Hello from Deutschland!

After a  long day of travel we finally made it to our new home in Borken, Germany.  We kicked off our journey on Thursday with a nice drive from Edgewater, MD (where my parents live) to JFK airport in NYC.  By the grace of God, the drive only took us 4 hours and we did not hit a single traffic snag the entire way there.  We were very early arriving to the airport, which gave us plenty of time to figure out how in the world we were going to get our 5 bags, dog-in-crate, baby, stroller, carseat and 4 carry-on bags from the car rental return to the baggage check-in counter.  Here is a photo of what we looked like:

New Yorkers and other JFK patrons were not ashamed to stare at us.

This is about the size of 8 parking spaces.

The JFK airport has a Pet Relief Area just outside the main entrance, so before Oscar was put in his crate for good we were able to take him outside to "do his business."  When the airline was ready to check-in Oscar, they had an attendant escort us through security.  We got to cut in line but then Bryan and Oscar had to sit in the "penalty box" area for a while so they could make sure we didn't hide anything illegal in Oscar's crate.  The attendant walked us right up to the terminal then took Oscar directly to the airplane to board.  It made us feel so much better than if they had put him on the 8-mile long converyer belt with our other luggage.

Dylan was getting really cranky right before boarding, which made us very nervous.  Thankfully, once aboard the plane he seemed to understand that he couldn't run around and was content sitting on our laps.  We were seated in the row directly behind the bathrooms, which has its pros (extra leg room, no seats in front of us for Dylan to kick) and cons (lots of foot traffic, kind of stinky).  He eventually fell asleep on my lap, which then made my lap fall asleep and start to hurt not long into the trip.  A stewardess noticed my discomfort and brought over a bassinet that she hooked onto the wall in front of us for Dylan to sleep in.  What a blessing!

Seriosly, Air Berlin?  Is this the
best you can do?

Air Berlin has the lamest in-flight entertainment programming that I've ever experienced.  We watched a half-hour of a clown jumping out of a trash bin to scare people as they threw something away, some really weird  German music videos, 45-minutes of Mr. Bean mini-episodes, the movie Letters to Juliet and then finally Date Night, which started too late into the flight and we never got to finish.

Upon our arrival, some new friends from the basketball team picked us up in a large van and brought us to the flat.  I don't remember much about this part of the trip - I was really tired.  Bryan rallied through his sleepiness and carried on a conversation, but I didn't say much.  We all took naps yesterday and slept for about 12 hours last night, so today we are much better.

We were able to explore the town a little more today and will continue to do so in the upcoming days.  Once we get our stuff unpacked and we're settled in, we will take photos of the flat and post them, as well as some photos from around town.

Auf Wiedersehen!