Final Day of Travel - Frankfurt Airport - July 9, 2009

Our last day in Europe started very early as we had to get to the train station to catch the high speed train to Frankfurt (which rolled out of the station at 6:41 AM). The train was ride was fast, and smooth and before we knew it we were arriving at the airport in Frankfurt (the train pulls right into the Airport terminal – that’s effective and convenient public transportation!)

It was a good thing that we arrived at the airport early because the line up to get through security turned out to be very long. While waiting for our boarding call we marvelled at this city within a city – the Frankfurt airport is huge, indicated by the airport security people who rode around on bicycles inside the terminal! What a place to people watch – folks from all around the world, many different skin colours, clothing styles, languages, all waiting to go somewhere.

The last official duty we had in Europe was to complete and mail our forms for the VAT refund (Valued Added Tax - remember the leather purchases we made in Florence?) The deal there was that some of the tax was waived because we were from out of country, the trick is that there was a certain form that had to be submitted within six weeks. Beth mentioned that we wouldn't be leaving Europe before that so thus wouldn't be able to process the form through customs in time. She was assured (by the very skilled salesperson at the leather store) that this would be no problem (and it wasn't except that the extra tax portion wound up being charged to our VISA since we didn't submit the paperwork in time. Beth had quite the process after we got home to get it refunded.) It took a very long time but we did eventually get our refund. Anyway, enough side notes.

We wandered through the Frankfurt airport and found a convenient post box where we could mail the completed form. First Beth needed to go to the customs office and have the official stamp put on it. There was quite a line-up but we had lots of time. Imagine our surprise when as we waited, we heard the initial call for our flight. We were a little panicky until the woman ahead of Beth told her we would be just fine - she was one of the stewardesses for that same flight!

It turns out that our plane was over-sold and so they were checking us into the gate early (we didn’t take the offer to take a later flight and get some credit or something – we simply wanted to get home to our family). Soon enough we were settled in our seats for the long flight home.

The flight itself was memorable for only three things – it was very long, the movie system kept crashing, but the food was good (better than what I would expect on an airplane).