Killer Travel Day

The final leg of the trip started Tuesday night.  After catching a cab from our hotel, we found the first train to work us back to Frankfurt.  We had a sleeper compartment in the Schlaffwagen on the Budapest night train to Munich.

A nine-hour haul, departing at 9PM ... it was a distinct pleasure when the locomotive hitched up to the rest of the train and we got some air conditioning to clear out the stagnant, humid air in the compartment.  After sharing a bottle of Austrian white wine over a game of iPad Scrabble, we retired to our separate bunk beds (for the record, Jeannie volunteered to climb the ladder to the top bunk) for an uneventful ride through Hungary, Austria and Bavaria, finally reaching the Hauptbahnhof at Munich, where we debarked shortly after 6AM to change trains for a pleasant three-hour ride in first class, watching the countryside go by.

The cool part of the trip was arriving in Frankfurt, where the train station is a part of the airport.  No taxi rides through town, no worrying about missed connections, just a short bag drag to the Lufthansa check-in.  And, after a final German Pilsner in Germany, we moved down the chute into the cattle car environment that is coach flying.  I preemptively fired up the iPod to block out the sound of screeching little brats, then returned to the laptop for more writing.  Thank God for modern electronics.

After landing, collecting luggage, clearing customs and finding the car in the garage at Dulles, we landed smack in the middle of the DC rush hour.  Not to fear, said I ... I know just the place to wait out the horrors of the Beltway.  And so it was that my first post-deployment meal back in the USA was sushi at Tachibana.  Interesting visit ... the dining experience was, as always, most excellent.  But the staff at first didn't recognize me.  No more long hair or facial hair, and 40 pounds lighter than on my last visit.