Holiday at Disney
This section really does not involve ME traveling to Europe, but does involve me to a large degree, so I'll put it here just to keep the story going.
At least David was not traveling this day, but about 9:15pm I received a long-awaited call from Germany. I mean this call has been scheduled for 2 years, 1 month and 1 week. Ever since I first met the Blaschke's in Orlando during June of 1999, I knew this day would come. I just didn't know exactly WHICH day it would be.
Thomas was on the other end of the call when I answered it. It was 4:15am in Kempten and the whole Blaschke family was up and preparing to take David to Munich for his flight to Boston. Yes, Boston. He's going to have 2 weeks of orientation to American culture and customs before heading to Russellville on July 28th.
After talking to Thomas, David got on the phone. He was excited, perhaps a bit sad about leaving all of his friends for a year, but since it was HIS decision to do this, he was OK with that. David said he had two suitcases packed full, a carry-on bag, full and a backpack full of mom's last kitchen creations.
Seems Thursday night, David went out on the town with friends for the last time. He didn't get home until 2:00am or so. He still had school on Friday, so it was a bit difficult to get his mind in gear for the last day of school. His friends still had a couple of weeks left in their school year. He had turned in his books on Monday, all 15 of them, so he really was just going through the motions of this last week. Before he left, he received his grades for the year as they will be needed for his school record here in Russellville.
We talked for about 30 minutes, first with Thomas, then David, then Peter (father) and Thomas again. Christine (mother) doesn't speak English well enough (she thinks) to talk to me on the phone very often. They were leaving as soon as we hung up, around 4:45am Saturday, for the airport. Since the first train did not leave until 5:45am, they were driving to Munich. This would give them almost another hour to make the trip, get David fed one last time and checked in for an 8:30am departure to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt, David had about an hour layover for his flight to Boston. Arriving in Boston at 1:23pm on Saturday.
I sent David a 60-minute phone card a couple of weeks before he left. That would make the calling back to Germany and to me, easier than anything else. I expect he called home as soon as he could, but told him to wait until he was settled in before he called me. Maybe then, he might have some departure information as well.