Today we’re on a train back to the Duesseldorf airport. It’s a very full train with lots of young people. it’s 7am on a sunday morning and it seems like all of the teenage girls that were standing in front of our hotel are now mobbing the train.

I had a Turkish pizza this morning at the Koln/Dom Hauptbahnhof so my breath smells like fetid rotting flesh.

We checked flight loads last night and they look good for a uneventful flight back to the United States.

Flying back is always the hard part because the flight from Europe to the US is a little longer, there’s always clearing customs in Atlanta which is a pain in the ass along with all of the paperwork and the agony of seeing a apathetic customs agent stamp your passport incorrectly.

“Anywhere, just anywhere is fine, yeah that’s it, just stamp it right over my picture, thanks so much”

We purchased quite a bit of wine at the wine festival in Altmarkt, but Christian brought us an entire case of Swiss wine, chocolate and cheese so my rollaboard is at least 100 lbs. So we’ve reached our record of 23 bottles of wine.

The only problem is that carrying so much wine back to the United States means carrying the bags on and off U-bahns and S-bahns and deadlifting hundreds of pounds four times into an overhead bin (one connection in Atlanta and two bags of swag). So the loot sounds great, but 14 hours of combined flying in addition from a 22-hour time from getting up in the hotel in Cologne to arriving home in Arizona is going to mean sore muscles and an aching back.

The Pink Shoes.

Kristie likes to wear comfortable, but business-friendly sandals, but the Germans are very strict in terms of dress code.

A few years ago, I was wearing my uniform pants and a pullover sweater trying to fly back from Frankfurt to the United States. Since I was wearing a non-collared shirt, the gate agent almost denied me boarding. It took some humility a little negotiating but I was able to finally get a seat on the flight.

But this afternoon, an agent in Duesseldorf said something unintelligible in German then said, “I must see your clothing”. Apparently, I passed the “test” of sorts in able to sit in the business elite cabin, but apparently Kristie’s shoes weren’t to specification because they were open-toed sandals. She could still make the flight but didn’t fit the Duesseldorf standard for seating in business elite.

As long as Kristie would show up to the gate with proper footwear, we could get her into the business cabin.

“We’ll get shoes no problem.”

I had NO idea how we were going to make this work.

A ride home is a ride home after a long weekend of being away from home, but I figured there’s no use for us BOTH to sit back in steerage because of Kristie’s shoes. Well, I know she’ll be on the flight, but if I’ve got my shirt tucked in and wearing my Doc Marten uniform shoes, well, to dress what I consider to be formal attire and sit in back would just be doofus.

As we turn the corner from around the ticket counter after checking in and promising, somehow to find proper footwear was a tie shoe which had an assortment of footwear for women at the bargain price of 20 Euros. The only pair that fit were these bright pink shoes, from China, that had a floral print. Naturally they did not match her outfit, but as gaudy as they were, they were acceptable for business class travel. I didn’t mind spending 20 euro because I have a pocketful of Euro because out German friends wouldn’t allow us to spend a dime during the time we spent with them.

One of the biggest pain the asses with travel back to the United States is that you have to answer a flurry of questions like:

“Who packed these bags?”

“Where have these items been?”

“Where did you pack these bags?”

“How did you get here?”

“Where were the bags when you were (flying/riding a train/taking a taxi) to this airport?”

Then you finally arrive at the ticket counter, and the questions start all over again.

But wait! You’re not done. You go through the EU (European Union Passport Control) which isn’t bad, but then you take off your shoes, empty your pockets, remove your laptop, take off your belt and shoes to go through the scanner and metal detector.

You walk no more than about 20 yards towards the gate, and you literally have to repeat the entire shoes-off, belt-off, laptop-out, pocket-emptying, physical hand wand all over again.

Yes, quite often you’re close enough to the last checkpoint to almost spit on the previous security personnel, but you’re scanned a second time.

Then you finally arrive at the gate to wait for your name to clear the standby list.

The flight home, so far, has been uneventful, but my arms are still aching from lifting two carry on bags filled quite literally “to the brim” with wine and chocolate.

Lunch has already been finished and “Brokeback Mountain” just finished as well. Kristie’s taking a nap and I’m typing away at the laptop enjoying a nice, lukewarm viognier listening to Sarah McLachlan.

Arrival in Atlanta. What a mess. Twenty-five customs agents standing around, another twenty-five working. Once we’re finally next, they close the entire area, and send us all to the another area because of a shift change.

A shift change just as the big international arrival surge begins.

Long story short, it’s good to be home.

Our friends are going to drive us from Cologne to a town near Essen where one of them is from. Apparently it’s a very small town but Kristie and I have a eye for adventure so we’ll see. It’s apparently a small village with only a few thousand people.

This was our first drive on the Autobahn and I had no idea how fast we were going until I heard the engine rev slightly. I have to say that it was very exciting because I haven’t been in a car which was driving that fast before.

The rules are steadfast. Only pass on the left, obey posted limits where specified and keep a proper distance from the automobile in front of you.

