Vacation wrap-up

We have successfully returned from Europe! Our travel home on Saturday was happily uneventful. We got up early and after a mildly tearful farewell to Casey and the three Fros, Rick drove us in to the the airport in Frankfurt. After we checked our bags, we made our way to the gate, which took a little bit of searching. The airport is currently undergoing major modifications which has some gates in temporary spaces, making the maps very unhelpful in finding them.

We finally made it to the gate with time to spare and we found that changing our plans and flying to Charlotte instead of Philadelphia paid off. As boarding started, we were assigned seats next to each other in first class! Elated, we headed to the plane. Due to the temporary gate, the plane could only be reached by taking a shuttle bus from the gate area to the location where the plane was parked out on the tarmac, so we boarded the bus and got a great view of some Boeing 747s and Airbus A330 and A340s as we drove past. It was fun to board the plane via stairs, as you really got a sense of the huge size of plane.

After finding our seats, Tracie and I quickly found that first class is THE way to go. The cabin was only half filled as well, so there was plenty of overhead bin space. As soon as we took off, the flight attendants started bringing drinks, followed by a fruit and cheese plate, appetizer, lunch, dessert and all with as much wine as you wanted. The seats reclined almost all the way, so after lunch we watched movies on the in-flight entertainment and napped for most of the remained of the flight.

After we arrived in Charlotte, we went through one of the fastest customs process ever and grabbed a bite to eat before boarding our flight to Phoenix. Unfortunately, this flight was full and we had to return to the riff-raff in coach. Despite the hardship of being crammed into seats barely big enough for an adult ass, we made it to Phoenix, took a SuperShuttle van to get home and finally arrived home at 10:00pm, almost exactly 24 hours after leaving Pickliessem.