Reluctant Return Home

September 24, 2018

Our last day has been all travel. Luckily, our flight didn’t leave until 12:15 and our hotel was at the airport, so we were able to sleep in a little bit and kind of recover from our last long day. They say that German efficiency is something to behold, but during our two days in Germany it was nothing but a #clustermess. Our process of getting through the airport was no different. My parents went to check in first, while we gathered the rest of our belongings, and were forced to also collect our boarding passes. That posed a problem considering that we weren’t with them and needed our passes to do anything. Then, we tried to check our bags but were told that we needed to go to a special line for checking in with a family, even though we were already checked in and just needed to give them our bags. That, however, was just the beginning of the fun.

The first security line we went through was the German equivalent of TSA. As we approached the more than 20 lines they funnel everyone through, there was just a giant, unorganized mass of people standing there without direction or purpose. We were lucky enough to be able to push our way through the crowd to the immediate entry for families line, but that’s when we identified the root of the problem. The security lines weren’t moving at all. For no apparent reason except that nobody knew what was going on - passengers or staff. Virtually everyone was having to open their bags and pull out bottle after bottle of liquids, and then go back through the security check. We stood there for 20 minutes without moving an inch!

The next line we confronted was passport control, which went quickly thanks to the fact that we were wheeling Witten in a stroller and got to bypass the long queue. Then, however, we had to get on a train to another terminal and go through another security checkpoint for all flights into the United States . . . because going through two security checkpoints instead of one helps limit terrorism that much more. When we made it through the second checkpoint, we were starving and learned that there was no food at the gates, so we had to go back through the checkpoint, get some food, and then go through again! Thank God we got to the airport at 10:00, because we were definitely pushing it to make our flight, even with the priority granted to families with young children!

It was a ten-hour flight back home, and it felt far longer than that. Witten refused to sleep a wink, so neither Kati nor I got any sleep either, though I tried for a while. Once we got into Charlotte airspace, our pilot told us that there was some construction at the airport, so it may take longer to land and taxi to the gate. We then proceeded to make at least five or six circles before heading in for a landing. I’m not sure what was going on - whether it was the altitude, the quick turns, or the pressure - but every baby on the plane, including Witten, started screaming uncontrollably. Then, right before we were landing, Witten threw up chocolate (M&Ms) all over herself and Kati! Thank God it happened right before we landed and not earlier because Kati didn’t have a change of clothes that she could switch into, and Witten had already soiled one set of clothes earlier in the flight. Suffice it to say, the trip back was the low light of our vacation. By the time we managed to get through passport control and claim our bags, we were all done and ready to be home, if just to lay down and get some rest. Still, it was an incredibly trip!