Home (or somewhere) again

Chris, Teresa, Judy and I were picked up in front of our Pigalle apartment at 5:00AM (actually 4:55AM, but who's counting?).  We got to the airport more than 3 hours before our flight and fought mightily to stay awake until we boarded.  We had a short, uneventful flight to to Dusseldorf, where we again fought mightily to stay awake for 5 hours before our next flight to Newark.  We were flying Lufthansa back, so the food and service were excellent.  We got to Newark, breezed through customs, picked up the car, drove to the Hampton Inn Newark Airport, ate, and crashed.  The drive back to Williamsburg the next day was largely uneventful.  We were home by late afternoon.

Adam's journey was - once again - a bit more challenging.  He and Monica also got to the airport hours before their departure.  The trip to Bogota was OK, but his flight back to the U.S. was delayed.  Bogota Airport shut down it's one runway that is long enough for big, heavily loaded planes.  The only way that Adam's Delta flight was leaving was if they could lighten the load enough to take off on a shorter runway.  It turns out that they accomplished this by leaving all of the luggage behind.  In retrospect, that turned out to be a blessing: had Adam needed to pick up his luggage, he never would have made his New York connection.  As it was, TSA Pre and his Global Entry pass got him thru quick enough to race to the gate.  Our friend Janine picked him up in Richmond, and he was home before us - in time to watch the Redskins crush the Cowboys.

Sorry, Teresa.

And his luggage arrived at our front door first thing this morning.

Dan and Leah got the best deal (at least, in the short term).  They had most of another day in Paris before hopping a flight to Dublin, where Dan will be working for the next couple of months.  By the time we landed in Newark, he'd already posted this on WhatsApp:

"My first Guinness in Ireland"

In any case, we all made it back safely, and that's the important thing.  

Me... I think I'll see if I can locate a Guinness.  Cheers!