long trip

I love Frankfurt. Got there on time, starving to death, luckily found my favorite junk food place – the one with the big yellow M that stands for Marta. All of the sudden all were told to leave the place as quickly as they possibly can. It turned out that somebody left a piece of luggage unattended so they have to go through all the security procedures required for this case. The food corner was placed on a kind of gallery one level higher than the rest. They collected all people down there and told us to wait. I decided to grab my camera but as soon as I got it out and took 2 pics I was told not to do so. Anyways, they brought a kind of bomb resistant little electric cart just to figure out it’s not gonna make it up the stairs. So … they brought the “what was supposed to be a bomb” down to us. How cool is that? After a while they apparently figured out that since it didn’t explode yet it was not a bomb and opened the food corner to prevent people they just saved from explosion from starving to death. That’s how I survived. In general all bigger German airports are pretty much weather resistant. I was surprised by the number of de-ice vehicles an all the other winter equipment they have. We had an unusual amount of snowfall last couple of days and the airports are just clean. It was a mystery to me though why did we de-ice in Berlin. No rain, no snow no precipitation whatsoever – the wings were just clean and shiny. Probably that’s just a Lufthansa “safety-increasing-mandatory-and-try-not-to-comply-and-you-will-see-procedure”. Who knows? At least I know what I payed for ;-)

So there we were in Singapore. The turn over went really quick. We had to leave the plane, take all our stuff and re-board again after 40 minutes. My plan to take a quick shower and change clothes out there took s… The next leg to Sydney was pretty much straight forward. All flights till then on time. The last one, a 55 minutes flight to Tamworth, was delayed over an hour. The good thing though was, after they announced the delay, they offered vouchers for food and drinks so that nobody can sue them for dying of starvation. BTW, if you like flying with great service, lots and lots of food, great entertainment system and male flight attendants … go ahead and pick Quantas. I’m pretty much impressed.

On the last leg I finally realized that I’m in Australia and it’s about time to spot a kangaroo. I looked out the window during the whole descent to Tamworth but all I could see were horses and cows. They cheated on me…the Ozzies. Ziggy picked me up from the airport and promised we’ll see a kangaroo tomorrow on our way to Narromine.

The plan for tomorrow is to hook up the glider and hit the road to Narromine. We should do it pretty early in the morning to beat the heat. Well, it’s 9 pm in here and we’re running around short sleeved and just had one of the best steaks ever and some good Australian red wine. I could get used to that ;-)

P.S. I just let Ziggy read this text and that's what he said: "Whatever happens on the tour goes thru Ziggy before it's published. No bullshit." Oh well ...