The long trip home

The Munich airport was a mess. Three long lines and two shuttle rides = two hours to get to my gate.

First there was expected security line, where I got the full pat down. Next was the passport check, where the automated reader wouldn't read my passport, so I had to wait in the manual check line. Last and certainly not least was the Covid-document check line, which was a complete disaster. Multiple lines that didn't move at all for ages, then once they started moving not enough staff to man all of the lines, and passengers who hadn't read the instructions and were sent back to who knows where.

At my gate, the sole water fountain was out of order, so I had to spend 3.50€ on a plastic bottle of water. The flight back to California was long but uneventful, and I took this cool picture somewhere over Baffin Bay.

A 27-Hour Day

John got up early this morning and headed out to CDG, to catch his 11:20 flight home. Naturally, it ended up being delayed until 1:45.

The rest of us enjoyed our last Parisian breakfast at Carol's before getting on the Metro and RER.






I had checked in online last night, but Lufthansa wouldn't let me create boarding passes for Beth, so we tried the check-in kiosk as instructed. Even with the help of a Lufthansa employee, we couldn't get hers to print, so he sent us to the check in desk. Since we didn't have any luggage to check, he very kindly slipped us past the long line to a shorter one so the agent could print our passes.

At security, they were very thorough. Beth and I both set off the detectors (no idea why--I wasn't wearing either a belt or a hairclip), so we both got patted down. Matt and Beth both had their packs inspected by hand. Matt had forgotten the liter bottle of water in his pack (he had wondered why his bag was so heavy!), and we never did figure out what they saw in Beth's.

Our first flight was a short hop to Munich, and they fed us a half sandwich for a snack (tough ham/bacon, pickles, and tons of mayo on dark bread). We didn't have much time in Munich--by the time we got through passport control, our flight to Chicago was already boarding.

The Chicago flight was long. Beth watched FIVE movies on the video screen. For dinner, they were out of chicken by the time they got to our row, so we all had pasta with cream sauce and a dab each of pesto and red sauce, a roll, Camembert, butter, a wilted salad, and a tasty dessert (cake with a key-lime pie topping). This was followed a few hours later by a turkey calzone snack.

I took a few catnaps during this leg, but was mostly awake, catching up on my reading (GoodReader and Kindle for iPhone).

We walked a long way in Chicago. And waited in several long lines. First was immigration--the line didn't move at all for a long time, then finally started snaking along. No baggage to pick up or recheck, and the customs line was short.

We took the train to Terminal 1, and wound our way through security (no special treatment this time), then headed to our gate, which was very conveniently located across from McDonalds. We had Big Macs (Matt and me), McNuggets (Beth), fries, sodas (Beth and me), and a Starbucks frappacino (Matt).

Our flight left an hour and twenty minutes late, and was packed, with dozens of people on the standby list. We mostly slept on the last leg of the flight. Beth and I tried to lean against each other, and Matt somehow folded himself into his seat:

He was rather hard to wake up when we landed, but I finally got him upright with both his carryon and his tote bag, and walked him off the plane.

We are now in the car on the way to John's parents' house. Thank you Pete and Nikki for picking us up in the middle of the night!

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In the Air, Part 3 & On the Rails

The Montreal airport leaves something to be desired in terms of dining choices. Matt walked up and down the terminal we were in, and reported that the only two choices were cafeteria-type places, so we had sandwiches and soda at the nearest one for dinner.




I managed to get about two hours of sleep on the plane, as did Beth. Matt slept a little more soundly. Even with earplugs, it's hard to sleep through the frequent announcements (really, do you need to announce duty-free shopping at 4:00 am or whatever time it was?). We arrived in Paris around 8:30, met up with John, then hung around the airport until our train left at 1:00. Lunch was more sandwiches and sodas: I had a ham & cheese sandwich, and the rest of the family had salami sandwich, chicken sandwich, and chicken wrap (I think.) The ladies room in the airport was cutely painted (sorry, forgot to get a photo) and free, while the train station restroom (downstairs from the airport) was $.50.

We arrived in Lyon at 3:00 pm, and it was really hard to stay awake on the train. Matt gave up and had a nap, but Beth and I stayed awake the whole trip. We took a cab to John's hotel, dropped off our luggage, and had our first showers in 1.5 days.

With the jet lag issue, we are not yet ready to eat dinner on a European schedule. We took the bus into downtown Lyon (none of the restaurants by the Cité Internationale were open for dinner until 7:30 or so), and found a little cafe with "non stop service." Three of us had crepes (ham & cheese; ham, mushrooms, potatoes & cheese; chicken, bell peppers, & cheese), and John had an omelet with ham. Very tasty. I also had my first Coke Light of the trip: they always taste different the first time, then my palate gets used to it and the first Diet Coke I have after getting home tastes strange.



It was really hard to stay awake on the bus. The kids and I all kept nodding off on the way to and from the downtown. Fortunately for us, John has had a normal night's sleep, and he figured out the buses yesterday, so we just need to follow along.

In the Air, Part 2

Here (I hope!) are Beth and Matt on the first flight of the day. A very pleasant trip so far--near the end of the flight, the flight attendants brought cookies and ice cream for all the kids on the plane.

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In the Air

The drive to LAX went quite smoothly this morning (thanks, Pete!)--hardly any traffic at 4:00 am. The kids and I had breakfast/lunch at the airport. Matt had coffee and a pastry, while Beth had fruit and orange juice. They were very surprised when I ordered a burger and fries at Burger King, but once my food was ready they helped me eat it. It may have been 6:00 am in LA, but it was well past lunchtime in Paris.

We are flying Air Canada today. The Airbus 319 is very nice: on demand movies, a USB jack, and a power outlet at each seat. They also have WiFi available, but $7.95 per device is more than i want to spend! Beth and I watched the new Alice in Wonderland, and she's now watching How to Train a Dragon.

We land in Montreal in about an hour and a half, where we'll grab lunch/dinner before the next flight. In the meantime, we're snacking on the Rice Krispies treats my mom made for us (thanks, Mom!).

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