Aschaffenburg

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Aschaffenburg Reunion

December 2, 2001

Dear Friends and Family,

After seven weeks together ( "24-7", generally within inches - small car!), Marianne and I spent two weeks 8,000 miles apart. I had a couple of weeks of work in cold Kyiv and she had taken the opportunity to visit family over Thanksgiving in warm California. We had parted in Frankfurt airport where she got a direct 10 plus hour Lufthansa flight to San Francisco and I got my normal two-hour hop to Kyiv. Her flight was cheaper. Go figure.

The plan for our reunion was that she would arrive in Frankfurt a few hours before me and then head to our hotel in Aschaffenburg to rest. Then we'd both have another day to get reacquainted before we picked up the car and headed south. That was the plan. As happens, the plan fell apart.

After she boarded, Marianne's plane was held on the ground in San Francisco for minor mechanical problems. "Minor" became "other" and all the passengers were taken off and held captive for a few hours at the airport. Part of the captive treatment was to have everyone wait in an hours-long line to get a meal voucher. By the time Marianne had hers, and had taken a few minutes to wake me in the middle of my Kyiv night, Lufthansa admitted the plane would not make it. More waiting in lines for vouchers and then more waiting for the hotel shuttle busses. A cancelled airplane holds many shuttle busloads so by the time I got the call saying Marianne would be a day late, she was not a happy traveler.

So the plan changed. I would fly to Frankfurt as scheduled, stay in Aschaffenburg, return to greet Marianne at the airport, and only then would we be able to both go back and catch up. My flight from cold and icy Kiev to Frankfurt was completely uneventful, the best kind of flying. In Germany, I went through formalities with no problem and went to the underground train station to catch one train into Frankfurt and another back out to Aschaffenburg. It was a dark two-hour journey through the winter evening. It struck me that it took as long to fly halfway across Europe as it did to go from the Frankfurt airport to a not-too-distant suburb.

The next morning, I reversed my course. Marianne's flight, Lufthansa 455, was due at 10:30 in the morning, but I was there 90 minutes early to make sure I didn't miss anything. I checked the arrival board and, sure enough, #455 was pretty much on time, showing a 10:40 arrival in Terminal A.

An early December Sunday morning in Frankfurt airport is pretty dull. I've been there when it was hard to move past all the business and summer vacation travelers, but today there was none of the hustle, bustle, and pushing. The 10:40 arrival time approached very slowly. I wandered between Terminal B and A and back to B. Or visa versa. On one of my wanderings, I found myself on an escalator marked "passengers only". Oops. Suddenly I was inside the Terminal B baggage claim area. I half expected to be stopped by guard dogs, German Shepherds of course. But, no problem. I casually walked past the Customs people, out the sliding glass doors and into the small crowd of greeters and name-card holders.

I turned to head for Terminal A when I heard a whistle I recognized. There was Marianne, also fresh from Terminal B baggage claim. We did the required hugging and kissing and I apologized for not being in the crowd of greeters, but the arrival board still showed 20 minutes before Flight 455 from San Francisco would arrive! Only then did I notice that there were two Flight 455's from San Francisco and Marianne's day-delayed version had indeed landed 20 minutes earlier, at Terminal B. It never occurred to me to look for two flights. And it never occurred to either of us that we would both be inside baggage claim at the same time!

So, after a day and a half of travel, I had to take Marianne on another two-hour train journey. Not only that, but we agreed that it would be best for her to stay awake as long as possible to start to recover from jet lag.

Sunday morning at the airport was pretty quiet and Sunday afternoon in Aschaffenburg could put a jet-lagged person to sleep too. Fortunately, we were able to hit the first of our Weinachts Markts or Christmas Market. The town square was filled with kiosks selling Holiday trinkets, good German sausages and other walk-around food, as well as "gluhwein", the local hot spiced wine. It was all very festive and after a few glue wines we were both ready to fall asleep.

Monday morning, we packed our bags and went to pick up our car. It was fixed, clean, and waiting for us. Great. We thanked the folks at Porsche Zentrum Aschaffenburg and began repacking our car's two trunks. We were eager to get back on our journey. However, we quickly discovered that our stuff no longer fit in our car. This time we purged unnecessary things, like Marianne's warm winter coat. We were going south after all. Marianne had to carry the extra "Gucci bag" in her lap until we could find a place to dump them and in Germany, finding a dumping place is not all that easy. Everywhere was too tidy but eventually we popped into an apartment complex and used their trash containers. Of course locals seem to segregate trash. You know: glass, paper, bottles, etc. but we could find no category for "excess clothes and stuff". Marianne just put down the bag and we drove away, feeling a bit like trash criminals.

But now we were indeed on the road. It was fun. We chose back roads, not the autobahns. Traffic was reasonable and the weather, while not top-down sunny and warm, was OK. Our first destination was Heidelberg, but that's another story.

Take care. Sort your trash correctly.

John and Marianne

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Created December 18, 2001

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