Page 42 - KCRPCA-JanFeb2017R1

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January / February 2017
The Black Forest
German drivers are somewhat aggressive, but always signal their intentions. They move to the left to allow you to enter the autobahn and merging into the traf c ow is easy. Unlike American drivers, I did not see anyone talking on their phone, texting, eating or drinking. When Germans drive, they are focused on driving and do not permit distractions.
We avoided large cities as much as possible. Parking in large cities can be problematic. In the smaller cities, car parks were easy to locate and were usually close to the “old town”. Some towns are still surrounded by walls with narrow gates. Streets were usually cobblestone and while some on-street parking was available, it was not dependable and parking spaces were tight.
The next morning at 6:00 AM, we were enjoying our last delicious brötchen with breakfast. By 7:20 AM, we were on the train heading to Frankfurt. Our train arrived at the airport train station at 8:40. We hiked to the terminal, cleared two levels of security, completed passport
control and arrived at our gate in 40 minutes. Plenty of time for our 10:00 AM boarding time. I was amazed again at how passenger friendly the airport was and the ef ciency of security and passport control.
Landed at O’Hare and were smacked in the face by rude TSA agents, confusing directions in the terminal, and the less than ef cient passport control process. We were spoiled by our German experience. None the less, we arrived safe and sound. Now the hard part begins, waiting for the Porsche to arrive. I’m hoping it will be here for Christmas. Maybe I’ll get lucky.
PS: On 9 Nov, I received an email from Porsche European Delivery that my car is on the Columbia Highway auto carrier and is scheduled to arrive in Houston on 22 Nov. Awesome! I looked up the location of the Columbia Highway on Fleet Monitor (https://www. eetmon. com) and determined it was in the mid- Atlantic on the way to its rst port of call on the East coast.
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