Day 30: Close Your Eyes

I woke up much later than my expected time of 4:15. Around 4:35 I realized I had been sleeping on my phone and must have disabled the alarm. I sprinted through my morning routine before joining everyone for breakfast around 4:50. After one last great breakfast I said goodbye to Silvia and Jenny as Günter, Stefan and I drove to Ulm. The city is a little north of Dornbirn, about an hour north of the German border. While we were fortunate enough to be driving on the autobahn, it was raining too hard to go particularly fast. We did get to the station early, and we had enough time to say goodbye before boarding the train 10 minutes to seven. Hopefully, they will come visit us in Michigan soon!

The train ride was quite picturesque, but having stored my camera away for the trip, I have no photos to share. Our train did get a little more time with the scenery than we anticipated, as we were delayed 15 minutes getting into the airport. Once we arrived, everyone headed to the shuttle to the other terminal. Having planned enough time, I thought I was fine, but after I picked up more boarding pass and proceeded to check my luggage, I was ridiculed by the first person I encountered. Apparently, the gates close one hour before flight time here…a ridiculous rule that I would have been compliant with if only the train, and the shuttle bus went smoothly. After I was questioned for a minute or two, it took two seconds to send my bad away and then I sprinted up the stairs, showed the next person my passport and then went through customs. Every person I talked to, perhaps a half dozen by the time I got on the plane, had the exact same questions about my luggage and none of them cared about my answer. After my final security check I reached the gate in just enough time to catch another bus to the actual plane. As we crammed more and more people on the bus, it became apparent that the place was packed.

On the flight, my movie selection rivaled that of my flight to Europe: Dear John and The Young Victoria were first up, but fortunately the last movie was The Blind Side. It was an excellent film and if you haven't seen it already, I would encourage you to do so. The football aspect was nice too.

A view of Detroit from over the wing...I'm home!

After landing I had an easy journey through customs and then met parents for the ride home. It was quite an excellent month abroad.