Day 15 - Homeward Bound
Our travel day started with a 4:30am alarm in Germany, and ended with a 12:35ish touchdown in SFO (California time) – it was quite the journey! Singers Phoebe and Natalie who’d had a slumber party with the chaperones on our final night in Hochhausen, as their host family had to head out of town, were such troopers. They woke up bright and early with us, and enjoying a quick breakfast of toast and home made Hochhausen jam (which I, chaperone Maya, managed to stock my suitcase with…yum!) The whole choir was impressively at the bus at 5:30 am, and we all said some tearful goodbyes to our amazing hosts from the past five days. Even the Count and his wife showed up to see us off!
Most of us snoozed during the 2 hour bus ride to the Frankfurt airport. We arrived at the Lufthansa terminal with plenty of time to walk to the Group check-in terminal, and go through the lengthy security line. Many of the singers, including George and Jack, proved that it’s never too early to have candy for breakfast! Constant intake of Haribo gummies was a definite theme of this trip… And Gulzar generously shared the abundant bag of food her host mother had provided her for the long journey home.
The flight was a little under 11.5 hours – we landed a bit ahead of schedule at SFO around 12:40pm. After a long day of travel, we were all thrilled to make it through customs fairly quickly and be greeted by such welcoming faces! Bob led the group in The Star Spangled Banner before everyone headed home with parents and dogs. We are all happy that it is a Golden Gate Festival Year so we get to see each other soon! For now, I’m sure singers and chaperones alike will enjoy a bit of time off to recoup from such an amazing and rewarding adventure :).
Thanks for reading!
Star Spangled Banner at SFO: https://youtu.be/DXEPDxFRzmU
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