Our new friend Walker is from a small village of only a thousand or so people. As he was visiting family, who spoke no English so everything was a rough translation because Christian spoke the best English, but he’d speak to Valker in Swiss-German and then Valker would translate from Swiss German to the regional dialect that his parents spoke.

The dialect was so regional that Christian, a native Swiss-German speaker could not understand the words of Valker’s parents when they spoke.

During Valker’s visit with his parents, we went to tour an old castle near town, enjoy a cup of coffee and drove to a gigantic mall.

I think Kristie learned a valuable lesson that day. Gay people shop just like women so when she’d complain, “Is he still looking for a pair of jeans?” I’d remind her that those are the same things that guys go through when their wives would shop a little too long.

We met later with one of Valker’s friends who took us to a restaurant for a regional seasonable specialty, “Spargel”.

Spargel are basically giant white asparagus served over schnitzel and topped with a bernaise or hollandaise sauce. It was very good and I’d highly suggest the dish if you’re at a restaurant or a home where they know how to prepare it properly! The only problem I have with asparagus is that it makes my pee smell like an electrical fire! Too much information.

After sharing a few glasses of wine and finishing dinner, Valker and Christian drove us back to our hotel in Cologne.

Here’s the interesting part, there was an onslaught of teenaged girls at the entrance of the hotel. We discovered that they were awaiting the arrival of “Tokyo Hotel” who was, in fact, staying at our hotel. According to our friends, it’s a popular band in Germany, Switzerland and Austria but they haven’t had an English language hit yet.

I found it funny when we stopped by the hospitality room for our floor that one of the bodyguards peeked through the door to check us out. I really wanted to say, “I have no idea who the hell Tokyo Hotel is so we’re not a threat, dingleberry.”

So here I sit, typing away at the blog and Kristie is slowly showing signs of life at noon. It’s raining again this morning so she’s not missing much.

We eventually got out of the room after an extended nap — staying up until daybreak partying with a bunch of Canadians isn’t conducive to getting up early in the morning.

It was windy and rainy so we took a short cut through the Dom cathedral enroute to “Altmarkt” which is “Old Market”. “Dom” is the most striking symbol of Cologne with it’s high spires and gothic construction. It was one of the few structures to survive world war two. Some stay that it survived because of it’s massive size and importance, others say it lasted the bombing campaign because it was a visual checkpoint at which allied bombers would use.

Today we traveled down to a store which sells nutcrackers and other assorted Christmas items to find a gift for our families. This particular store is pretty good because they’ll ship large items to the United States for a reasonable cost and it certainly beats trying to schlep awkward sized boxes of fragile items thousands of miles.

Tonight, we dined at the Haxenhaus which has an wide variety of the same dish. Schweinhaxe (pork shank), sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. The restaraunt is set up like a beer hall. Sets of long wooden tables with common seating. You more or less pick a couple of open spots at the table and belly up for food and drink.

We also attended a wine festival in the Altmarkt after dinner. There were representatives offering samples of a wide variety of regional wines. Germany is mostly known for white wine: Spatlese, “Ice Wine”, riesling, etc and the prices, as with the rest of Europe, are extraordinary. A very good wine may cost less than €5 in Europe whereas a bottle of “Gallo” may cost $9 in the United States.

Some of our friends are driving up from Switzerland and we decide to meet them back at the Haxenhaus which has transformed itself from a restaurant to a beer hall.

It’s interesting because a lot of the songs they’re playing are obviously drinking songs which you sing along to if you know the words, but they have a strong reaction to older American music — they apparently love it.

Long story long, yet another night of broken English, broken German and lots of beer drinking with the locals and our friends from Switzerland.

And a late night snack of Turkish pizza. Yum!

About an hour from landing, usually somewhere over Ireland, they’ll serve breakfast. 99.9% of the time, you have a choice between cereal with fruit or a cheese omelet with sausage and potatoes.

A few years ago, we had an extraordinarily loud flight attendant on a flight to Paris that during breakfast, all we heard was “FRITATTA? FRITATTA? FRITATTA? All out of cereal, FRITATTA?” Aeigh. Obnoxious!

The airport in Duesseldorf is modern and efficient. The long distance trains are seperate from the airport so we have to ride a shuttle bus to the DB station.

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A lot of the automatic ticket machines only take electronic cash cards so you’ll probably have to use the reservation desk in order to purchase a ticket.

This was our first exposure to this trip’s “Ugly American”. There were older gentleman that we upset that that the line was so long (well, there were four people in front of him, two of them were us) and was telling his travel companion that he was going to leave the line in order to find someone to complain to.

People are often cranky getting off of an airplane and I really got the impression that these two gentleman were looking for more of a “Disney” experience. Large, easy to understand signs in English. Large populations of western Germany do, in fact, speak English, but sometimes people forget that they’re in a foreign land with their own sets of customs and language — If you want things to work in Europe the way they do in Michigan, well, do yourself a favor and stay in Michigan.

