This was our long, long travel day. We woke up about 7:30 and went down to breakfast in our hotel. It was a pretty nice spread, but most of the breakfast room was pretty toasty from yesterday‘s heat. We sat by a door that was open to the street, but that meant cool air plus construction noises. Still, better than stuffy and 85 degrees!
Because it was still so early and our flight was not until 2 pm, we took one more walk along the Main river, which is only a couple of blocks from the train station and hotel area. We had walked the same stretch yesterday, but it was a little cooler, especially under the beautiful trees that line part of the promenade along the Mainkai, the banks of the Main. We also walked through a little garden called „Main Nizza“ as in Nice, France (Nizza in German), which started in the 18th century as infill of a side arm that left a little island in the river. It was full of Mediterranean plants, and there was even a banana plant with very teeny green bananas, about 1 inch in length.
At about 10 am, we had returned to our hotel and checked out, and for lack of anything better to do / stay out of the heat, took the elevated to the airport, which only takes about 15 minutes. We found our way to the check-in counter and then milled around in the food court for a while (there was a very elaborate jungle gym and we watched a bunch of kids tumbling around), before going through security and waiting at our gate until boarding time for our flight from Frankfurt to Amsterdam around 1:30 via bus. We ran a little bit late, but thankfully they made up for most of that delay, so that we got to our gate in Amsterdam just fine and were on our Minneapolis flight before it took off around 5 pm. The flight seemed very long—neither one of us could get to sleep, with a very crabby toddler crying for a lot of the flight nearby, and with me having pulled something in my left arm so that it was really difficult to get comfortable. So instead, we watched movies—we both started with the Incredibles 2, and then I watched a couple of documentaries and a feature film called The Big Sick that I liked a lot, and Mark watched Captain Marvel and a Star Wars rerun. The food was decent, and they even served a warm cookie halfway between the big meal at the start and the sandwich plus ice cream at the end of the flight.
Things in Minneapolis with customs and passports went smoothly, even though we didn‘t bother declaring the remains of the trail mix that had traveled with us FROM the States and then came back to the States as „fruit“ we imported. I never know what to say about snacks, which we‘ve learned not to travel without. Then we still had to wait almost 3 hours for our connecting flight to Omaha, but we did get to Nebraska before midnight, and Mark‘s friend James picked us up and dropped us off at home. I was so exhausted that I actually slept through the entire last flight (I have no memory of the safety instructions) and through the 1-hour drive home! The cats greeted us enthusiastically and were very happy to snuggle up with us in our very own bed. Unpacking won‘t happen until tomorrow!