We left our house about 2pm (the girls kept asking “when are you leaving?!” because Carol said she’d take them to the park when we left - not sad to see us go! Uneventful flight to Chicago and then a 4 hour layover at O’Hare. We ate dinner at Chili’s (not a lot of options), got some Garrett Chicago mix popcorn, and waited for our 9pm departure. Between the earlier setting sun and the lack of lights at O’Hare, it felt like midnight at 7pm! I started and finished One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid about an hour into the flight.
Neither Jeff nor I slept much on the plane. We were happy to have an empty seat next to us so we were able to spread out a bit. I was surprised they fed us dinner (pasta, salad, roll) since we didn’t take off until 9pm, and then breakfast (fruit and muffin) before we landed. Jeff’s bag came pretty quickly (I carried mine on) and there was no line at passport control or customs, so we got out quickly. We found the Viking rep, got a coffee, and waited about 30 min for our bus to take us to the ship. Took about 90 min. We sat in the front row and got to watch the German countryside go by. LOTS of solar panels on houses and farms. Fall foliage is starting to turn here - about the same as at home. And corn being harvested. I guess things happen about the same time around the world at that latitude!
We met one of the couples we knew at the airport (they were on our flight from Chicago). Got right on the ship when we arrived, and they had our bags to us within 15 min. They were parked off the main river in kind of an industrial location. It was easy because the bus could pull right up, though not a pretty docking spot. We saw Mara, Adam, Leigh, and John return from old town Passau while Jeff and I were sitting outside near the lounge. The 8 of us sat together for the briefing at 6. They did a safety drill next and Jeff and I are on the 2nd floor and the others are on the 3rd, so we were in the dining room for ours (with our life jackets on!) and snagged a table for dinner and then the others joined us.
Jeff had shrimp for dinner. I had Caesar salad, short ribs, and key lime pie for dessert. We went to bed right after dinner, around 9:30. I was up at 2am for a while, but otherwise slept ok. While we were at dinner, the boat moved to a docking location in old town Passau, so we were ready to go for our first full day!
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