June 23-24: Flying to Europe

We left from O'Hare in the evening, so we left around 12 noon. It turned out there was a lot of traffic due to construction and then we wound up catching part of rush hour, so it was a really good thing we gave ourselves plenty of time! Knowing how long Charlotte was stuck in security the last time she came through O'Hare, we were actually getting a bit nervous, but the long term parking lot we parked in was really quick to shuttle us to the airport (shuttle was waiting) and security was so fast and smooth I couldn't believe it! We almost walked right through! So we still had plenty of time at the gate to walk around and wait.

Our plane, an Airbus 330

Airport selfie

Virgin Atlantic

Once we boarded the plane, Ben was so excited about the little kit of goodies on every seat, including slipper socks, an eye mask, toothbrush, and a little tiny single use toothpaste, which he thought was so cute!

Also, there was a personal entertainment system in every seat with a large variety of movies, TV shows, music and more to chose from. Alex and I watched the movie Pan, I am not sure what all Ben watched. The food was good (we had a choice of 3 entrees), and the soft drinks, beer, wine and cocktails were free, too! You can guess who drank what...

Unfortunately, I had been trying to fight off cold symptoms for a couple of days. Tuesday night I had a sore throat, Wednesday, I felt much better, so Thursday, I thought maybe I was not getting sick after all. Well, a sleepless night in a dry airplane does not help a cold in the least. :( My nose got so stuffy I could not breathe through it, breathing through my mouth made my throat hurt and made me cough ... despite my best efforts there was no way to get comfortable enough to sleep. When we got to London Heathrow at what felt like 2 am, Alex was the only one who had slept (maybe an hour or so).
There, we had to take a shuttle bus to a different terminal, and stand in long security lines.

We had a 4 hour layover, but again, even stretching out on several adjacent seats, sleep was elusive. Ben and Daryl got a few snippets here and there.

Of course, London, even more so than the rest of the world, was abuzz with the news of "Brexit". Honestly, I was too tired and too sick to care much about it. Only later did we think about the implications on the stock market worldwide. :(

The flight from London to Brussels was uneventful, less than an hour. The weather was clear and beautiful everywhere we were that day. We arrived at the airport, found my checked bag quickly on the luggage belt, went through passport control quickly and found our rental car without a hitch. It is a diesel Opel Mokka and includes a built in navigation system, which is nice. When we first left the airport it was difficult to figure out, since it was different than the one we are used to, but after a few wrong turns, we eventually got on track. Unfortunately it was about rush hour time and we got in some pretty heavy traffic leaving the city. After that it was pretty smooth driving to my Dad's in Germany. Daryl really only got tired for the last half hour or so and then pretty soon we crossed into Germany and being on the autobahn made him alert again!

Soon after we arrived, we had a power failure here, but after cooking spaghetti on the wood burning oven and eating supper, we got it back! Gill had prepared Bolognese sauce for us and baked a chocolate cake. Apparently there were severe storms here over night the night before, including large hail, which broke the windshield of her car, so she was unable to be here. After some tea more tea, I finally went to bed around 8 pm here. Even though I was exhausted, I could not sleep until about midnight German time. I guess even after skipping a night, my body was still telling me it's only mid-afternoon, not time to sleep. Plus the cold symptoms made it difficult. After finally falling asleep, I did sleep until about 10 this morning and felt MUCH better today!