After an uneventful transit through passport control we were in Frankfurt for our 14 hour layover. There was no luggage to collect so it was onto the hotel shuttle bus for a five minute ride to our home for the day, the Steinberger Airport Hotel. There was a bit of confusion at check-in as they only had us in their system for one day room, but eventually we got our rooms. The day rooms were very small with the equivalent of a single bed with only one pillow. The bathroom was fully equipped but only one towel. Oh well.

The plan was to grab a couple of hours sleep, shower, then into town for a couple of hours for a quick look around. We got in about two and a half hours of sleep time before the wake up call and managed our showers before it was time to meet up with Harold and Wendy at noon. We met in the lobby, caught the shuttle back over to the airport then descended two levels for the local trains.

  
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Harold purchased a group train day pass for the four of us for 14.7 euro and away we went. We even managed to get on the right train going in the right direction for the fifteen minute ride to the Hauptbahnhof (Frankfurt Central Station) and downtown. Had a nice little stroll up and down the Kaiserstrasse which is a shopping street and is part of the red light district. For lunch we stopped in at an East Indian restaurant for schnitzel and fries and beer all around. And you can't stop for a bite to eat in Germany without having a Weinstiere Pilsner. After a couple of hours we wandered back to the train station for the short ride back to the airport.

    
  
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At 3:00 p.m. we again caught the shuttle to our hotel from the airport and had time for another short nap in our day rooms. We checked out at 5:30 and again met up with our travelling partners in the lobby then back onto the shuttle to the airport. Our check-in at the South African Airways counter went extremely well, except for two little glitches. First one was the computer wouldn't let the agent print our boarding passes and the second was that Wendy had lost her passport.

So, while one agent worked on our boarding pass problem, another worked to help Wendy locate her passport. After about 45 minutes we did get our boarding passes. Meanwhile, Wendy's agent had called the hotel to have them check the Nikolaj's day room for the passport. The hotel staff found it so off they went to the hotel. An hour before our flight was boarding we reunited at the gate, passports and boarding passes in hand.

We boarded the plane on time, settled in and the flight actually left ten minutes early. I had a seat towards the rear of the plane with no seat in front of me so no one to recline down into my lap for the flight. Oh darn! And because the flight wasn't full, the steward moved the gentleman that was supposed to sit next to Lee to his own row, so we had our row all to ourselves.

    
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It was an all you can drink (free) beverage cart again. Our guy suggested the Shiraz for dinner which we took him up on and he even gave us a couple of extras for later. I had the pork medallions for dinner and Lee opted for the chicken again. Bit of a tactical error though. We had popped our zopiclone soon after we boarded so we'd sleep right after dinner. Well, Lee started to feel the effects during dinner and I had to constantly pull her head back out of her tray as she nodded off. Regardless, the 10 ½ hour flight was great. We slept for seven hours of it. Harold and Wend weren't so lucky though. Wendy dozed, but sleep eluded Harold until he took a second zopiclone after which he got in a couple of hours.

We woke up a couple of hours before landing in time for a hot breakfast which was either continental or pancakes. Unfortunately, they only had pancakes left when they got to us but, oh well. As it turned out, what they call pancakes were a couple of Denver type scrambled egg patties. It was a very good breakfast.