Germany again!

After a night of sleeping on the hardest bed I've ever slept on, and following a day in which I didn't feel very well (due to perennial stomach problems), we rose early and boarded a taxi at about 7.20am.  Maybe a half hour later, we arrived at A Coruna Airport and flew out at about 9.30.

Our Iberia flight took us to Madrid where we disembarked and waited for the next plane.  There are no direct flights from A Coruna to Hamburg, so changing is necessary.  We took off at about 12.30 and flew northward.  At about 1pm, I noticed we were flying above the sea, but shortly afterwards we were already back over land, I was guessing it was now France.  Jean was unimpressed with the two flight attendants, who took a long time to serve people their lunch.

We flew into clouds which lasted ages, and eventually we were told we were landing in a few minutes.  When the clouds dissipated, I could see the outskirts of Hamburg below me (I had a window seat), looking very green with far more trees than in Spain.  I was arriving in Germany for the tenth time in my life, and I was glad to be back in my great-grandfather's ancestral homeland.

Jean was again unimpressed with the amount of time it took our luggage to arrive at the carousel in the arrival terminal.  She thought 'what happened to German efficiency?'  Soon, our bags arrived, and moments later we were greeted by our welcoming committee - cousins Christine and Renate!  We located the hire car place, found our hire car, and drove to our hotel a short distance from Christine's place in Niendorf.  We dined in a local Greek restaurant to the never-ending sound of Zorba the Greek and made plans for the next few days.

Here, Jean poses in front of our Mercedes hire car, which will soon take us to Detmold, Dresden, the south-west of Poland, Auschwitz, Berlin, and back to Hamburg (and a few other places along the way).  'HH' is for 'Hansestadt Hamburg'.