Notes from the Treehouse: Trip To Germany

The traveling was going to be the easy part. I had already traveled to Germany with Vivian twice. The second trip (previously known as "flight from hell", now known as "well, that wasn't sooo bad") took 30 hrs, such a freakish delay would never happen again. The kids had just proven on a trip to Virginia that they are good travelers even when strapped in a car seat with no easy access to entertainment via their parents. Delta had added a flight from Pittsburgh to Paris, leaving us with just one plane change. Easy peasy.

Can you hear Karma laughing out loud as I type this? Here's what really happened.

Plan

Dec 22, 2.30pm. Leave house to pick up kids from daycare and head to airport
Dec 22, 6.20pm. Depart Pittsburgh
Dec 23, 8.20am. Arrive Paris
Dec 23, 9.45am. Depart Paris
Dec 23, 11.20am. Arrive Hannover to be picked up by Mutti with the car
Dec 23, 2.00pm. Arrive in Sennestadt
Total travel time door to door: 17.5 hrs

Actual

Dec 22, 2.30pm. Leave house to pick up kids from daycare and head to airport
Dec 22, 6.20pm. Depart Pittsburgh
Dec 23, 8.20am. Arrive Paris (so far, so good)
Dec 23, 9.45am. Flight canceled. Rebooked for 1.25pm
Dec 23, 1.25pm. Flight overbooked. Bumped from flight. Rebooked for 7.35am next morning
Check into hotel at the airport
Dec 24, 7.35am. Flight canceled. Rebooked for 1.25pm
Dec 24, 1.25pm. Flight canceled. Booked on train to Koeln
Dec 24, 4pm. Train delayed. Go to eat something
Dec 24, 5pm. Train missed. Ooops
Dec 24, 6.20pm. Next train. Depart for Cologne
Dec 24, 11.00pm. Arrive Cologne. Too late to continue to Bielefeld
Check into hotel at the train station
Dec 25, 9.20am. Depart Cologne
Dec 25, 10.15am. Arrive Hamm
Dec 25, 11.00am. Depart Hamm
Dec 25, 11.45am. Arrive Bielefeld to be picked up by Mutti with car
Dec 25, 12.30pm. Arrive in Sennestadt. Hallelujah!
Total travel time door to door: 64.0 hrs

I had a much longer post started with more of the details, but that would've turned into a book. Suffice it to say the kids held up remarkably well and the train travel was made much easier by the fact that our luggage was MIA at the airport so didn't need to be lugged around. As a sidenote, we never did get the luggage back while we were in Germany, it was delivered back to us in Pittsburgh more than a week after our return. As I am typing this, there's a box full of Christmas presents on my desk, waiting to be taken to the post office to be mailed to Germany...

Here are some pictures we took during the trip. Really, the only time we even contemplated taking photos was when the kids were sleeping somewhere. Note that some of these are from our cell phones, so the quality isn't always as good.