This was written en route from Dusseldorf to Vienna:

Our time in Russia has officially ended! We were sad to see it go, but are excited for the adventures that await us!

The first actually came today in the airport as we changed flights in Dusseldorf. Thinking we had plenty of time to catch our next plane, we made our way to gate B73. First we had to go through passport control, where we saw a guy we think Amy should date--attractive and German, what's not to love? After exchanging about four words with him, we're sure he's the one.

We then went to find where airport security was, and a nice German man gave us perfectly understandable directions--that is, they would have been perfectly understandable if either of us understood German. My mom felt this would be a good time to pretend she speaks German, nodded her head, thanked him, and whisked us away to the right. "He said follow the line, right?" she asked me. "I have no idea. I didn't catch a word he was saying, and I'm not sure why you thought you should pretend that you did. What if he said, 'Oh, by the way, they didn't check your bags all the way through, you should probably go pick those up?' Oh, well, let's follow the line and see where it takes us. I can already tell this is going to be different than Russia--I'm not used to not understanding people!!"

We followed the line and magically ended up at the security check point for our gate, where we got pulled aside so they could check my laptop. Of course, I didn't understand that this was what they were doing as the man spoke to me in German. Instead of just telling him we didn't understand, we decided it would be most effective to just sit and look at him until he understood that we had NO idea what he had just said to us. He's a quick one, lucky for us, and switched into English. He directed us to follow his colleague to another table. After running a strip with a metal circle on it over the keyboard and back of it and checking my bag thoroughly, they let us proceed to the gate. We have already noticed a difference between the airports in Russia and those in, well, any place that ISN'T Russia. Can you say quality service?

(I have to insert here that as we were trying to go through passport control in St Petersburg, the poor family in front of us was catching all kinds of attitude from the woman checking them in. He asked her to be a little more kind to his wife and children, and she yelled after him to not tell her how to do her job, then came storming out of the little box she works in and told him to come back and keep his kids from touching anything. She then harassed him about not having a family passport, to which he replied he had tried to get one, and they told him he couldn't. Needless to say, we switched to a different line--thought better of taking our chances with her bad day. This turned out to be a good idea, as she closed the gate and refused to check anyone else in.)

So anyway, we get through the security check and start wandering towards our gate. We spot a bathroom and decide to stop while we're close. I hear something that sounds like "DeGroff" over the loudspeaker, followed by other German words. I think to myself, huh, they have a word that sounds like DeGroff--wonder what that means. Then as I'm washing my hands, I hear 'DeGroff" again, followed by German. Then the English version of this, which was, "Passenger DeGroff, last boarding call." My mom and I sprinted out of the bathroom and started following the signs to B73, cutting through the duty free shop to try and save time (mom knocked something off, but figured she didn't have time to pick it up). Another nice German man said, "Vienna? DeGroff?" And I said, "Yes, DeGroff. I am so sorry! I thought I heard my name." My mom added, "We thought we still had an hour." He just smiled and said, "No, we have quick turn arounds here. Not a problem." He then showed us to the counter and told us we just needed to go straight, take a left, go down and to the left and board the plane. We thanked him as we ran off. We were the last ones on the plane and everyone was already seated. Mom and I took our seats, turned to each other, and started laughing. "Can you believe we almost missed our plane?" "Yah," I said, "good thing we didn't stop for ice cream!!"

As the flight attendant came around to give snacks, and after handing us our orange juice she asked in German which snack we would like. We kind of just looked at her and said, "We speak English." She then offered us a sandwich or wafers. We took one of each between the two of us. We split the delicious cracker with cream cheese and chives, as well as the hazelnut vafly.
So we love Germany and are a little sad to leave. Luckily, we get to come back to Berlin in a matter of days. They left quite the positive impression on me, and I would be happy to return any time!