The Trip: Day 1

Now that we're here and emerging from 'survival mode', we can start to laugh about some of the experiences we've had over the past 5 days.

The trip over here went surprisingly well considering we were in the air for 18+ hours with two little guys who are used to being rambunctious and loud.

The flight from GR to Chicago went perfect. Noah asked me no less that 30 times if we were flying yet before we had even left the gate. Him and Micah fell asleep about 10 minutes after take-off.

At Chicago we got from gate to gate without incident. There was a United Red Carpet Club right at our departure gate (I'm sure all of the business people were thrilled to see us enter). We hung out in there until the flight was ready to board, watching Noah go up and down the escalator over and over until one of the airline reps got a little snippy about it. I gave her some suggestions about how she could actually be helpful to me, but she didn't seem interested so the conversation ended there.

When it was time to board the flight from ORD to FRA we got in the business class lane and passed up the huge economy class line (which is an unbelievable perk when you're shepherding two kids). Just before handing our tickets to the airline rep, Noah piped up with "We're gettin' on an airplane. Woohoooo!" loud enough to be heard 20 feet away. He got a few laughs and a few annoyed looks.

On the flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, the boys were awake for the first half, and slept for the second 4 or 5 hours. We dosed them with Benadryl to try and speed up the process, but that seemed to put them in more of a trance than put them to sleep. We decided against that for the second leg.

The first half of the flight was fairly uneventful. Noah played with his Leapster and watched Wall-E on the in-flight entertainment system. After Wall-E he watched some old Disney cartoons and did a lot belly laughing. It sounded really out of place in the quiet business class area, but he did get quite a few laughs from the flight attendants.

Micah refused to wear the headphones but watched Wall-E sans-sound anyway, letting out pitched "Wawweee" yells every 10 or 15 minutes.

We were a little concerned about Noah and Micah becoming dehydrated, so we fed them juice and milk as fast as they could drink it. Not surprisingly (in hindsight), when Micah fell asleep he wet through his diaper and right onto the seat. So if you're ever on the 10:15am Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, I recommend avoiding seat 15A.

When we got to Frankfurt we waited for everyone to leave the plane since the boys were sleeping. We then collected our belongings and exited the plane, picking up the stroller on the walkway. Of course, the elevator to get to the main level was not operating, so we had to balance two kids, a stroller, and 4 carry on bags up two escalators.

Current Stress Level: Low

When we got to the baggage claim we collected our 8 carry on bags, 4 of which were overweight, with one pushing 75 lbs, and found that they wouldn't fit on a single baggage cart. Solution? Two baggage carts! Problem? Two adults to manage two 250 lb baggage carts to push, one stroller, and two little boys. We strapped the kids in the stroller (against their wishes), and Luanne pushed one cart and pulled on roller bag while I pushed the other cart and pulled the stroller behind me.

Current Stress Level: Medium

We got through customs just fine. It was early in the morning and there wasn't a line. When we got to the arrival area and started looking for a cab, we quickly sized up the situation and decided that there wasn't a cab big enough to carry all our bags, the stroller, and the four of us. Calling the hotel we found that they had no shuttle service. Talking to another hotel shuttle driver we found that our best solution was to hire two cabs. He warned us that they would see us coming and really stick it to us in cab fare. I mean REALLY stick it to us.

Current Stress Level: Medium

I decided to go into the airport and see if I could find the transportation desk and hire a van instead. So I left Luanne with the two baggage carts, one stroller, and two kids standing on the sidewalk and made my way back inside. Not 40 feet into the hallway I came across a luggage storage service run by airport security. Speaking with the attendant, I found they charged five Euro's per day per bag, which I thought was great value considering I would have paid 50 at that point. I went back, collected Luanne and the boys, and we checked six of our eight checked bags which left us with two big suitcases, a stroller, and four carry-ons. Much more manageable.

Current Stress Level: Low

We still needed a SUV or minivan to get all our things to the hotel, and we found one pretty quickly. The driver was a nice older German man who loaded all our bags and took us to the Holiday Inn in Frankfurt for the sum of 30 Euros. Check in was easy. We stayed on the 15th floor with a balcony that overlooked the city and sprawling greater metropolitan area. After unpacking and finding out that every bottle of water in the place was either mineral or sparkling water, we huddled around one of the small bottles we had taken off the airplane and split it four ways.

It was about 10:00am at that point, and we decided to have a quick two hour nap to take the edge off (both for us and the boys). We set our alarms, put Micah in the pack-and-play they provided, closed the shades, and that was it. Six hours later Luanne and I woke up. Realizing the time, we turned our attention to getting the boys out of bed and getting out of the room for some fresh air and dinner. Over loud protests and crying, I convinced Luanne to get out of bed and get the boys ready. Actually it was the boys who were crying and fussing, but it could just as easily have been Luanne.

It was cold in Frankfurt and we were underdressed. We have long sleeve shirts on with vests for coats. It was kind of a compromise to keep from having to wrestle heavy coats the whole trip. We covered the boys with their blankets in the stroller, and set off to find both the old town of Frankfurt and a small area famous for something the Germans call Apfelwein - essentially Apple Wine or Apple Beer.

All said and done, we probably walked about 3 or 4 miles. It seems that we completely circled the old town without ever actually entering it, but we saw some great sights and got some much-needed exercise as well. We ended up returning to the hotel to eat, and had a great meal of Schnitzel and Apfelwein at the Pub on the main floor. Interestingly, the Apfelwein tasted eerily similar to some swill that I brewed up about 3 years ago from apple cider with a ton of honey and brown sugar. People who have tasted it never ask for more, and I can't seem to give it away for the life of me. The Apfelwein was definitely similar, but better tasting (the second was better than the first, the third better than the second, and so on).

We went back to the hotel and room and putzed around a bit, watching a little CNN and playing with the kids. There was very little sleep that night. The nap was a big mistake, and the kids were up at about 1:00am. We finally got them down for about 2 hours before we had to get up to get breakfast and our flight. Breakfast was awesome with everything from scrambled eggs to bagels and lox to black forest ham. Micah ate 8 sausages (really) plus some bacon and potatoes before we had to drag him away to catch our cab.

Back at the airport check-in was very uneventful. There was no line for business class and no hassle getting the bags from the security storage or checking them in. Frankfurt had a great little perk with a separate line for families going through security. We bypassed about 30 minutes worth of line-waiting and kid-wrangling and made our way to the lounge.

We found a table in the lounge and set our bags down. It was a real sideshow, of course, since we were the only people there with little kids we were the center of attention. We took Micah out of the front of the stroller and set him down on a chair. The stroller is designed such that it is unbalanced with one child in the rear seat, especially if they weigh 30+ lbs. So of course, as soon as we set Micah down the whole stroller flipped over backwards with Noah in the rear, making an awful clatter as our stuff fell out all over the floor.

All eyes were on us, and the terrible silence that followed was only broken when Noah let out a wail and screamed "My head! My head!". Luanne and I were trying to act very normal, casually dragging our screaming child out of the train wreck of a stroller and collecting our things off the floor. I think we did a pretty good job.

Next: 9 hours in the air, arrival at Chennai International Airport, and the CSL (current stress level) hits high.