Day 19 - Tuesday, Oct 1 - Returning home


Thankfully, we are at least able to be up and about this morning.

A private car service took us to the Domodedovo airport which took about an hour. Fortunately there wasn’t much traffic. While we were stopped at a light, a car rear-ended the car stopped beside us – two very unhappy drivers.

On the way to the airport, there were more varieties of trees than we had seen crossing Siberia which were mostly conifers and silver birch. Here the maples are turning brilliant red/orange and the oak trees are turning yellow/brown.

The check-in was different from most airports as there weren’t dedicated counters for each airline, just stations 1-100. Huge displays showing the departing flights indicated which station one had to go to in order to check in. We are flying Lufthansa to Munich and then as a code-share United flight to Newark.

It was a very long walk from our arrival and departure gates in Munich and we arrived at the scheduled departure time but the flight was delayed about half an hour.

As we prepared for arrival, we were told to open our window shades and I was surprised when I looked out to the left to see the Kingston-Rhinecliff bridge, the malls and IBM site. If I was on the other side I might have been able to see Woodstock.

I am again using the “Mobile Passport” app on my phone which allowed us to go through the Mobile Passport booth in under a minute. The overhead sign indicated that the estimated waiting time for regular arrivals was 25 minutes. It took a few minutes for our luggage to come out but ours was the first and we headed to the Hertz rental via the monorail. Less than an hour after touching down we were in the car heading home. Traffic was very light at this time and we arrived home at 9:45, just under two hours – a record!

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