The Hilton Garden Inn is still an awesome way to end the trip. No rushing, no worrying. Just get up, get breakfast, zip up and wander into the terminal.

I was rereading old holiday posts this morning. I think I’ve written a lot more this year: trying to be clever I guess. Maybe I will collect them all and add them to our picture book.

Breakfast at the hotel was expensive… it was a good buffet but really too much compared to what we’ve been spending. Back to the room and packed up we checked out before 11. A long wander through a huge airport and we found Hall C (different from Gate C) and tried to check in at the Kiosk: bzzzzzzzt! I wandered away to find customer assistance while the girls failed as well. The customer assistance people zoomed us through and we were without bags.

Frankfurt Airport is huge. A couple of malls, people milling every where, a nice looking lady trying to sell us an electric Opel… Eventually we wandered. Up to Lufthansa’s departure lounge and lounges for a bit. Carmen greased her toe smugly while I looked looked on despairingly. Dry toe… I suffer so.

Soon enough we decides to meander through security. In our way we what them call out flight to the gate even though we’re an hour and a half before our flight. Hmmmmm. We stop to get our passports stamped. The fellow in front of us is being told his passport doesn’t have an entry stamp. We quickly switch lines and he is still discussing it. I feel so sorry for him.

Security goes pretty damn fast, although they make us send our passports and boarding passes through the scanner; not sure I am jiggy with that. Leslie, bag got scanned twice but otherwise we were golden.

At the gate it turns out you need to get your documents pre-cleared before boarding can commence. Never had that happen before.

A couple of minutes before boarding they announce the flight is overbooked and they are offering up to 900 euros if you will catch the next available flight. I consider it as a pretend the ‘next available flight’ is 2 weeks from now. But alas it is not.

For an orderly society, this has to be one of the most confusing boardings I’ve ever had but eventually we were on board, only about 30 minutes or so late. We got bulkhead seats again which are great although a young women with her child split us up. She’s originally from Strasbourg and living in the University area in Edmonton. Her kid is pretty cute and well behaved considering so it’s not too much of a trial. I will say if I hadn’t had my own squirmy little shit disturber, I might have been more discomforted. But this one was a doll compared to Zak’s worst moments.

Mom is pretty French. Her English is better than my French, but she says it’s hard for her to learn as her husband’s friends are all French. Or at least that’s what I thought she said.

Movie 1: The Avengers. Not bad but it’s one of those dark action films, and by dark I mean they cheaped out on the special effects and most of the film is really dark. On a small screen in an airplane a lot of the film consisted of a black screen with sparks and crashy noises.

Movie 2: Pirates — Band of Misfits
Movie 3: Moneyball
Movie 4: Tropic Thunder

Off the plane and through customs. The nice custom people let us through without paying any extra duty on the booze. Everything went smoothly and we have about half an hour before our boarding.

Dash 8, dash to car, dash home…

Happy cats!