Frankfurt Airport

    Frankfurt Airport wasn't really an important stage in my exchange to Finland, other than being my connecting city to get to Helsinki. But I guess I should say something about it since it was my first time setting foot in Europe, and on another continent for that matter. 

    Although I only spent about one hour in Germany, it was still exciting just to know that I was there. We got off the plane and walked across a bit of the runway to get to a bus, and it was HOT. We forgot that we were six hours ahead of home an that it was already noon there. My first thought was how could it be this hot, in the morning, in Germany! No, it was noon. So we soon met up at customs with a YFU Germany staff member to guide us to our gate. We got our passports stamped, and soon went through security. Germany airport security is very secure if anybody would like to know. (I forgot to take my belt off before going through the metal detector so I got a full body pat-down. Hmph.) So, we walked through the concourse and onto some people movers ('people' in German in Menschen, so the people movers became Menschen movers in my mind which I thought was pretty funny. I don't know why I thought about this, but it made me happy). 

    We had just enough time before our flight to Helsinki to use the bathrooms and get something to drink. In the German bathrooms, I probably looked like a fool. First of all, I couldn't figure our how to open the door. It seems like every door so far in Europe opens to the outside and not the inside like in the US. So I pulled, and it opened! Imagine that. The soap dispensers were also different. Instead of pushing, you pulled the lever-thingy. That took the American a minute to figure out too. So then I went to go get something to drink which wasn't really exciting other than the fact that I got to use like two words of German to thank the cashier. In my head all I could think was "Mwah! He probably doesn't even know that I'm a foreigner!" Yeah but no. 

    Our plane was starting to be boarded and soon another foreigner problem would occur. At this gate, you scanned your boarding pass on a glass thing or whatever that I - anyway, I didn't know what to do so I had to call ten feet away from me to ask the airline staff what to do while holding up the line. Geuh. It was the barcode. I don't know why I didn't think to do that. But soon we were Finland bound! Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland! 

There's my plane!

This was soon after take-off and I broke the rule of not using electronic devices right away.  I HAD TO TAKE THIS PICTURE. That's downtown Frankfurt by the way.