Tuesday - March 15, 2022
After many months of planning, we head to Europe again. We had booked the trip hoping that COVID would be over (spoiler: it was not), and during the Omicron surge in January contemplated cancelling, since I purchased everything refundable and/or insured, but as it appeared that COVID was getting better in March (spoiler again: not by much), we opted to go forward with the trip.
Our flight to Dallas Fort Worth where we would catch our flight to Frankfurt was at 8 am, so we were picked up at 5 am from my house. We trooped out like zombies, and with remarkably little traffic at 5 am on a Tuesday morning, were at LAX well before 6 am. As we didn't have lounge access (sobbing) and the AMEX Centurion lounge was not only too far, but closed, we sat at a nearby gate that had MUCH less people than those in front of ours and played on our phones/read for over two hours before we could board our flight.
The flight to DFW was a quick and uneventful 3 hour hop - since neither of us got much sleep the night before, we all nodded off. We arrived in DFW with a 3 hour layover - but first, we had to change terminals. They have the Skylink tram that takes you between terminals and I'm super jealous since LAX is a tramless sad hot mess. We bopped over from Terminal C to Terminal D (only a quick and efficient tram ride away! Are you listening LAX?), where our flight to Frankfurt was departing from and headed for the Centurion lounge to grab some food since we're cheapasses.
We arrived just in time for lunch, and while the lounge was crowded (so crowded), we found 2 tables for two next to each other in the dining area and sat down to suck down some liquids (we didn't take off our masks on the plane at all and we were soooooo thirsty. My mouth felt like the Sahara) and got plates of food. I remember there being some kind of chicken in sauce, salad, mushroom pilaf, and broccolini - the food was simple but tasty and filling. For dessert there were a variety of cookies (chocolate and oatmeal raisin. Raisins...ruining oatmeal cookies 😒) as well as small bite sized vanilla cakes. Figuring the food on the plane was not going to be awesome, I stuffed myself, then topped it off with cookies and lattes - as you can never go wrong with cookies and lattes.
Once sufficiently refreshed, we headed to our gate for boarding. For this flight, I had upgraded us to extra legroom seats since I get $200 in airline credits a year with my Amex card, and I figured we could use the space. The flight out to Frankfurt was never full, and especially in the first four rows - what they deem Main Cabin Extra (it was about $120 a person to move up for an extra 6 inches of leg room), it was almost empty. The other rows weren't full, but much more filled in than the first four rows were. We had strategized - instead of the 3 of us in one row of 4, we spread out - my mom and I took the aisle seats in the middle row of 4, and my dad was directly behind me. We figured no one who was going to pay $120 to select a seat was going to select a middle seat between two strangers when they could have an aisle seat elsewhere or even a row to themselves. As of the night before, there was no one else in my dad's row, so I was hopeful he'd be able to lay down and get some sleep. The bulkhead row in front of us was empty (we didn't select that since the armrests are stationery) and the row behind my dad only had one person. There was one person seated in the entire emergency exit row on both sides of the plane. Main Cabin Extra was super empty; it was so empty that the flight attendant offered me my own row of 3 seats after our in flight meal and I took her up on it. So both of my parents could lay down flat across 4 seats and I had my own row of 3 where I could kind of scrunch up in. As short as I am, I couldn't lay down flat, but it was still glorious to be able to stretch out my legs and have some semblance or privacy and space on an airplane.
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| our empty, empty row |
As luxurious as all this space was, I couldn't sleep. It seems the more desperate I am to sleep, the more my body refuses to obey me. The melatonin gummies I took were useless, and after dozing for an hour or two, I spent the remainder of the flight playing games on my phone, reading my kindle, or listening to audiobooks.
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| you can see my dad laying down in his own row |
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| waiting for the rental car office to open |
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| the German speaking E class that was scary to drive |
After we narrowly made our way out of the weirdly laid out parking garage, we planned to head to a supermarket near the airport. Unfortunately this did not happen as Frankfurt is a big urban city where there are no parking lots - only paid parking structures. As I didn't know how to read the signs, there was a lot of construction and one way streets, and the traffic and driving in Frankfurt was cray cray, I booked it onto the freeway and decided to find a supermarket in Braubach instead. I'd driven in Germany before - in Munich and all over Bavaria when we went to Hohenschwangau, Rothenberg, and Nuremberg. But that...that was EASY compared to navigating through the streets of Frankfurt and the narrow country lanes along the Rhine. And it was even more stressful as I'm driving a car I don't know how to operate and the GPS is spitting out directions in German. I was so scared I was going to hit some nice German villager or their little Peugot. The E class isn't what I consider a huge car, compared to the other compact cars, it felt like I was driving a boat!
After some very stressful driving (so stressful!), we finally arrived in Braubach at around 11am. We found an Aldi within a few miles of where we were staying for the night and bought a dozen bottles of water and some snacks. We then drive to the little inn we were staying at (found on booking.com) and they were gracious enough to allow us to check in almost 4 hours early. I don't speak German, they spoke broken English, but we managed check in just fine and it seemed the height of luxury to have a place we could just lay down at! I picked Hotel Garni Maas because of the high ratings, fair prices, and gem of a location since it's literally down the hill from Marksburg Castle. The fact that they run the bakery/cafe downstairs didn't hurt either 😄.
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The room was nice and spacious and it was so clean. It was such a cozy comfortable space and I really liked it. I actually felt some regret that we were only staying for one night since it was so comfortable.
After what felt like the best shower ever, I fall into the clean crisp bed and konk out for a few hours. When I wake up a few hours later I grab a bottle of water. And I realize something terrible: we bought sparkling water instead of plain old still water. NOOOOOOO!!!!! We're just not classy people, we can't get into the sparkling water thing, no matter how fancy it is. Why would you want water that makes you gassy and farty?!
Fortunately, there's a supermarket a few minutes away by foot and we head over to get normal water. Alas, in the water section, I realize I can't tell the difference between the different types of water. I finally find a label on a pink bottle that said "still" on it, and we purchased 12 of those. From then on, I avoided any water that had the word "classic" on it, because I could no longer trust the word 😂. Not able to agree on what we wanted for dinner, we grabbed food at the supermarket we could eat in our room. Because once I got back into my sweatpants, I didn't want to put on my outside pants again.
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| buildings in Braubach |
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| view of Marksburg while walking back from the market |
After dinner in our room (I think I had soup and a sandwich, but I honestly can't remember. I didn't take photos of our exciting supermarket food), we all crash again. But as with jetlag, we all wake up around 3 in the morning hungry. It was at this point I remembered the cake I purchased earlier and we got up to eat them. I had purchased a slice of streusel cake and a slice of black forest - and they were both so good! It was lightly sweet, the crumb soft and tender, and the flavors were so well balanced! Even my mom liked the cakes - and we do not agree on cakes.
