on Thursday afternoon, and I must say it was quite a relief to hand them over to other people and only deal with our carryons (and my two heavy winter jackets) for awhile. Becuase our flight on Wednesay was cancelled due to the Snowapocalypse, we were re-routed (as mentioned in an earlier post) through Frankfurt, Germany on a full plane - which unfortunately meant that our seats were seperated. Dan worked some of his Gold Club Status-Midwestern charm on the United employees at the terminal and not only were we moved to sit next to each other, but we were bumped up to Economy Plus - which meant we got a little travel kit complete with toothbrush, toothpaste, mouth wash, socks, Purell, sleeping mask, and other little travel sized goodies for our TransAtlantic flight. We also were given new comfy blankets for the flight that I thought were just redic cool and yes, I kept both of ours (much to Dan's dismay). We packed a wide menu for our trip since I wasn't sure how the snack/dinner/breakfast being served was going to be, which included a baguette, St. Andre cheese, black grapes, mandarins, bananas, good tea bags, dried fruit and nuts, a Toblerone bar, and good hot cocoa mix. We were pretty set. Turns out the pasta dinner was actually good (but small) and were given complimentary wine bottles each (which came in handy with the baguette and cheese). One of the super cool things about the flight was that everyone has their own tvs where they can watch good movies (I watched "The Invention of Lying" and "Where the Wild Things Are" - I was hoping to watch "Bright Star" but that only going Eastbound), could watch tv shows, AND there was a feature where you could pull up a map that showed you the route of the plane on a world map and the distance/speed traveled. There was also Sirius radio channels available at every seat for free. Everyone was very nice and the leg room was quite comfortable. I'm now an official believer in United and am forever spoiled for future TransAtlantic flights...
These pictures were taken at Frankfurt airport at about 7:45 am German time, but 1:45 AM Philly time. Don't think we look too bad for having been up for over 24 hours and traveling around the globe. Our flight was a little delayed but it was fine because there was free espresso and macchiatos in the terminal for everyone. Yeah! We made a mistake and thought our bags were coming on the carousel instead of being put directly on the next flight, so we made the mistake of leaving the terminal and then having to go through security again. Interesting facts about Germany learned through this process:1. They don't really do the whole "forming a line thing"...
2. Security is very very very thorough, but sloooooooowwwwwww...
3. You don't have to take your shoes off or pull out your special little clear plastic quart sized bag...
Something else I've learned from this experience - my To-Go Ware will always cause my bag to be searched. Always. It's ok though because um, duh, it carries food. Delicious food. Delicious healthy food. We just need to assure that we've allotted extra time to get through security in order to bring our delicious healthy food on the plane. And it was sooo worth it to get through security and have a whole huge thing of black grapes and not have to feel bad about using a plastic bag. Definitely worth it.
My first view of Geneve from the plane - this flight ended up being not as awesome as our first flight as the people all were miserable and Dan and I were seperated...maybe they hadn't just watched some awesome movies and had free espresso. The Lufthansa people were very nice however and they did give out yummy little half sized cheese sandwhices with a dill spread...
Geneve airport. We were able to fit all of our bags in the rental car (unbelievably), head over to CERN to pick up the keys to our apartment, and made it back to said apartment without incident. It was so nice to finally be in a place and put our bags down after so many hours (and weeks and months) of feeling like nomads. This apartment is only temporary until we find our own place, but the prospect of possibly being in one place for three months feels like heaven. After getting settled we went to the local supermarket and bought a good bottle of wine (for $3!), a baguette, roquefort cheese, a smelly Thome cheese, pickles, and some dried cured meats and had a little feast before passing out. Dan made it to about 3:30 PM Geneve time and I made it til about 6:30 PM - he did however do all the heavy lifting with ALL of our bags so I'll give him that. :)
More pictures and updates of the adventure so far will come soon - still getting settled and being owned by jet lag. I've been taking lots and lots and lots of pictures though so stay tuned...
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