. Eventually, a woman whose passport indicates she is Bulgarian comes and sits in the window seat.

The flight was a bit confusing. First, we sat on the runway for over an hour. I had dozed off and awoke to still see Charles de Gaulle. After that, I noticed that they gave us statistics and information about the flight – our altitude, speed, distance traveled, time at destination, et cetera. Also, the same little map from the first flight was there, showing us as a little plane icon on the globe. Adding to confusion, what would be dinner for us was a warm lunch served not long after our take-off. The menu promised a “chilled dinner” to be served later. Though we left at about 5:30 PM local time, we were arriving at 7:45 PM in Georgia, over 8 hours later.

The most fun (( note: sarcasm )) of the flight was Paul. Paul enjoyed the free wine offered to him on the flight, and then decided he should sing loudly. And talk to me. He had rousing renditions of “You've Lost that Loving Feeling”, “Afternoon Delight”, and “Werewolves in London”, among other great classics. Add this to the three young and upset children in the row in front of me, and don't forget the dog in the middle aisle who did not like the crying children, and I had a great flight. At some point after I fell asleep, one of the children spilled a cup of juice down onto my foot. And my pillow I had stowed by my feet. Oh, my seat also didn't recline. I spent most of my time trying to go to sleep, trying to pretend I didn't know Paul, and watching a movie.

When we finally landed, we had to go through customs and Homeland Security. Basically, it was a long line and some paperwork. Also, it seems kind of dumb that you have to collect your luggage, take it to customs, walk through the line, and put your luggage back on a conveyor to retrieve it elsewhere. We rode the train and the moving sidewalks and the escalators and walked and walked to the arrival area. Looking out in the mass of people I wondered how I would ever find my family. I should never have worried, because just moments later I heard a high pitch squeal and my mother ran at me.

Everything after that happened really quickly. We got the luggage, went to the car, headed out, stopped for fast food, ATE IN A BUILDING THAT HAD BOTH AIR CONDITIONING AND ICE, and headed home. And the rest is history.