Travel Day

Dad is currently in Europe with a group from Nicholls State University so I had to hire a car service to take me to the New Orleans airport.   The N.O.-Atlanta flight was uneventful as was the Atlanta-Dusseldorf flight.  Between the Germans and Norwegians, I felt like I was the only American on the flight.  I always love how the stewardesses can just tell your nationality and what language to address you in without prompting. Considering the security requirements these days, I'm sure they have a seating chart somewhere, but it's still a nice touch. Anyway, the in-flight entertainment was a triple bill of rom-coms which put me right to sleep...


I woke to the smell of what I thought was hot sauce (maybe there's some Cajun in me yet) but turned out to be some sort of tasty egg McMuffin concoction. Overall good marks on airline food, btw. Thanks to a strong tailwind, we arrived early in Dusseldorf at around 7:10am local time.  However, any gains were negated by the hour spent at passport control because only two officials were available to handle the 400+ passengers from two early-morning flights which had arrived at the same time. After assuring the unconvinced guard that I really was a student dispite my lack of student visa (I had been told that my program would not last long enough to require one), I claimed my bag and rode the airport monorail to the main Airport Railway Station. From there I purchased a ticket for the 10 minute trip to the Duisburg Hauptbahnhof (Main Station). I was already noticing the usual little differences: the smaller cars, densely-packed buildings, the micro-sized Shell station in the airport parking lot.  The small regional train sped through the countryside, and soon I could see the outskirts of Duisburg in the distance...