Mitch teaches in Aachen, Germany (part 2)

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The Air Berlin flight was late leaving Zurich so I arrived in Aachen at rush hour (around 5pm).  When we landed there were two other planes flying right next to ours. All the planes landed within 1 minute of each other (two at once on parallel runways).  Our plane rushed off of the runway because another plane landed right behind us.  The runway on the other side had a plane taking off right after the one in front of it landed.  It was like watching military jet operations.  The Aachen airport uses those special buses that scoot around the tarmac, taking people to and from the planes instead of having the planes pull up to a gate.  We were very efficiently wisked through the high-traffic tarmac and taken to the terminal.  I actually prefer a smaller terminal and those buses to walking and taking trains through the humongous terminals of large airports.

 

There was no line at the Avis counter and I had my "Skoda Octavia" in under 3 minutes (German efficiency).  When I travelled extensively in Germany in 1981 the Berlin wall had not yet fallen and the idea of driving a Czech (Soviet block) car was absurd.  Now Volkswagen has a close joint venture relationship with Skoda and the Octavia is very impressive.  The six-speed turbo-diesel can accelerate the car (on the Autobahn) up to 200 Km/hr quickly; the German-style performance clutch is like high-friction rubber, biting hard as soon as the clutch pedal moves a few millimeters.  It has a large multi-function display with GPS navigation, entertainment, weather, bluetooth for the phone, and many other features I have not yet needed or used.  The portable GPS I brought with me is not nearly as good as the onboard system; on the way from the airport to my hotel I used both systems but from the hotel to the conference facility I used only the onboard GPS.  I have become better at entering the destination data and the system is gathering up my destination points.