It was very strange leaving here on Friday night all by my lonesome. I kept having this weird feeling like I wasn't supposed to be going and that something would go wrong (not like my plane would crash or anything) just like I would miss my flight or I was showing up on the wrong weekend or something. Well I had an uneventful trip to the airport, got all checked in and went to the BA Lounge (I now have silver status and can go to the lounge without a Business Class ticket!!!!) Gotta tell you though that the lounge at Gatwick is not as nice as Heathrow, but who would expect it to be? Well anyway, got on the plane and ended up next to 2 business men who were German. The one by the window was sick so he promptly fell asleep. The one in the middle, realizing he was losing his chatting buddy decided to talk to me the entire time. I don't know what my aversion is to talking to people on planes but I absolutely hate it. One reason I love business class (there are lots of reasons, of course) is that you have a little divider between you and the person next to you so you don't have to talk to anyone. Even if I am travelling with someone I like, I don't like talking..... oh and the torture of talking to someone you don't know or care about for 2 hours and then you will never see them again!! What hell!! I think it has to do with the lack of oxygen on planes (I blame that for most everything) so I am tired and just want to read. On top of that you are in an uncomfortable seat that forces you to sit straight ahead so if you are talking to someone you have to turn your head to do it. This gives me a sore neck very quickly. Now if I were on a plane where you faced people I don't think I would mind talking to them as much. So I kept rubbing my neck and turning away, trying to make it clear that I didn't want to talk. When he would stop talking for a minute, I would pick up my book to read and after I read one sentence he would start up again!!!! He wouldn't get the hint! Finally I picked up my book and stated that I was going to read and wow didn't his book look interesting and I was sure he wanted to get on with it! So about 20 minutes before the flight landed I finally got to just sit and read my book and rub my neck.

We landed about 10:30PM and I knew I needed to take the train to the main station in Munich so I followed the signs with the little pictures of a train on them (since I read German about as well as I speak it.) Ended up at a line of ticket machines that were all in German. I stood and stared for a couple of minutes and looked around and saw an English couple staring at me to see how I would solve this dilemma. Finally a German couple came up to buy tickets and asked if we needed help, the three of us said yes, please!!! Well it turns out that we were all going to the same place and you can buy a family ticket which covers 5 people and it is a ton cheaper so not only did we get an escort into town but it was only €3! Now I didn't mind chatting as we were seated around each other and I didn't have to turn my neck and everyone was sooooo nice. After about 20 minutes the train stopped and everyone started getting out of the train. The overhead system was saying something in German so me and the English couple patiently waited for our nice new German friends to tell us what to do. It turns out that there was construction going on so the train stopped there and we had to switch to the underground to get to where we wanted. Thank goodness we were with them or I would still be sitting on that train!!!! It really worked out well because once we got on the underground, my stop was first so they were able to tell me where to get off. I took out myu trusty map and found my hotel within minutes. I was pleasantly surprised as the hotel and room were very nice and I had gotten a very good deal on them. I got ready for bed, read my book a couple of minutes, checked the time (it was about midnight) turned off the light, rubbed my neck some more and fell asleep.