There are interesting assortments of people. Old, young, tall, short. Some look like the stereotypical German you’d see in the movies and Volkswagen commercials, others resemble the quiet neighbor down the street that you occasionally see at the grocery store.

The train ride is fast and quiet. There are people in groups traveling together, but they speak very softly. Pretty much the only sounds on the train ride to Cologne are the rails, the light grumble of the engine and the “WHOP!” noise when the air pressure bangs against the doors when doing through a tunnel.

It’s raining but luckily we have been to Cologne before so the need to hit a bunch of tourist spots is low so we’re able to check into the hotel and head back out for some basic lunch.

Today is actually a German holiday which more or less translates to “Ascention” so most of everything is closed for the day except for a “Doner Kebab” shop. It is basically a Turkish gyro sandwich with a lot of strange pickled vegetables on top of it.

A little later on in the day, we fell into the “nap trap”. Around three some of the jet lag started to rear it’s ugly head so we made a decision to take a short two hour breather. Now a short, two-hour breather on your first day in country always, without a doubt, becomes a five hour event which will screw up your sleep pattern for days on end.

That, of course, lead to a late night meal with lots of Kolsch beer at a pub named Paffgen where I ordered a Schweinhaxen and Kristie decided to be adventurous and order something else. Our table mates tried to explain to her what she was ordering and we both interpreted that as “rump roast” but it turned out to be stewed kidneys.

But she was a trooper and actually ate it.

We ventured out to the Paulaner Brauhaus for a few after dinner beers where Kristie had a few Paulaner Salvators and I weissbier. But the crush came a little later on where we met a group of Canadians that were wandering about Europe on an extended bachelor party with their brother. That ended up being a laugh, joke, drinking fest until about 4am in the morning.

Departing home at 4:30am means that Kristie needs to wake up at 3:00am in order to get all of those ‘girlie’ things done and I’ll usually drag out of bed about 4:00am.

The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. Long, boring, rode in the back by the engine. Considering that we were working off of not much sleep it was actually a good opportunity to get some shut eye before arriving in Georgia.

We landed about 1pm and our flight to Dusseldorf depart until 4:15pm.

The loads are high, oversold in coach with some seats available in business elite. Looking at the standby list, there are a bevvy of buddy passes and a few people senior to me so we stand a great chance at flying in the Business Elite cabin.

We’re celebrating both vacation and our anniversary so we decided after a little “I don’t care, what do YOU want to do?” and decided to have a beer and snack.

This sounds bigoted, but nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing happens in Atlanta in an orderly fashion.

The restaurant was moderately busy, but 15 minutes for a beverage and another 45 minutes for our food to arrive, cold, was ridiculous. Sadly, even for a full service restaurant, I still had to go to the bar to get my own water, go into the area near the kitchen for my own silverware and had to track down my own napkins.

Our waitress even “thanked me”.

I just want to eat my cold chicken sandwich and enjoy my lukewarm, skunked beer.

A beer, a glass of wine and two chicken sandwiches. $38 for a total of almost 90 minutes wasted. Avoid “Images” restaurant in the E-Concourse like the plague.

We used a higher priority pass so e were given two seats in business elite.

Basically, an international business elite flight is like this. You have almost fully-flat seats which are electronically controlled, a personal television monitor, a case with toothpaste, a toothbrush, basic toiletry items, a pen and paper, ‘cabin socks’ (basically, you can put these on over your bare feet or socks after you take off your shoes, an eye patch (whatever they’re called) and various other items.

You’re served either orange juice, champagne, or a mimosa (a combination of the two). In flight, you’re served warmed mixed nuts and another cocktail service, follwed by an appetizer (prawns, blackened chicken and ‘other’). After that, you’re served the main course which you’ve chosen from the menu during boarding.

Kristie and I both chose the duck, but she had the salad and I chose the roasted vegetable soup.

After the dinner course, they serve a cheese course and a made to order ice cream sundae.

Usually the night before the trip there reaches a point where you stop worrying about the loads and realize that flying standby has no guarantees.

The best method that we’ve found is picking a city, researching a “Plan A” or a “Plan B” in case we’re not able to get to the primary city. For example, tomorrow we’re planning on flying from Atlanta to Dusseldorf, Germany and if we’re not able to get on the flight, we can still fly into Frankfurt or Stuttgart and train up to the city of Cologne where we’ve booked a hotel.

Speaking of hotels, this is the interesting part. We usually use a mix of looking at the crew hotels and asking about airline discounts, the internet and travel guides. We’ve found a lot of success picking a hotel chair or two and sticking with those in most cities in order to build reward points and free upgrades to larger and better rooms.

In Cologne, Kristie has booked the Rennassaince hotel. We stayed at a similar hotel in Brussels and found it attractive because of friendly service, an executive lounge with cocktails and snacks and a espresso bar.

We actually end up staying up late from doing last minute things around the house and get to bed around midnight.

Our flight from Phoenix to Atlanta leaves at 6:15am. Departing at 6:15 means leaving the house about 4:30am in order to arrive with sufficient time to park the car and stand in line in the terminal for international check-in.