We stuffed our stuff in the car, sent our phones back to Chorca, filled it up at the gas station and went to the airport around noon. This day could’ve been terrible, but it wasn’t thanks to lots of nice people we encountered. At the rental car return we discovered that the car wasn’t filled up completely despite my best efforts to do so. I would’ve had to pay 12$ for the missing gas, hadn’t it been for the nice guy working there who believed me that I was at the gas station 15 minutes ago and did my best to fill the tank. Out of the car, we were on our own with a giant box, a travel bag and a giant suitcase with a completely busted wheel. And no luggage cart anywhere. Another nice guy from the rental company came for help and offered us a ride to the terminal with one of the rental cars he was parking, that was incredibly nice and saved us so much trouble! At the check-in counter we discovered that our first flight was 30 minutes delayed, which was a problem as it would only give us around 10 minutes to catch our next plane in Salt Lake City. After the lady there made lots of phone calls and couldn’t find a better connection, we agreed on trying to make it and getting a hotel in SLC in case we didn’t make the connection.
Well, we did, thanks to the gate for the next flight being just a few meters from our arriving gate and us sitting all the way in the first row thanks to the helpful flight attendants. The second flight from Salt Lake City to Paris was much more relaxed as we didn’t have to worry much about missing our next connection. We were very impressed by the leg space and the entertainment system in the Delta plane and time way flying by. We watched “The secret life of Walter Mitty”, and at one point I noticed some weird cloud outside. It was way past sunset, so I was confused by such a bright cloud. Since we were over Greenland, I thought it could be Aurora Borealis, and the camera confirmed it! We totally saw northern lights, lots and lots of them! We spent quite a while taking photos as a team, Henrieke operating the camera and me holding a jacket over her each time in an effort to block any light coming from inside the plane that would ruin the 6-second exposures we took. The photos turned out quite nice considering we didn’t have a tripod and the plane was moving! The rest of the flight we dozed off and ate some tasty plane food.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, we arrived in time in Vienna and to our big surprise our luggage did as well! Johannes picked us up, we went home, unpacked and tried our best to fight the jet lag. The End. Thanks to all our friends for making it such a great trip! 🙂