The flight and arrival in Seattle

As planned, our journey starts at 4:40 am in the morning. The route is free at this time, so we arrive at Frankfurt Airport at half past 7. I can even close my eyes for an hour. We go straight to the baggage drop-off and are treated preferentially as a family. What a service. Then Eik leaves us and starts his journey home. We have breakfast at the big M and spend the remaining time at the airport without stress. Even at the security checks, it goes quickly with priority. We board the Boing 747 at 10:00 am. We are sitting in the rear section. For an extra charge, we have a baby basket with more legroom. The time until takeoff seems like an eternity. Both children are tense and a little annoying. After 50 minutes, the plane finally takes off.

Immediately, the mood of our boys relaxes. They are amazed and excited. Then the flight goes without much stress. David sleeps a little in the baby basket, a kind of baby bed on the wall. When he wakes up, he also sits in front of our legs and can move around. Erik is also satisfied. He watches movies, eats, and sleeps. So we can sleep for an hour too. Overall, time passes quickly. We land in Seattle at 12:00 pm local time. The sun is shining and it's warm.

Now the ordeal begins. We are directed to the immigration counters. There's a shock, no special treatment for families with small children. So we have to stand in line in the long queue. It only goes slowly and takes almost 1 1/2 hours until we're done there. The border officer is nice and we are allowed to enter. The airport is very inconvenient. There are stairs everywhere and it goes up and down a lot. The elevators are small and it drags on like chewing gum. As it is with addictions, they also have to come to fruition at some point, so Rene is allowed to disappear for a short while. We also find the telephone booth for the hotel shuttle buses and luckily, the bus happens to pass by. So we're faster than expected at the hotel. We check in and get our room with 2 queen-size beds. Throughout the whole procedure, we could rely on our two kids. I was really proud.

The hotel is not the best, but it's enough for 2 nights. Then we have a bite to eat and at 5:30 pm (in Germany it's half past 3 in the night) everyone is in bed. Totally exhausted.

Regards