Saying Goodbye

This was it, our last day together. I wanted to meet with as many of our group as possible, so I got up earlier than necessary to have breakfast with our Bavarian group members, Hans, Gabi, Stefan and Vasi (and his wife, who arrived yesterday night). We had a few last laughs, talked about the limo ride, Death Valley and my jump from the Stratosphere, their trip to the Hoover Dam (I wish I could've seen it as well!) and their plans for the next few days. I'm gonna miss them, that's for sure!

At 9 am my mates arrived and after saying goodbye to the others, I

joined them for one last toast and orange juice. We joked around as always, before heading back to our hotel rooms, packing our stuff and trying not to exceed the weight limits of our baggage. Oh, how much I threw away just to stay below the 23kg limit! ;-)

Funny side note: In Mesquite, upon our arrival, the upper handle of my huge suitcase had broken off. In addition to the already missing telescopic handle, that made it impossible for me to roll this heavy, unwieldy bag. Thank god, Stefan was kind enough to make a makeshift handle out of the thick wire he had bound around his handle for identification purposes at the airport. He saved my life there! I've been able to roll my bag around again! Yay! We were a bit afraid, though, that wire sticking out of my baggage would raise a few questions and/or security checks at the airport... Phew, that wasn't the case, I got lucky!

We waited in the hotel lobby for our airport shuttle that would leave at 1 pm. We, that is again Axel and Heike, Tine and Martin and also Thomas and Silvia, who flew back to Germany today as well. Birgit and Georg came to bid us farewell. I knew I get emotional real quick in these kind of situations, so I left the lobby as soon as I had said my goodbyes and helped the shuttle driver load my stuff into the van.

At the airport we enjoyed American food for the last time and I spent my remaining 4$ on gambling at a slot machine, before we got on our plane to Frankfurt. We took off with a beautiful rainbow at our side and when we flew over Vegas and the Grand Canyon I felt a few tears running down my cheeks. Our trip was over now, there was no turning back.

It got even worse at the Frankfurt airport, when I had to say goodbye to six people I really enjoyed hanging out with. Six people who made this trip to the USA so very special for me. We all promised to meet again (I'll see a few of them again in Erlangen in December, so that's a start!) and off we went in different directions.

Now, back in Vienna, everything is just so different. Everything's dark and grey, it's rather cold outside and people are not even remotely as friendly as the Americans were. It's gonna take some time getting used to that again. Nonetheless, I'm back again, back home...