We also don't have any pictures of the 23rd.  So, here's a picture of the star of the day, Miss Julia Kafeyan, in the Schloss Nymphenburg guard house (taken a couple of days later).

September 23

After one of the smoothest overnight flights I’ve ever taken across the Atlantic, we arrived at Heathrow Airport just before sunrise.  I felt the familiar chill of England as I stepped out of the plane.  The feeling was indescribable.  The only way to put it into words would be to say that I was euphoric to be back in Europe after four and a half years away.

This trip to Heathrow would involve something that I had never done in my other visits: transfer to another plane that was departing from a terminal different from the one where we landed.  I was a little apprehensive that we and/or our luggage wouldn’t make it to our connecting flight, even though we had two and a half hours between flights.  But, I underestimated the ability of the British to use the queue in order to coax efficiency out of chaos.  We simply followed the signs, stood in a couple of lines, and took a short bus ride.  Within an hour, we were queuing in a boarding pass line at our departure terminal. 

At 9:30 a.m., we departed for Frankfurt.  I had done a good job of suppressing my fear of flying on the trans-Atlantic leg of our trip.  But, it surfaced with a vengeance on this one hour flight.  It was triggered shortly after takeoff.  After ascending for a couple of minutes, the pilot leveled the plane off.  I thought that that we were nearing cruising altitude (or at least, not ascending as dramatically as we had on takeoff).  Just when I was getting comfortable, the pilot dramatically ascended, accelerated, and banked!  I almost lost bowel control with this combination maneuver.  The rest of the flight was made up of a series of banking turns, punctuated by short bursts of straight flying.  I never did understand the multiple turns…it’s not like we had to follow the curve of a road.  Still, all the turning eventually got us to Frankfurt Airport.

After a brief stop in customs, we exited to the arrivals lobby.  Our good friend, Kelly Kafeyan, was waiting for us.  We exchanged greetings and went to his car to began the 1 ½ hour drive to his residence at the Ramstein Air Base.  During the drive, I took note of the landscape.  It reminded me of the British Midlands…hills studded with forests and farms, punctuated with wide rivers.  I thought “Hmmm…I think I’m going to like this.”

Our drive ended as we pulled up to Ramstein’s front gates.  Kelly took us inside the visitor’s center, where we registered and obtained visitor’s passes.  We returned to the car and stopped at what would become a regular fixture on our trip: the security checkpoint.  This time, the checkpoint’s soldiers looked at us to make sure we looked like our passport pictures.  After this brief delay, we headed on to the base.  Kelly took us on the long way to his residence so that we could get a tour of the base.  While I enjoyed the tour, I primarily looking forward to taking a nap.

We got to Kelly’s residence in one of Ramstein’s apartment complexes.  While one might envision a cramped, dingy accommodation when I use the word “apartment”, Kelly’s accommodations were anything but cramped and dingy.  The apartment was a three bedroom/two bathroom suite with a spacious living room and beautiful hardwood floors.  One look at it, and we knew we would have very comfortable accommodations for our trip. 

Denise and Julia greeted us at the door.  This was going to be our first prolonged exposure to Julia since she stayed at our house when she was a newborn.  Now, she was 2 ½, and a lot more mobile.  But, any concerns we had evaporated when Julia smiled and led us to our room (which was usually her room).  She proceeded to point out the key features of her room (the toys, of course).  As was the case with the apartment, we knew we’d have no problem after just a short amount of time with her.

After a bit more chit chat, Kelly headed back to his job.  I took advantage of his departure to climb into bed and get some sleep.  Dianne said that she didn’t feel very tired, and was going to stay up talking to Denise.  Yet, when I woke up an hour later, Dianne was fast asleep next to me.  I shook off the cobwebs and went into the living room.  Kelly arrived shortly thereafter.  Denise had made some dinner, so I awoke Dianne and we ate.  After our delicious dinner, we watched some TV before heading off to bed again. 

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