Arrival in Germany, 19th April '09

With an early morning start (some people got up at 2.30am) we made our way to Stansted Airport. There we met with our whole group from across the UK (from Chesterfield to West Norwood) to be confronted by the 'delightful' customer service of Ryanair, successfully reducing its customers to tears, interesting check-in requirements (0.5 Kg would set you back an additional £60...). Boarding our aircraft on time at 9.50 we had a smooth flight to Germany's Leipzig (Altenburg) Airport in Thuringia, close to the border to Saxony.

From there we took the shuttlebus to Altenburg Train Station to catch our connecting train to Zwickau (Saxony). Another change of train using the Vogtlandbahn (a local mountain train) got us to our final destination Lengenfeld. There we were met by our German hosts Timo and Christian from Pscherer Institute who took us to our accommodation in the lovely Parkgaststaette.

There we encountered the excellent hospitality as we were all quite hungry but dinner was still a few hours away. The hotel management quickly rustled up an excellent snack consisting of steak sandwiches and salad. Even the vegetarians were tempted. A short walk into the empty town (it was Sunday after all) and dinner concluded our first day of the 2009 RAISE Project.