Farewell Hamburg, NY

Saturday 27 October

We get up at 7am and enjoy the beautiful autumn colours for the last time:

I quickly (well, quick is not quite the word…) go downstairs again to get all the bed linen and towels washed and dried, so we can make the bed before we leave.

Shower, toilets and part of the kitchen still need to be cleaned, so I try and take care of that, while Frank gives the polished floor a special treatment.  After that we can start packing, which takes some time on my part, but I finally get there, and before we know it’s is time to leave for the airport.

The house spic-and-span for the owners to return to...

Frank puts the luggage in the car, only to discover that he’s left one of the windows slightly wound down and it has rained (make that ‘poured’) during the night, so the car is quite wet on one site.  We could so have done without that…..

Anyway, the harm is done now, no turning back.  We drive to Kelly’s home (their daughter) who will drop us off at Buffalo airport and will take care of the car until her parents return the next day.  She informs us of the hurricane that is looming before the east coast and which may cause real problems, because it seems to have the possibility to turn into a super storm.  Today the rain is coming down quite heavily, so we are not surprised, but glad we are getting out in time.

At the airport we check in and book wheelchair assistance, which is offered all the way to Brisbane airport.  What a great service.  I would have never made it without, because we have to change planes twice and in particular Dallas airport (the biggest in the USA) would have been hard to manage without, because there we have to switch from the domestic to the international terminals.

In transfer at Dallas airport
This last snapshot is not the best as my SD card had a problem

We have lunch at Buffalo airport and from then on it is plain sailing again.  Not the problems we had on our way to the States, when our flights had to be re-scheduled and we had to wait a long fourteen hours in Los Angeles.

The first plane is a small one (three seats across), the next one is bigger and the last one is a Boeing with the usual ten seats across.  We will spend all of fifteen long hours on board, but the bulk of the flight is in darkness and we manage to sleep on an off, so it doesn’t seem so long.

We arrive in Brisbane at 5am on Monday morning (where has the Sunday gone???) and get offered a wheelchair ride off the plane, since we are sitting in the tail end and the walk is a long one!  Qantas’ service is excellent as usual, with all the crew friendly and courteous.  Customs is no problem and we have never been through so fast.  Next it’s a matter of ringing the shuttle bus and pick up the car and we are home in no time.  

The next few days we will surely be getting over our jetlag, only to have to do it all over again in three weeks time when we travel to France.

Till then!