My husband is a Lutheran and I had told him a couple of years ago, that this year would be a good year to visit Germany. The only problem was that he was to host an international conference this summer in Orlando. Going before the conference was out of the question and there was not a lot of time after the conference and before his school year at the university would start up.
I mentioned the trip idea again in March of 2016 and he expressed an interest. I started researching online. The German railway had put together a package of train trips and hotels. This seemed promising until I remembered how difficult it had been to drag luggage down the street over 15 years ago and realized that my knees would not be helpful. Plus, I'd have to get tickets to all the special places and that could be tough. I started looking for package tours and quickly discovered one from Globus that seemed nigh on to perfect. I'd traveled with Globus, when I took a trip to Germany as a college graduation gift to myself. The tour promised good hotels, wifi in most of them, wine or beer with dinner (!), and somebody to haul that luggage. Best of all, they were offering one departure that fit in the sweet spot after his conference and before school. It was like it was meant to be. I showed him the trip and he liked it, but we gave ourselves a couple of weeks to mull it over. Even though it was so far off, we booked it by the end of the month, because we worried that it would fill up sooner than later.
The final payment was due in June, 2017 and I started saying, "I'm being a good Catholic wife and taking my Lutheran husband on a trip to Germany for the 500th anniversary of Luther's theses". It always brought a laugh. We decided to let Globus find flights for us and we pre-paid our tips, so as not to have to worry about having enough cash for them at the end of the trip. They offered two optional excursions. The first was a trip to a German beer hall for dinner and it cost $59, which was insane. We've been to those and, if we wanted to go again, we could do it cheaper on our own. The other was to Schloss Linderhof, the only one of Ludwig's Bavarian castles that he finished. It was $49. Even though I'd been there, I really wanted my husband to see it, so we booked it, too.
His conference was an exhausting week. He finished on Sunday and we were leaving Tuesday. I was all packed by the time he got back, so I was able to be a bit calmer for those couple of days.
As is my wont, I'd been working on changing my body clock. Each day, I got up a half hour earlier. On departure day, this meant 3:30. It let me get on the exercise bike and shower. I had thought about a walk, but it was way too dark for that. My husband also got up at that time, even though he hadn't been moving his clock forward.
At 7:30, a friend of his from work picked us up and delivered us in 40 minutes to Orlando International. In ten minutes, we'd finished checking in our bags at the United desk. Since we had time, and my husband was hungry, we had our second breakfast at McDonald's in the food court. I have their app, so I used it to do a buy 1 get 1 of the Egg White Delight. He wanted hotcakes,too. We wound up splitting all of it. Discover is doing extra cash back on restaurants, so I figure I saved even more money using my card.
We both have TSA Pre-Check and got in that line at 9:05. I particularly like that I don't have to pull out my CPAP machine for that line. We were through security in just 6 minutes and on our way out to the gate.
An hour later, we were seated on flight United 1922 in seats 30 E and F, which I'd had to fix the day before at check-in, when I saw they'd put him in 30F with E empty and me back at 34C. We'd been seated for 30 minutes before we pushed back from the gate, but we took off just 5 minutes later at 10:45.
I dozed off for a while, which was unsurprising. They gave us snacks and drinks, even though it was only a two-hour flight to Newark. I was thrilled to recognize the Chesapeake Bay (home!) as we flew over.
We had plenty of time to kill. So, we watched planes from the end of the terminal and explored the food offerings in the food court called Global Bazaar and elsewhere. At 2, we finally decided we needed to eat lunch. The Global Bazaar seemed our best bet. From Custom Burgers, I ordered a chocolate shake for $5.75, a terrible price, but there you go. At Philly Supreme, we ordered crinkle fries ($3.75), Chicken Cheesesteak with provolone for me ($9.50) and Mushroom Cheesesteak with provolone ($9.79) for him. He also picked up a ginger ale. We soon found out that you have to go pay at the automated cashier before you get your food. I came to believe that they don't even start making the food until you pay. My husband went off to find a seat, while I awaited the food. A foreigner asked me about where to pay with cash and I helped him find a clerk to help him.
The food was good, but not overly exciting. I like dessert, so my husband went off to find something for me. I didn't give directions, just said to surprise me. This is what he got from Melange Bakery:
There were pads on the table, from which you could order food from a nearby restaurant. You could also read the news, which we did. Words with Friends and Facebook also helped to pass the time. My husband also read more of Rick Steve's Germany book that I'd gotten him for Christmas.
They were doing construction on the terminal and this is the incredibly small gate area they allowed for our international flight:
Finally, at 5:15, we were seated in 30A and B on United 962 to Berlin Tegel. Seat C was across the aisle, so we had our own little space. I cleaned the surfaces with anti-bacterial hand sanitizer, as I always do.
Push back was at 5:45 and we didn't take off until 6:19. My husband proceeded to immediately put on his sleep mask and settle in to sleep. It is an ability of his that I hate.
I watched the bizarre Grand Budapest Hotel, while eating a dinner of creamy chicken and quinoa, with salad, along with a glass of wine and Coke Zero. I have the weird ability to fall asleep after drinking Coke, in spite of the caffeine. In fact, I think sometimes, that it is because of the caffeine.
After the movie, I tried very hard to go to sleep. You'd think it would have been easy, having gotten up so early. I just don't sleep well on a plane.
But, we're on our way!
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