My journey has begun.  Tomorrow is the big day I pick up my Mercedes-Benz SLC at the Bremen factory.  Let’s take a look back at my journey to see how I got here.

Of course you must remember when I said goodbye to my SLK.  In the meantime I went to my local Mercedes-Benz dealer about a month ago and paid for my SLC and set up my financing thru Mercedes-Benz Financial.  That is also when I traded in my SLK.  This gave me a paper invoice that will allow me to pickup my new car tomorrow.  I also had to fill out some Power of Attorney forms so that the car is registered on my behalf in Germany and that Mercedes can import that car on my behalf to the United States.

Day One:

I barely slept the night before, mostly due to being too excited.  I didn’t mind waking up early though as it meant being closer to Central European Summer Time (CEST).  However, Delta had moved my departure from Rochester from 13:00 to 10:00 which meant 3 more hours than I really wanted in Detroit.  I did manage quite a bit of walking though and a sit down meal.  From Detroit the flight was to Amsterdam with an expected arrival time of 06:00 CEST the next day.  Annoyingly though with the usual late airplane meal, Spinach Ravioli, I couldn’t try to sleep until past 19:00 EDT (01:00 +1 CEST).  It didn’t help that a loud America tourist, as they can be, was repeating her life travels to a stranger one row ahead.  I did manage about 3 hours of sleep.

Day Two:

I guess its officially day two and I arrive in Amsterdam.  There is the usual long thru immigration line and I tease my husband that I might leave his to skip thru the short EU/EEA line, but as usually I stick it out.  After a short layover in Amsterdam i’m onboard KLM Cityhopper to Bremen.  Most of the trip is cloudy, but it clears as we near Bremen and I take in my first sights of the city.  There are many factories, of course Mercedes-Benz but also Kellogg’s, Mondelez (formerly Krafts) and Beck’s.  So definitely a blue color town.  I touch down around 10:00 and take a cab to my hotel, Steigenberger Bremen, which luckily has a room ready.  I present the voucher from Mercedes, as they are paying for tonights accommodations.  I’m really tired and the sun is shining so I go for a walk along the river.  What a beautiful city.  Utterly shocked.  The mix of architecture including gothic pieces is stunning.  I have lunch and slowly head back to the hotel.  My plan is to fall asleep tonight around 19:00 CEST and wake early enough to be at the plant when it opens to pick up my car.  Even though I’m excited I know I’ll sleep well tonight.  Check back in tomorrow because I have a feeling it will be Brilliantly Blue.