July 8: This morning (only after 6 hours of sleep) we woke up at 8 AM and headed to the airport where Sven’s plane is kept. I was soooooo nervous because I don’t necessarily like flying for fun. I also have never been in a small plane that only holds 4 people. Sven met us at a small airport just outside of Eisenach. There was a jumping group and about 10 of them were all parachuting into the middle of the airport every 20 minutes! So we went into the hanger and Sven proceeded to pull the plane out by hand (that’s how small the plane was). Then we all got in (I in the back with Randy and E up front) and settled with our earphones on so that we could talk to each other. As we taxied to the runway Sven was very quickly explaining to E how to fly. Then all the sudden he puts the gas on and tells E to fly… faster, faster, left, right… etc. Eric had no idea what he was doing, and the lift off was very rocky, but he did it! Then Sven took over (he was probably making sure that E didn’t mess up too bad during the whole take off). I was freaking out in the back, but I have to admit the view was amazing. It was a very sunny day with a few scattered clouds. We got to our 9,500 ft cruising altitude (just above the clouds) and an alarm went off and the plane dove down and I thought it was all over! This happened twice about 20 minutes later… something to do with the autopilot and Sven not paying attention (that didn’t help). Well actually I have to say that Sven was very careful and I felt pretty safe with him in charge. We landed in Berlin about 1 hour later and I was very excited to get out of the plane ☺
We walked around the airport, Tempelhof, which was built by Hitler and the Nazis. This building was the largest building until the Pentagon was built. Nearby a monument dedicated to the 'Air-Bridge' was dedicated to the pilots that died during the flights that were made between West Germany and West Berlin until 'The Wall' fell in 1989. These flights were made to bring supplies to West Berlin, many of the people that lost their lives were Americans. They are planning on closing the airport soon. I don’t think there are any solid plans for what it’s going to be turned into as of yet. We had coffee and cake, then it was back to the plane for our flight back to Eisenach. I sat in front this time and Eric and Randy sat in back. This plane had it’s own parachute that you can use in case of an emergency. This made me feel a little better. The take off was good, but got really bumpy because it was warm outside. Sven explained that this was normal because the warm air lifts you up all the sudden. We had a little head wind so it took us a little longer to get back. Sven explained the radar to me and showed me when we passed planes etc. We saw a few gliders on our way into Eisenach. Sven doesn’t like them because they are nor required to have radar on them. On both landings Sven did a quick dive and turn thing that made you lose your stomach a little, but I have to say it was cool. It was all a very cool experience, but I was very happy to be back on the ground!
After all the excitement this morning we met Silke, Ryan & Girlfriend in the Bosch parking lot to take the bus into Eisenach for a festival called Thuringen Tag! It was the largest medieval/modern festival (state festival) I have ever been to. There were so many people and sausages ☺ We walked around and watched the parade of people go by. Then, thanks to Ryan’s infatuation with Bratwurst, we found a food stand and had some good old German food (AKA Bratwurst) and ice cream. After walking around the markets and food stands we were ready to go home and have a BBQ of our own. Reggie met us at the house to help eat all the left over party food. It was a nice, but very long day!
July 9: Eric here, back in the driver’s seat of the blog, so for my first day back, I have nothing to report, pretty sure today was just getting ready for our trip and possibly running a few errands.
July 10: Today we are off for our trip to Spain, France, and ???, luckily my dad hung onto his car so we had a ride to the Eisenach train station which makes things quite a bit easier. So the trip to Pamplona should be a smooth one, well not exactly, once in the train station the board says ‘Zug fallt auf’ which as everyone knows means, train cancelled, and as we soon found out do to a German train strike. Not really sure how we got this lucky but another train due 2 hours earlier was 130 minutes late, so we were able to get on this one and get to Frankfurt, with a nice little sprint through the Frankfurt train station we were able to catch our train to Cologne and get back on track.
We had a layover in Paris (Leslie saw the top of the Eiffel Tower from the train) and had to use the subway to get to a different train station, that worked out all ok. It was now time to board our night train and see what we were in for considering we were booked for a reclining seat with a sheet, at least as far as what we understood from the German lady we made the reservations with said. To our surprise our seats were actually beds and there were only 4 per cabin, much more spacious than the 6 per cabin we experienced in 2005 when we traveled overnight from Frankfurt to Milan. Good night, we’ll see you in Spain in the morning.
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