We both had to go to work that day so our "adventure" only began in the afternoon. Tom had been home before me and had prepared some late lunch. After lunch I quickly finished packing and we were all set to go to the airport. Even though it was the start of a holiday weekend we made it the airport without a problem.

I had tried to check us in the day before and had opted for seats that were together and got some seats quite a bit away from each other.  Well, both flights were only about 1 hour and I can sit through that on my own, but it is much easier to make time pass if you sit together. So since we had to check in our luggage anyway we just asked and got seats next to each other. 

We then went to the restaurant and had something to drink. While sitting there, EVERY flight from and to Germany was delayed because of bad weather. Well, our flight to Frankfurt was only 20 minutes late and we had plenty of time for the stop over, so we just laughed about it. The flight left 20 minutes late and landed in Frankfurt only 10 minutes late, our new gate was not too far from the arrival gate, but ......... surprise, surprise ..............the flight was delayed from 9.35 to 10.25. Arrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!! We had a rental car to pick up!!!!!!!!!!! Before midnight!!!!!!!!! So I told Tom that he had to pick up the car (he drives and needs to sign) while I would look after the luggage - happy thoughts!! When it came closer to 10 we got another message on our cellphone - further delay until 11.15!!!!!!!!!!!! Now we were really stuck. Well, our plane left at 11.45.                                                    The captain explained that they had cancelled flights into and out of Paris because of heavy thunderstorms and there was a chance we might encounter more thunderstorms during our flight! Well, he got a route around them in the end, but we did NOT arrive until 12.50am!!!!!!!!!!! Then we were in search of our luggage - all the flights for the next day were on the monitors, ours was nowhere - we went from belt to belt, no luck. About 20 minutes later they made an announcement that they finally had put it on belt one. We picked up our luggage, rental car office closed, so we were glad we had picked an airport hotel for the first night and headed out to take a cab. Seemed like every one else had had the same idea. There was the longest queue you have ever seen!

We joined the queue and while waiting for our turn we talked to some people from Salzburg who had to go to the Disneyland Resort by cab. We later found out that it had cost them 100 Euros (130 $!!) to get there. After what seemed forever it was our turn and we loaded everything into the cab. We had a rather unorganized driver, constantly asking for driving directions. While riding in the back seat we were wondering what that sound was, (hissing sound of air in open windows) but we were to busy explaining to the driver where he had to go! The cab was already on the motorway when another cab driver honked like mad to make the driver realize he hadn't closed the boot!! Luckily our luggage was still there! We paid the driver and were happy to get out of the car just to find the hotel closed, so we had to ring a bell to get the night staff out. They checked us in in no time at all and all we still did was getting ready for bed, fall into bed and go to sleep!! End of day 1 - THANK GOD!!! not much more I could have gone through.