Day 18: Return to Germany

Today is the grand finale!

After my 16th night in twelve different hotels in America, it was time to return to the nearby San Francisco airport, where I had set foot on Californian soil two and a half weeks ago. The journey there was also the last 5 out of a total of 4,000 kilometers that Engelbert and I have covered together. We have seen big cities and lonely landscapes, driven on wide interstates and winding roads, traveled on Highway 1 and Route 66 through four American states. I will miss you and your powerful air conditioning.

After the emotional goodbye, I took this driverless airport train (I have no idea what these things are called) to the international terminal. Do you remember the outbound flight when I was there way too early? Since I learned from that, I was even earlier this time and had to wait for over an hour until the check-in opened. If this keeps up, I will arrive one day before my next flight and spend the night at the airport.

I bridged the waiting time with the last of the many sins of this trip: Asian food for breakfast. I'm sorry that you had to endure my eating habits for the past 18 days, but at least Asian food is better than cookies with water.

After more hours of doing nothing, my plane finally arrived and we were able to take off on time.

This time, I had a window seat in the front part of the last third of the plane. When I wanted to sit down in my seat, there was an elderly lady already sitting there. I have no idea what her name was, but let's just call her Maria. After I pointed out to Maria that she was sitting in my seat, she only reluctantly moved to her middle seat. It was obvious that she had deliberately sat in the wrong seat to secure the window spot. Not with me, Maria, not with me.

Then we took off and as the last highlight of this trip, I was able to enjoy another beautiful view of the panorama of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

The next 10 hours of the flight were not very exciting. Just a flight. The only thing worth mentioning is the really terrible "entertainment" system from Lufthansa. To operate the touchscreen, you had to exert all your strength and hammer your finger on the screen for it to work. In addition, the selection of movies is significantly worse than on United Airlines.

While I still started watching a movie, the apparently religious Maria next to me was reading some book and crossing herself every 10 seconds. If there ever was a flight under God's blessing, it was this one. She even repeated it when the meal arrived shortly after. I don't know if one should thank God specifically for airplane food...

Eventually, we landed in Frankfurt and I set foot on German soil again. One hour later, it was time to take the ICE train from Frankfurt to Hannover. The journey went really well, it was not crowded and the train even arrived 10 minutes early, for which the train conductor would probably be fired afterwards.

Then I experienced the complete opposite at the notorious Hannover main train station. A chronicle of my worst non-train ride of all time:

15:10: I arrive at the main train station well ahead of schedule and have 10 minutes to catch my regional express train home. But of course, it is cancelled.

16:00: Since the S-Bahn (urban commuter train) at 15:55 has a half-hour delay according to the app, I want to take the RE (regional express) train at 16:20. But when it also shows a half-hour delay, I switch back to the S-Bahn. In the end, it actually drove on time and was already gone.

16:50: Another 20 minutes are added to the half-hour delay.

17:10: The train finally arrives, the station is completely filled with people. Everyone wants to get on, I somehow manage to get inside.

17:25: The train is filled to every square meter. People are piling up, the temperatures are breaking the record of the Death Valley from 1913. After people kept trying to get in from outside, there are several announcements that people need to leave the train. Finally, it is announced that the train cannot depart. And what is the best method to deal with masses of people who want to go home? Right, canceling the completely filled train. I leave the train.

18:00: I decide to never take the train again and let Mike, my sister's friend, pick me up.

I have never been so annoyed as in these three hours. I traveled 9,000 kilometers around half the world, everything went perfectly, and it all fails in the last 20 kilometers to my house, of course because of Deutsche Bahn (German Railways). I should have sailed home with Engelbert over the Atlantic.

Having been awake for 28 hours by now, I spent the last hours of the day with the only things that are more important for the body than sleep: alcohol and pizza.

And that was the end of my trip.

It was truly beautiful two and a half weeks. I probably saw more in the past two and a half weeks than in the past two and a half years. Everything went almost perfectly until the last day, and it will take even longer for me to process it all.

Although it was sometimes exhausting, this travel diary was my personal highlight alongside the journey itself. It has helped me discover a small passion for writing. The many positive feedback from all of you definitely contributed to that. All posts combined have now been read over 1350 times and I want to thank you for that.

The next trip will definitely come, and there will be something like this again for sure.

Take care!

Leart