Frankfurt, Germany

We made it one piece! Hurray!

Packing the night before and trying to remember everything kept me up late, but woke up in good spirits. Arrived at the airport in plenty of time with breakfast burritos in tow, yum!

The ride to Philadelphia was a bit bumpy, and it felt like it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R! When we did finally land 30 minutes ahead of schedule, we were excited! We only had a 1 hour layover so now we had a bit more time. Perfect! Ha... WRONG. Construction at the Philly airport brought taxiing plane to a standstill and we lost that half hour sitting on the tarmac.

Running to the plane was great, blood pumping and legs stretched, and a quick bathroom break... we got to our gate, and it's boarding! Good timing!

Holy 7 hour flight batman! Halfway through I wanted to cry... the international flights make my butt go numb! Good flight though, arrived a full hour early! Only one weirdo crazy guy on the plane and a grumpy flight attendant to deal with...

We get through customs fine, then on to baggage claim. Like a whack-a-mole game at an arcade, flying up the shoot comes Claudia's luggage first! I think to myself, "Mine is right behind hers..." Not quite. In fact, it took an additional 30 minutes to get my luggage... LAST! Ugh...

We go to catch the shuttle to the Holiday Inn Express to pick up our Renault rental car. They tell Claudia, a blue mercedez benz passenger van will pick you up in about 10 to 20 minutes. We wait no more than 5 or so and here comes the van:

We hop in and off we go to pick up the rental car at the Holiday Inn! Only when we get there, it's the wrong hotel... and the wrong shuttle. Does this shuttle look blue to you? (Claudia showed the driver the Renault paperwork and said, "Renault?" His response... "YES!" She thinks it is her mexican accent that threw him off.)

So back to the airport! So we board this shuttle when we get there:

This looks blue and OBVIOUSLY says Renault... DUH!

We get the car, a Renault Clio and we head to the gas station to fill up. If I hear anyone complain about the price of gas in the USA I will slap them. Almost 63 euro to fill up the tank. If you don't know how much that is, go to a currency converter online and it will tell you.... about $9o!

I pull out my trusty mappy.com directions and we head to our hotel. So past the airport AGAIN and we arrive at Ibis. And by arrived at Ibis I mean the correct hotel chain, but wrong location. Thanks Mappy.com! So back in the car with the right directions and it takes us past the airport AGAIN. Good directions overall... (Side note: across from the wrong Ibis was a supermarket. We stocked up on some munchies.) We arrived safely, parked the car for 10 euro and crashed for about 2 or 3 hours. So what should have taken maybe 10 minutes had everything gone smooth after luggage was picked up... took about 4 to 5 hours. Nice... Clark W. Griswald has nothing on us! Check out my web album for a few pictures... Packing the night before, the shuttle buses, the supermarket, and the view from our room.

Oh and the bathroom is smaller than my cubicle at work. Off to dinner, we're starving! I'll blog again soon...