Frankfort

We were asked to wait until Scott's scooter got delivered to the plane, which took a few minutes.  When we got to the gate (B48), we were greeted by wheelchair assistance - after a few minutes explaining that we had his wheels, he started to go away.  But when another gate agent found out we were connecting passengers and had to clear customs, they called him back.  He ended up being a life saver.  

We had to go to a different floor, get on a bus, and go up two different elevators to the floor where customs was located.  He used his all access pass to not only get us there, he put us in the priority line and we cleared customs five minutes after getting there.  With the new European system, they gather biometrics... well they got our photos, but we never did the fingerprints, so this may haunt us later on.  After all that, he walked us to the departure gate (A4) for our connecting flight.  I wish I could remember his name - I'd send a big thank you to Frankfurt Ground Services (FGA)!

Since we had more than three hours before our flight and had lounge priviliges, we headed off to find Luftansa's Business Class Lounge.  It was near gate A26, so by the time we reached it, I was ready for a nap.  We found a nice lunch - weiners for Scott and a chicken salad for me. One thing I noticed, these lounges use creative means for presenting things.  Here's my pannacota with cherries and shaved chocolate in a little glass, and cute little serving of trail mix in a glass bowl.  

Back to Gate A4 we went, only to discover that it's on level three and passengers have to walk down two levels to get to a bus that would take them to the aircraft.  There is an elevator for the four gates in the area, but Luftansa gate agents are not allowed to use it.  So she had to call FGA.   Next thing we know, a nice lady is guiding us one gate over - to the elevator - and down to the tarmac.  We boarded a bus and started going around the airport on all the service roads.  (Deja vous.  We both started wondering whether this was like our aircraft at JFK.)  

We finally pulled up alongside our aircraft, at what we learned was gate V111.  We could literally see the end of one runway and the airport fence.  This was a flight on Air Dolomite (a partner to Luftansa, kind of like American Eagle serves American Airlines).  We were the only ones on the plane until our departure time.  Then, finally a bus pulls up with the remaining 30+ passengers.   

the view from the plane -
see how far away the terminal is!

you thought I was kidding - 
this is the view as the airplane turned onto the taxiway