Day 19 and then 20 - Homeward Bound

On Wednesday the Gods were not in our favor, we were up and ready to leave for the airport when we both got the dreaded text... "We're sorry to let you know we've canceled flight UA109 from Munich to Washington because of a crew-related scheduling disruption."

Oh Crap, there goes our connection in Dulles.  I spent an hour on the phone with United but there was no way to get home in one day.  We booked a a flight out of Munich airport at about 4PM, it lands in Newark around 7PM. Then we fly out of Newark at about 7AM on Thursday and get to BTV about 8:15AM, it is going to be a fun time...NOT.

We skipped breakfast but tried to burn up our remaining Euros at the Airport getting lunch. I will have about 50 Euros left that are useless at home, banks won't even take them. I will just put them away for the next trip....in a few years. 

We have had great weather the entire trip but when we boarded our flight in Munich it was pouring rain.

We got out of MUC about an hour late and into EWR about 8PM. The flight was  full including a bunch of Jewish men and boys, the ones with black hats and long curls, on some school trip. They were noisy and just would not sit down.  Everyone on the plane got to participate in their prayer session. The flight was uneventful other than we were in row 53, the cheap seats, because we were bumped onto that flight. I wanted to say  something like, I paid for better seats....but I behaved. Being in the back basically sucks, the spaces get smaller and when they run out of food you are screwed. When they got to us it was veggie only and it was pretty bad. First world problem, as Emily would say. 

When we rebooked I asked for a hotel voucher since we were going to overnight in EWR, they would not issue one at that time. When we landed I tried again and got a hotel voucher plus $15 each for something to eat. So we booked the Double Tree at the airport, got through immigration, got our bags and caught a shuttle which got us to the DT about 10PM. Boy, flying is so fun today! 

The DT restaurant closed at 11PM, so we dumped our stuff in the room and managed to get an order of chicken wings for a late dinner before retiring at around 23:30, and set the alarm for 03:30.

We got a shower and 4 hours of sleep which is way better than sleeping in the airport, so we did not complain. 

We caught the 4AM shuttle and did all the airport fun stuff in plenty of time for our flight.  We got breakfast at Starbucks, yeah not so great. Our flight to BTV was on time and uneventful.  Brother Tom was there waiting for us at the Airport, what service! We stopped and got a few groceries and were home by 10AM. 

I snapped this picture from the deck at Hidden Bluff, camp. 

After unloading, I set off for the Marina, June unpacked and did laundry....back to the grind stone for both of us. 

Overall we had a great trip, we packed a lot in to 20 days but had a great experience, especially being able to join our friends for their celebration.