Germany - July 4

Happy Independence Day to everyone in the US. Tonight we fly to London. But in the meantime we have to repack everything. Got about half way through that and decided to go to the bakery to get some breakfast. This is really a busy place but it's easy to tell why because the "stuff" is very good. Went back to the hotel and finished packing. We checked out and put our bags in storage. Left the hotel and 10 minutes later returned to put our jackets in our luggage. A really nice day compared to the others. There wasn't a cloud in the sky in the morning.

We decided to take in an art gallery today before we left. We walked to the gallery and were a little early, they open at 10:00. At 10:05 we tried the door and it was still locked. Tried again a little later and still locked. Then we read the sign "closed on Mondays". Damn! However it looked like the one across the street was open. It was open but the sign said "closed Tuesdays". The art was amazing. Some I liked some was so-so, and some was spectacular. There were sculptures as well as painting and the sculptures were all spectacular. So after two hours we were ready for lunch.

We went to the Loenbrau beer garden for lunch. I had what can best be described as an open face casadilla. It was very good. The traditional one has onions, creme cheese and bacon. The one I ordered had onions, potatoes, and a spicy sausage that was not pepperoni. Bonnie had baked chicken and fries. It was good as well.

From there we went for a walk since we had some time to kill. The weather was quite warm by now especially in the sun. About 14:30 we got back to the hotel to recover our bags. Sorted everything out and we were off to the bakery to get something to eat on the train. Went to the station and confirmed our ticket and the platform we had to go to and got on the train. It left the station at exactly the time it was scheduled to leave. As I write this we are about 1.5 hours from the Frankfurt airport. Bought some bottled water on the train 2.3€ for .55 liter. Oh well you do what ya gotta do.

Arrived at the airport just a few minutes late but we had about 3 hours 'til flight time so that was no problem. Took a shuttle to terminal 2, found British Airways ticket counter and got checked in. Started to the gate and had to scan our boarding pass into to get into the "security" area. Immigration again checked out passports and put a leaving stamp on it. Then went to gate security. The whole process is much different than in the states. The plane was nearly empty but was a pleasant flight.

Flew into a new terminal at Heathrow, terminal 5. Took a tram to terminal 2 and then stood in the immigration line for about 40 minutes before we got passed through. There were a lot of people. Mel and Neil had ordered a car for us and the driver was waiting when we came out of customs. The ride to Mel and Neil's took about 45 minutes and was 50£. Neil waited up for us but didn't chat much as all were tired. Off to bed for a better day tomorrow.