The Journey Home

I woke up at 2:30 a.m. on Friday for my 3:00 a.m. Uber. I tossed my pajamas in my suitcase and triple checked that I hadn't forgotten anything. My Uber driver arrived a little early. The drive to the airport is about forty minutes, and we arrived around 3:30. I sat by the check-in counter line, as the counter wasn't open yet. Other group flight students trickled in. We all waited at the front of the line until about 4:15, when the counter finally opened. I had gotten all my stuff to fit in my large suitcase, my carry-on suitcase, and my backpack so I could check one bag without having to pay for another. (Some of the others had three suitcases and barely or didn't make it under the weight limit, so I was pretty proud of myself.) The first flight ended up being fully booked, so the airline was encouraging people to check their carry-ons to free up overhead bin space. I was therefore able to check my carry-on to my final destination free of charge, so I didn't have to pay 90€ for it or lug it around all day!

Flights within Europe don't post gate information until about fifteen to twenty minutes before boarding, so we got breakfast and waited until 6:05 for the gate to post. I had my last pain au chocolat, splurging on the larger size. The flight to Frankfurt was only about an hour and a half. A couple people had a flight to D.C. that was delayed enough they would miss their next flight, but the airline hadn't automatically rebooked them, and they couldn't do it in the app since it had to be done at a United counter for some inexplicable reason. We said goodbye, and they went off to a help desk. The rest of us continued through passport control and had the end dates of our visas stamped, presumably so we couldn't reenter Europe on the same visa. I made it through passport control and an employee asked if my connection was with United. My final flight was with United, so I went to the line she directed me to. It turned out since my next flight was Lufthansa, that was the line I needed to be in. They were checking passports and boarding passes again, so I got sent over to the other line. Then Regan came and said Bryanna was stuck at passport control, so I got out of the line to join the others waiting. Bryanna is a dual Canadian citizen, and her visa was in her Canadian passport...which she'd packed in her checked bag, assuming she wouldn't need the visa to get back into the US. The employee directing people into the next lines kept yelling at/asking us what our connection was and telling us we couldn't wait there, despite our explanation that we needed to wait just a minute for our friend. She said we were blocking the area, even though we were standing well off to the side, with only a pillar behind us. Thankfully, the boarder agent basically told Bryanna not to forget her visa again and let her through. We got in the Lufthansa line, where I was randomly selected for a second security check. The employee said I'd been chosen for a second "security clearance" (or at least that's what I thought he said); I assumed that meant at the next security check, I'd have some special privilege like not having to remove my shoes. But he'd meant check, and he started walking me over to another area for the check. I asked if I could briefly stop to tell my group where I was going, and he said no because the area was just ahead of us. He assured me the check was random, I guess because it seemed like I was resisting, even though I just wanted to make sure the others knew to wait for me, as none of them had seen him start leading me away. At the screened-in security check area, I asked the agent if I could text my friends to let them know to wait. She rudely told me it would be short and if I took too long, I'd miss my flight. I managed to get off a text as she snapped at me to "put my mobile on the table." She told me to remove my shoes and jacket and take electronics out of my bag. I asked if I needed to take out my camera, which was deeply buried in my bag. She said yes, then did the metal detector wand on me and had me sit in a chair so she could pat down the bottoms of my feet and check inside my shoes. She never actually went through my bag or had me remove my camera. She took my passport and boarding passes back from another agent who'd had them and told me I had an hour and a half before my next flight, so what was I so worried about? I tried to explain again that I'd just needed to let my friends know to wait for me. She never seemed to get it and just told me I could leave.

After that rattling experience, the students that had gone to the help desk met up with us again, having caught up. They said they'd been bounced between several locations before being told that their flight wasn't actually delayed anymore. Apparently the employees were extremely unhelpful, and one of them even scolded them for not knowing the exact time the flight was supposed to leave (which made sense because the time had changed several times), saying she "always checked her own flight times the morning of." Between that unhelpful employee, the employee yelling at us for waiting for Bryanna, Bryanna getting stuck, my incredibly rude security check, and our flight from Frankfurt to Lyon being delayed several times in January, leaving us to sit without explanation for hours, I've concluded that the Frankfurt airport is absolutely abysmal and should be avoided at all costs.

We had a couple of different long haul flights depending on our final destinations, so we had to say our sad final goodbyes. Vanessa, Mia, and I continued to our gate for our flight to Chicago. The wait wasn't very long. When I found my tiny economy seat, I realized how grateful I should have been for my random upgrade to premium economy on the way to Lyon in January. We were served drinks several times throughout the flight; I had two orange juices (one with lunch), an apple juice, and a coffee. The lunch option was thai chicken or pasta, and I went with the chicken, which was actually really good for airplane food. We also got crackers, chocolate, a "snack" sandwich (I thought it was supposed to be a croque monsieur, but it certainly wasn't, and it was really bad), and a hot "towel" (wet wipe). In between these services, I read my book and watched The Office. For a period in the middle of the flight, they had everyone close their window shades and turned off the cabin lights, even though it was about 2 p.m. I was trying to stay up all day so I wouldn't be jetlagged when I got home, so I didn't close my eyes during these "night" hours.

In Chicago, we went through customs, which was fast and painless. This was much better than my previous experience going through O'Hare's customs during a tornado warning, when there were hundreds and hundreds of people in line in front of us. We got our bags and rechecked them. Mia's final destination was Chicago, so we said goodbye to her. Vanessa and I continued on, taking the train from Terminal 5 to Terminal 1. In Concourse B, we had to go through security again. The line was pretty long but moved quickly. I was worried about making it to our flight, but we got to the gate (all the way at the end of the concourse, of course) with about forty minutes to spare. It was weird that everything was in English, specifically very midwestern English; we didn't have to expend effort to understand the announcements or the people around us. The plane to Green Bay sat forty-eight people, and my head was higher than the overhead bins. People talked to their seatmates with typical midwestern friendliness, which how it set in that I was back. The flight was supposed to land at 4:51 p.m., but it got updated to 4:33. Then we spent forever taxying and waiting to take off. We landed around 4:45. They should have kept the original landing time and then just told us we were early! Mom and Dad met me at baggage claim. And then I was home.