The Flying

As soon as I arrived in Grand Rapids to check in for my flight 2 hours in advance, they told me MOST LIKELY, I would NOT make my connecting flight in Chicago to Frankfurt due to very, very rainy conditions in Chicago that was delaying EVERYTHING. What a great way to start the day. After a moment of panic, United at least set me up with a backup plan for flying from Chicago at a later time. However, since I would be leaving Chicago later, everything else gets pushed back too. Apparently, Luftshana only operates 2 flights a day from Frankfurt to Marseille. 8:10am (my original flight) and 4:30pm. If I didn't make it on my original connecting flight (arriving in Frankfurt at 5:45am), I would arrive in Frankfurt around 10am and then I would get to wait in the airport from 10am to 4:30pm. That sounded like so much fun! But at least, on the bright side, I would have plenty of time to get a German beer and a frankfurter or bratwurst. Oh and instead of arriving in Marseille, France at 9:45AM on Monday, I would arrive at 6:20PM Monday night.

The luggage restrictions allow you to have 50 lbs. for each bag and I was allowed 2 bags. All night the night before I was agonizing about only bringing 50 lbs. of stuff. You would not think it was so hard until you had to make crucial decisions on what you really need for a year abroad. Or at least 5 months while I wait for my mom to come visit in February and bring me what I might also need. Weighing in at the airport was pretty stressful. First bag (the smaller of the 2) weighed 48.5 lbs. Crap! That's pretty close and that wasn't even my big bag. Bag number 2 (the big one) weighed 48.5 lbs. too! Then of course I was frustrated that I didn't bring some shirts or something to just add to the limit. Oh well.

So we ended up leaving Grand Rapids 2-1/2 hours late and we landed in Chicago 45 minutes after my flight to Germany was supposed to take off. Needless to say, I was now going to be in Chicago until 6:30pm (we landed at 3:15pm) and catch all of those late flights that I mentioned earlier. After standing in line for over an hour at the customer service desk for United (because flying international will not let you check in at the little kiosks), I got my boarding pass and got to wait around for another 2 hours before I finally left for Germany.

The silver lining in this whole flying deboggle was that I got an awesome aisle seat in an EXIT row on the flight to Frankfurt. That rocked and I was really surprised to get such a highly coveted spot on the plane. My legs were stretched out the whole way. The flight was about 8 hours long. We got dinner (beef or ravioli...I did ravioli), 2 movies ("Speed Racer" that they actually played twice in a row for some reason and "And Then She Found Me" with Helen Hunt. Neither movie was that great but it did keep me distracted. Because I was not at a window, I could not fall asleep (it's just one of those things for me). I was also right at the bathroom entrance so people were either standing near me or walking by me all the time and the lights never really dimmed where I was either. The plane was 2 levels though and that was super cool to me. I have never been on a plane that big. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to walk around up there unless you have a seat up there so I couldn't go exploring. Maybe if I was a little kid they would have bent the rules for me but alas...
(The huge plane from Chicago to Frankfurt)

We arrived in Germany early but not early enough for me to catch that original 8:10am flight. So from 9am to 4:30pm, I had to kill time in Frankfurt. Now normally, I would be super excited to go exploring since I had so much time however, I had, at that point, been up for almost 24 hours straight and I was exhausted plus I had to carry my laptop bag and my rolling carry on around wherever I went. I did take the city train to downtown Frankfurt and walked around the gigantic train station there and outside for a little while but after about an hour and a half, I was too tired and just ended up going back to the airport to hang out there. I was a bit worried about security even though I had almost 4 hours until my flight. While walking around in downtown Frankfurt within 4 blocks, I saw 3 sex shops! I kid you not. Those Germans love them their sex shops I guess. Nude dancing is very popular there apparently since all the sex shops were also strip clubs as far as I could tell. Anyway, I did get a couple pictures of some stuff that I will post shortly and yes, I felt like a total tourist taking pictures of Starbucks and McDonald's in Germany.

(The big train station in Frankfurt, Germany where I had my bratwurst)



Yes, for those of you wondering, I did have a Bockwurst (bratwurst) and a German beer that I could not even begin to pronounce. It is so frustrating for me to have to just point and kinda grunt what I wanted because I really don't know any German and I hate assuming that people speak English outside of an airport. At the airport, I truly do expect most people to speak English and thank God for that because I would have been totally lost if things weren't also printed in English all over the airport. You would think that you could kinda figure out what some things mean because German is relatively close to English but that theory only works for like 10% of the words there. Otherwise, none of my Latin based language training helped me decipher anything! I ordered my brat and prayed that the side item it came with wasn't something horrifying. It turned out to be homemade potato salad that was really, really good! I also had a German pastry which I would assume you could get anywhere. It was some sort of donut/croissant mix. It was tasty.
(I thought this was funny. It's the local newpaper from Frankfurt as well)

(I have no idea what this says. :)

The flight from Frankfurt to Marseille was uneventful since I slept through the whole hour and a half. The eventful thing was that ONCE AGAIN, my luggage was lost. Both bags! They think that they might be in Germany and the earliest that they would arrive would be tomorrow morning at 10am. Thankfully, due to my horrible luck with luggage, I did pack some things to keep me going for a few days before I start running out of clean underwear. Unfortunately, my power converters and webcam were in my luggage so I can only plug in my laptop while in France until my luggage comes. I officially hate airline luggage. I mean, come on. I was in Chicago for 4 hours before that plane took off and in Germany for 7 hours before the connection. You would think that they could get my damn bags in the plane and yes, I was the only one at the kiosk reporting lost luggage.

Laurent picked me up and we went back to his apartment so I could meet his wife and his 2 very little kids. More on those adventures in another post but at the time this post is going online, I have been up for 33 hours.