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Back in the USSA (Sorry Ringo!)

Safely back from Germany Stacy and I are kind of resting as we clean up at Sandy's apartment today, do a little laundry and relax a bit before the final flights back to Spokane tomorrow. We averaged walking about 8 miles each day while in Germany, flew over 10,000 miles there and back. We sat through 7 movies and 6 TV shows on the 747-400's over both flights. Between me Stacy and Sandy we took almost 2,000 photos while we were there. And Stacy and I took almost 4 hours of video. I also recorded a couple of hours of audio with my Olympus recorder.
While in Germany we did try to add a quick update to the blog but found out that the keyboards in Germany are WAY different than ours here, and if the letters are rubbed off from use FOR GET IT!!! We gave up after struggling to find the right letters we needed to access our accounts. I gave it a go and gave up when I was unable to locate the "@" symbol! You can't do much without finding the "at" symbol!
We're a little tired still, up almost 24 hours to 10 pm last night with the 11 hour flight back and almost 3 hour layover in San Fransisco before flying back to John Wayne. On the trip out we were up over 30 hours before we could get some sleep. The flight out had it all to be a bit of a 'no sleep' experience, a family with 2 newborns was seated in the row directly behind us and the 2 kids didn't like to sleep when everyone else was trying to or any other time! Economy 'plus' while better than "steerage" (as Sandy calls it) was still packed pretty tight on the 747. Much better to have economy plus on the smaller planes in this case. In my jet lag experience the first 4 days in Germany had me falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and waking up and wide awake at around 2 to 3 am averaging just 6 hours of sleep. Not enough for me and I was really dragging in the afternoons so I finally had to take a sleep aid to sleep all night. Of course the same thing happened last night getting back here, instantly out then awake at 3:30 this am. I'm a little tired today!
We lucked out with only one really rainy day during the time there. It was awe inspiring to see some of the things we saw during the trip. I really enjoyed the system of trains Germany has for public transportation in all the cities and between them all too. Traveling over the German countryside at over 250 Kilometers Per Hour (over 150 MPH ) in an ICE (Intra City Express) train was pretty incredible. I really think the USA has entirely missed the boat with public rail transport after this trip!
It was something for me to keep checking my dual time zoned watch and find that the 9 hour difference between our home Pacific zone and Germany's Central European Time means that most of their day happens during our night and vice-verse. It was also funny to see all the US TV shows dubbed in German. Some of the voice over people there sure didn't sound like the original folks at all! And they're about a season behind the US in the example shows we watched some of. In all the places we stayed the only English language channels were CNN International, BBC from England and many of the shows they broadcast in Germany's version of MTV. Everything else was in German, French and Italian.
One thing that surprised us was all the graffiti in Germany. It was EVERYWHERE but worst in the Berlin areas. Most of the areas there have lost the war and just given up to the taggers. Too bad to!
Oh well, that's kind of a quick overview of the trip and now back to getting all the photos in order for the on-line album and add more on the next few blogs about our trip.
Stacy and I really thank our daughter Sandy and her husband for cashing in her air miles and giving us an incredible early Christmas present in this trip/adventure!
More in a few days, Tad

Comments

Camdin said…
I just read about your trip to Germany. happy to know you two had a wonderful time and got to see so many differnet things while you were there. Will be waiting to see the photos of your trip. Love and Hugs

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