Day 1, August 14
A perfect start to an unexpected trip! - Part 1
The year
leading up to our vacation we had not dreamt about being able to
pull off another trip this summer, but when some things fell into
place, it started to look good for a Florida summer vacation.
And a few
weeks later everything was booked and we were starting to make
adjustments ….
And here
we were. Finally the day we were to leave had dawned.
We got up
around 7am, took showers and had some breakfast of leftovers to
empty out the fridge. We then got our luggage ready, closed up the
house and waited for the taxi to arrive.
Didn’t
take long and it arrived and the luggage got loaded into the boot
and onto the back seat and off we went. It’s only a 20 minute drive
and soon we found ourselves at the airport, rolling in our luggage
to send it on its way. Luckily the check-in counter to drop off
luggage was empty and within two minutes all of our luggage was on
its way to Florida.
We got
some money from the ATM before heading through security and after
that we still had time to stroll through the tiny Duty Free shop,
before we found two seats and waited for our plane to arrive.

A few
minutes later it rolled in, passengers were disembarking and soon it
was our turn to get on board. Right when we boarded we were handed
some snacks to enjoy during our flight. We found our seats and got
buckled in

and soon
they closed the doors and our plane started moving. It’s a pretty
short flight

and it
didn’t take long for the flight attendants to start serving drinks.
Tom had asked for some beer and was served a


Birra
Dolomiti, which he enjoyed. I had asked for some Coke and tried the
snack we had been handed,

Mini Corn
Snacks, flavoured with Rosemary, but unfortunately they tasted like
Rosemary cardboard and only one of them got eaten. I looked out the
window for a while and soon we were descending onto Frankfurt
Airport.


We had
about two hours until our connecting flight, so there was no need to
rush once we got off the bus that had taken us from the plane to the
airport. The planes we fly in on are rather small and so are parked
pretty far from the actual terminal. Once in the terminal we checked
if the departure gate had changed and then started our trek over
there. We needed to go through passport control and for once that
European passport really paid off, as there were only a handful of
people queueing up in the EU self serve line and the regular line
was long. We walked over to the Z-area of the airport and stopped at
the Duty Free store to look around and Tom found some Whiskey he
wanted to buy and I had found some perfume which we bought, stored
in Tom’s on board case and then we walked further on.
When we
passed a bakery we decided to get a snack as we had thrown out the
cardboard corn snack. The line in front of the bakery counter was
long, but soon it was our turn and we picked up our goodies, then
found a rather empty gate where we sat down and enjoyed our
flatbreads. We had decided to share a Diet Coke and the two
flatbreads we had bought, one that was topped with halved
Frankfurter Sausages, which are kind of hotdogs and lots of cheese

and one
that was topped with Lardons and cheese.

We ripped
them in half and they were so good. By now it was past noon and it
was time for us to head to our gate. One more check of ID and we
were hiking down to one of the last gates in the area. It was close
to boarding, so we got in line right away and about 10 minutes later
the gates opened and we were allowed to get on board. We had booked
Premium Economy seats, so they were pretty much right at the
beginning of the aisle. Tom stowed our hand luggage and then we sat
down and buckled in

and
watched the stream of people boarding. Once everyone was seated we
were served some

Orange,
Mango and mint juice as a welcome drink. This was the time when we
noticed that the family in the row in front of us was behaving
rather strange. Two of their kids in the row behind them were all
over the seats, the husband didn’t seem to care and the wife was
covering one of the kids in her row with a blanket. Little did we
know that the family would be the reason for some uncomfortable
times on that flight. We departed a few minutes late, but once we
had taken off

and
reached cruising altitude we were in for more snacks and drinks.
First off, we were handed some small bags of

Pretzels
and Crackers and then it was time for drinks. Tom had another beer,
a Warsteiner this time, while I stuck with Coke.
And while
we enjoyed drinks and snacks we checked out the entertainment on
board. And it was then that the woman and mother to the four kiddos
started to get antsy and when she realized that her husband had
dozed off, she proceeded to lean on his seat and pushed it back so
hard that it came to a halt with a bang. It was like she had pushed
him into Tom’s lap, as Tom’s personal space was kind of gone. We
looked at each other, Tom had to push his seat back a bit as well,
but it was still uncomfortable.
About two
hours into the flight and an hour into uncomfortable sitting for
Tom, they were starting to hand out lunch. We hoped that the guy in
front of Tom would wake up, but nope and Tom had to eat his lunch
scrunched in.

They had
handed out menus beforehand, so we knew what to expect and we both
had chosen the same meal.
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