Despite what the title says, the Germans thought we were leaving Friday evening, not the day after, and so were preparing to leave already; the “final” day was basically the day before. The confusion was cleared up long ago, and so, we were to switch rooms for one night before we went. The whole day was up to us, so naturally, I spent it showering, watching YouTube, and planning to do more souvenir shopping and then not doing so. It didn’t help that the service on my SIM card ran out and now ran at “reduced speed,” i.e., too slow to feasibly do anything (including using Google Maps) except text on Apple Messages and nothing else.
I did discover a really neat item at Starbucks while searching for a very late mini-brunch, a chocolate cheesecake muffin.
Stephen then treated us to ice-cream, citing the fact he wasn’t allowed to buy us drinks. I intended to get some non-desert food into me at the train station McDonalds, thinking it’d be an easy grab and go deal, but I was SORELY mistaken. I had more trouble ordering there than I ever had anywhere else throughout the entirety of my trip. (To be fair, there were really hard to understand people the Germans took care of in other places.)
Frankly, though, I’m glad, because it compelled me to get a slightly less anticlimactic last dinner, a very long, thin stick of bread sandwiching salami and butter.
After my last night of rest in Germany, it was time to get a quick breakfast and prepare to leave. There were no complications. I stopped by the train station after breakfast to compare prices with Sam’s help. I didn’t quite know how to access the subway tickets as opposed to the ICE tickets, so I left Sam to it and headed back to my room to finalize my packing.
At 11:50ish, I headed down to the lobby and checked out, and then me and Sam headed out to the subway, got some cheap tickets to the airport, and were off. The airport was unintimidating; whether that’s because Germany’s airports are less crowded or because I’m just that much more optimistic after the inflight’s smooth sailing, I’m not sure. Regardless, checking our bags and going through security was just as easy as the vibes suggested, and made the ominous warnings I got via email seem vastly overblown.
Since everything went so smoothly, we were sat down next to our gate and ready to go at 1:35PM-ish…and our flight was set to board at 4:25PM according to my boarding pass, and leave at 5:10PM according to the email confirmation. We had a lot of time to kill.
There’s always someone or a group of people camping the outlets at the airport, and since me and Sam were so early, we got to be those people. I spent a lot of my time playing games worry-free because of the outlet, but after a while went out to do a little more shopping, since Sam had pointed me toward the stores.
On my way there, I noticed an oddity; a place to play various games for free, in the airport. Nothing in their selection particularly interested me, but it was very neat.
I took a while shopping, getting guidance from my parents about what they’d like, and then looked for a place to spend my last full euro. I stopped at a McCafe, where I bought a rainbow donut for €1.75.
Despite being a typically shaped donut, it had little pockets of jelly filling all around it!
Shortly after that, it was time to get on the plane.
The seats were like the ones on the plane we flew in on; the outlets were slightly different, but still worked. I never tested the ethernet ports to see if they actually worked, because I spent the whole flight playing games, and getting mad at Smash Ultimate’s CPUs and their stupid immaculate reaction time garbage.
A little ways into takeoff 
Breaching the sea of clouds
I still have yet to really see why airline food is demonized like it is, because the food on this flight was even better than last time. (The only bad food I’ve ever had on an airline was really, REALLY bad, though. Maybe I’ve just always been on the right lines.) All it was described as was “beef,” with the only elaboration I could get being “it has rice with it,” so I can’t place a name on it, but it was good.
Eating was a bit of a challenge, though, because my table was the only table out of all the tables in the row and the row behind us that was broken, as shown in the video below; As soon as I got the food, it almost slipped right off then and there.
Regardless, the ride was anything but excruciating, and going through customs was a breeze. I didn’t quite understand what “commercial merchandise” meant specifically, so I said I did have some (the candy I’d bought at the Frankfurt Airport), but judging from what the man I talked to said (“I appreciate the honesty,” after explaining what I was declaring), that was unnecessary.
Grabbing my checked bag was super easy, too. There were LOADS of bags already there, and within seconds, I spotted mine, and grabbed it off with no issue.
It bears noting that I’d accidentally left my old SIM card at In Via, where it was likely trashed on accident or broken on accident, so I had no service to communicate with my parents, and the WiFi wasn’t cooperating either. But we immediately found each other with remarkable ease, and after buying a quick second dinner of sorts, I was on my way home.
This trip was great! I really appreciated having a schedule, because I tend to be a very sedentary and content person, and more of my days would have likely turned into nothing days like the final day if I didn’t have my travel-mates and the germans to spur me on. Thanks for everything, everyone!
