We didn't have to eat breakfast until 8:30am, so we got to sleep in a bit. Just before 10am Christopher, Stefan's son, showed up to take us to the airport in the family Mercedes. It was a great one hour drive north to Frankfurt with him and we enjoyed some solid conversation. At the airport we found the Condor counter which has a check in for just US Bound flights. I inquired if there was room on the direct Seattle flight and learned it was oversold. The agent seemed to indicate that we should be able to get on the Anchorage flight, but he was pretty non-committal.
We cleared both immigration and security and went out to the area where Condor flights generally depart from (no specific gate was listed as we were so early for a 3pm departure). Flights to Vancouver, Seattle, and Minneapolis were in the process of check in. Condor uses a method of scanning your boarding card to gain you entry into a holding area. From there you are bused to the tarmac and your airplane. I inquired whether it appeared we might make the Anchorage flight and the gate agent indicated 'probably'. So we waited another hour and finally another agent called us up and gave us our boarding passes without so much of a look at our passports. Angela got a middle seat in row 12 and I was put in a window seat on the right side of row 34. On the tarmac, they used both front and rear doors to board the aircraft.
The flight left on time and headed out on a route that took us east of England. Condor is sort of a budget airline so there were no free snacks and little in-flight service. We were served a light lunch which was rather blah. In Economy there are only 2 movies and 2 TV shows for the video offering unless one wants to pay 8€ for a pass to view a 'premium' title movie. I scanned the list and decided it wasn't worth it. So I finished my UBoat 505 capture book (the same UBoat that is on display at the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry and I have crawled through it).
Also I updated my blog while listening to music from their audio collection (which was pretty decent).
When we approached the Greenland coast, we were treated with wonderful views of a bleak landscape. There was a rush of passengers to the right side of the airplane to snap photographs. Tilt!
We landed on time, our luggage was first off the carousel, and we very quickly cleared immigration and customs (fastest ever international clearing!). It was then a long walk to the south terminal where we checked in for our Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle which was scheduled to depart 2.5 hours later at 6pm.
After clearing security (gotta love TSA Precheck), we purchased a couple large sodas at McD's and relaxed for a bit before heading out to our gate.
The flight left promptly at 6pm and I ended up sleeping through most of it as by now my body was thinking it was 3am. After arriving in Seattle, we gathered our luggage and caught a cab home. And just like that our first 2018 European adventure was over. Now to get back in the swing of things at home for a bit.
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