Day 2--Escalators and Airplanes!!

Things that go up and down!?

Theresa’s Take – This morning, we spent 2 hours on an airport bus used to transport people from the remote airplane to the terminal.  Sounds like a horror travel story? We actually paid for it! :-) Got to see airplanes at the gate, airplanes taxiing, and airplanes taking off and landing. Yeehaw!!  Then, conveniently checked in at a Lufthansa desk in the long distance train terminal (200 yards from our hotel).  Much better than the ½ hour we spent lugging bags to the hotel!  Now, we’re sitting in the Lufthansa business lounge and just enjoyed a delicious hot pretzel covered in mozzarella…this ALMOST made up for the 2-hour bus tour.

Raindrops keep falling on my plane...or my window!

Bill’s Take – After a magnificent night of sleep…We had a relaxing morning and breakfast.  We packed up, but left our bags in the room, and began the trek to the terminal, which would include 5 escalators and/or people movers.  Only 5, because by this time, we were getting good at navigating FRA and not going up and down more than necessary!  We “checked in” for our tour with nary a word spoken.  The tour began with some sort of briefing.  It was probably very important, with critical safety and behavior information.  The sort of thing we probably needed to know.  Except it was in German.  ALL GERMAN.  We have no idea what he said.  Nor at any point along the tour, except snippets of “Dreamliner” and “Zeiben Zeiben Zeiben” when he pointed to a 777 and talked at length about something.  At least we got some great pictures…of water drops…through the rain coated window!  

747-8I #2 Engine.

Well, it was an airport tour, and we saw lots of airplanes, hangars, and cargo containers everywhere!  I’d list them all, but I don’t wish to bore EVERYBODY!!!   So, I’ll just say we saw every Boeing from 737 to 787, every Airbus from A319 to A380, and even an MD11, and the Canadian and Brazilian planes (either you know them or you don’t care!).  Did not see any Ukrainian planes, though.  

We saw where they were building Terminal 3 (so far a big hole in the ground).  And did you know not ALL of their buildings at the airport are grey??  That’s right!!!  We saw a brown one!!!  Maybe they will paint it grey later.  To match the clouds.  Not sure.

A380

Look!!  A hangar!!

777 Freighter (Yes, it IS exciting!!)

MD11 Freighter.  (Yes, it is cool...to me!)

Terminal 3...just look try to imagine it!

It's sort of hard to imagine the Best Burgers in Town being American Style...
aren't Hamburgers...from Hamburg?  In Germany? 
In any event, I am CERTAIN they are better than any "bean burger!"  :-)

After the riveting tour, we checked out (of the hotel), checked in (for our flight), and headed to the Lufthansa Business Class Lounge for lunch.  Soup, beer, sausage, and potato salad.  Then this woman was walking around passing out pretzels…hot pretzels, covered with cheese and butter!!  Wow!!!  They were so good!!  But we have to stop eating since we think they will feed us on the flight!  Oh the first world problems we fight through??  :-)

Our flight from Frankfurt to Rome was mostly uneventful.  We even got a complimentary bus ride to the airplane, touring much of the airport we saw earlier in the day.  Except no one was narrating.  On board, they had Warsteiner, my (Bill's) favorite German beer, so what more could I ask?  In Rome, we got our bags, trekked to the hotel (a long walk), and that about wraps up our day.

Tomorrow is a big day...starting the cruise!