'Hang Loose' takes practice...

The technical problems during check-in in Frankfurt are not the only ones we will have, and so we take off from German soil with a delay of more than an hour due to the airline's IT problems (as stated by our pilot). But the holiday mood doesn't really set in yet - our layover time in London has also been greatly reduced due to the delayed departure.

After a sprint through London Airport, we luckily make it to the plane to LA on time, where we have 10.5 hours of flight ahead of us. The latter passes by faster than expected, and so we land at 1:10 p.m. local time at the first leg of our journey.

But we rejoiced too early, as it seems that our luggage did not make it onto the new plane in London on time, and so another 3 hours pass until we can finally leave the airport around 4:00 p.m. after a lot of paperwork. It is still unclear where our luggage has gone, as the technical problems in Frankfurt prevented us from receiving the necessary baggage tags, so we cannot track the exact location of our suitcases.

So, admittedly, we would have preferred things to be different - but nevertheless, we want to make use of the remaining day as planned and explore a shopping mall about 1 hour away from the airport.

Then it's time to pick up the rental car and off we go - at least that's the plan. But only the plan, because after a few meters we encounter the American rush hour - the rush hour traffic on the Schiersteiner Bridge is nothing compared to that. The 5- and sometimes 7-lane highway is completely congested, and it stays that way for almost the entire journey to our mall. The fact that the 1-hour drive time more than doubles does not exactly contribute to our enthusiasm.

The shopping center itself is huge, and we buy a few things - but we would have liked to spend a little more time here as originally planned.

The way back surprisingly goes completely without traffic jams, and when we arrive at our hotel, we are actually greeted with a surprise: our suitcases have found their way to us - we are just happy, because none of us really expected that!

By now, we have been on our feet for more than 24 hours (or maybe "awake" is a better word, because we have spent a large part of the time "sitting") and we are just looking forward to our bed. No matter how chaotic the day was, what counts is that we are getting closer to our holiday destination, and so we have sweet pineapple dreams!