That’s a lot of stairs!!

Before I set off on my next trip I always come across someone who asks me if I am nervous to travel because I don’t know the local language. NO! Is always my usual response. As humans, there are many different ways to communicate with someone than verbally. There are many many books and articles that have been published explaining that the words that you actually say mean very very little to the person listening to you (if they still are). I really do follow this philosophy, but it does occasionally fail you.

While connecting a flight in Frankfurt, Germany, I had to be re-screened at security because we had come in on an international flight, went through immigration/customs, and now had to get back into the secure area. I was curious to see if there were any major differences in security, but I didn’t really notice any except that the crowd seemed to be more of business travelers than leisure travelers. I have a bad habit of getting stopped and having to get my bag searched and re-screened because I always forget about something. In Frankfurt I was thinking it should be easy because I already did security once. To my surprise my bag gets pulled off the conveyor belt because I have contraband… crap what could it be this time??

Now keep in mind I am of German decent, but cant speak a lick of it. I looked so German that the nice lady kept talking to me in German about my bag and that there was something that I shouldn’t have inside. At least that is my story because I don’t have a clue what she was really saying, but she kept pointing to an outside pocket on my bag. I think it is my cell phone because I had turned it on and maybe it shouldn’t be on. You know some crazy European law that I didn’t know about. I pull it out of my bag and the lady laughs a little and says no. She then asks another question in German which I simply reply with a very puzzled look. “English?” she asks and of course I get a smile and say yes. Her next question was not that much longer, “Water Bottle?” Then the light bulb went off in my head! I had bought a bottle of water in Washington DC that I had totally forgotten about. You can’t get pass security in Europe with a water bottle either.

I pulled the bottle of water out of my bag and gave it to the nice lady at security. Joked about it a little bit. Thank goodness it was not any worse. I put my shoes back on and I was off to run and catch my flight to Vienna.

The rest of the journey was simple and painless. Finding security was easy and also finding my gate. Security was no different than what you would find in the states and since they speak English it is a little bit easier rather than the experience I had going through security while in Frankfurt.

The flight was decent we left on time but it felt like we were late getting into London. As you may know Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world and only has 2 runways so things can get congested in a hurry! As a result many flights have to circle the area before landing. On my flight we were circling for about 25 minutes before landing. Unfortunately, that is also the time were you start to get anxious to get back on the ground so you can connect to you next flight and be home!

Keep in mind that this is not my first time where I have been on a flight where we have had to circle the airport, but it was the longest. Having a window seat I was able to look and see all the other planes in the area doing the same. At one time I could see about 4 other planes out my window. Some were as close that you could start trying to guess what the planes tail numbers were while others where more of a mere spec.

We finally landed without incident and made it to our gate. The flight was smooth and the flight attendants seemed to be helpful, but since the flight was so short there really was not much there to do.

Overall Grade: 3 out of 5

As you can tell by this review there was nothing much to call home about. There was nothing that really wowed me or had me wish that they had more flights going into and out of the US. The only issue was finding the right check-in line, but again that could have been on me with my current state of mind

View from the hills above Innsbruck, Austria

Coming up to St. Peter’s Basilica