After waking up around 5 am, we got a ten minute ride to a BART stop with a friend. About an hour later, we were at the BART stop at SFO for our first flight to Chicago. After a 4 hour flight and a 3 hour layover, we boarded a flight to Frankfurt. Fortunately, by using a big chunk of my frequent flyer miles to go business class, we received free access to United’s Red Carpet Club lounge at all the airports.
After the 7.5 hour flight to Frankfurt, we grabbed our bags and made our way down to the train station next to the airport. Since the flight arrived on time and baggage collection and customs went more quickly than we expected, we were able to catch an earlier train to Vienna. That was quite fortunate, since the two hours we spent in Frankfurt were followed by a 7 hour train ride to Vienna. Even on the high speed ICE train, it’s still a long journey.
By this time, I was struggling, and often failing, to keep my eyes open. The seat on the train wasn’t comfortable enough to get any real sleep, though. The seats on the plane were much more comfortable, so we slept some them. By the time we arrived at the Westbahnhof in Vienna, nearly 30 hours had passed since we had seen a bed. Almost 20 of those hours had been spent on transport vehicles with a few hundred of our best friends.