Exodus, Part Zwei

The kiddos and I arrived in New Jersey after a tedious day of flying. J and I checked in to our hotel and ordered take out from a nearby Italian restaurant, which was delivered shortly before midnight. I was hopeful (had I learned nothing from the previous day’s tribulations?) that our flight to Germany the following day would be a smooth and completely uneventful one. Looking back, I now believe that I was an unknowing participant in a study of a person’s ability to react somewhat rationally to the most intolerable situations.

As we checked in at the airport the following afternoon, the Lufthansa employee invited me to unpack a suitcase in order to remove clothing and items needed for an overnight stay. The employee explained that Lufthansa was staging a strike in Frankfurt and that it may be impossible to retrieve our luggage for some days. Luckily, I had largely packed all of the aforementioned items in one suitcase, so I avoided having to open multiple suitcases.

Our flight was delayed one hour due to the strike at our arrival city. The kiddos were angels on the flight and scarcely made a peep; they even slept! Perhaps the previous day had truly drained them of all their energy making it impossible for them to muster the verve to misbehave.

Upon arrival, J and I noticed that the Lufthansa gates and desks were abandoned, but there must have been workers on the ground as our luggage was in fact unloaded. We were met outside of the baggage claim area by our sponsor, who had thoughtfully purchased groceries for us including the staples for peanut butter and jelly, cold cuts, snacks for the kiddos and drinks.

After a brief orientation of the area, our sponsor dropped our family off at the hotel where we will stay until we procure housing. J and I settled in to the hotel room and set about on a walk to the post in an order to enliven us. I regret to report that our first meal in country consisted of Burger King and Subway, but they were close and required little effort. Besides, we’ll have three years to culturally immerse ourselves.

Following lunch, we took a brief nap in the hotel as we hoped to quickly acclimate ourselves and the kiddos to the time change. Upon waking, J and I were pleasantly surprised as one of our favorite movies, Life is Beautiful (an affecting Italian movie directed by and starring Roberto Benigni), was featured on AFN. The movie is set during World War II and depicts life in a concentration camp, and Bop became engrossed asking, “Where are the soldiers taking those people?” and “Aren’t they speaking German?” Not wanting Bop to have a distorted present day view of Germans/Germany, J quickly offered to take the kiddos to an onsite playground while I fully unpacked. Log was stung twice by a wasp while playing, so I am not sure his first day in Germany was a pleasant one.

For dinner, we enjoyed sandwiches courtesy of our sponsor. Our hotel quarters consist of two adjoined rooms and one suite located across the hall. There is no air conditioning, so the seats in front of the fans are quite the commodity. The rooms are comfortable enough, but I hope we don’t stay here for long.