The day we left was an EARLY morning, as we got up at 3:30 AM to finish packing and cleaning up the apartment before leaving. We had pre-booked a taxi to pick us up at 4:30 on the edge of old town since there’s no car traffic in most of old town. I was a little worried that the taxi service might flake out on us, leaving us in a bind to find other airport transportation that early in the morning. Fortunately, the taxi showed up not long after we dragged our luggage to the meeting spot, so we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

I’m always amused with the differences in air travel security in different countries and how they expect everyone to know the drill. In the US, heaven forbid we let anyone wear shoes – but you can leave all of your electronics in your carry on bags except laptops and larger electronics. In France, they look at you funny if you start taking your shoes off and force you to take EVERY electronic device out of your bag – cameras, cell phones, tablets, etc. The security agent was a little impatient with me at first as I tried to figure out what she wanted me to do – but softened up when she realized that I honestly had no experience going through French security.

The rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful with security and customs/immigration proving to be the biggest headache. We flew from Nice to Munich, from Munich to Houston, and then from Houston to Northwest Arkansas. Therefore, in both Munich and Houston, we had to go through customs/immigration and through some level of security.

Munich’s system was not what I expected at all – since the Germans are known for being so efficient and organized. In Munich, you line up to have your passport checked and be interviewed by the customs agent. Rather than have one long line that weaves back and forth with the person at the front of the line going to the next available agent, they have several queues and you can pick the one you want to stand in. Charles and I had experienced this on the way to France and this time was consistent with the theme. No matter which line we pick, someone in front of us will get to the front of the line and hold up progress. We will stand there and watch all of the people that were BEHIND us in the lines on either side of us get through security, while we stand and wait – knowing that if we were to change lines, the same thing would happen in the new line.

We finally made it through – only to find out that we’d have to wait in line for yet another security checkpoint in which they asked us some questions that they easily could have asked us in the first checkpoint. I’m sure the second checkpoint is really the fault of the US government, as this checkpoint was specific to the terminal of flights headed to the US.

We finally made it through and onto our long flight. Long flights get longer the older I get and I find myself having much more difficulty staying comfortable in the airplane seats. However, we finally made it to Houston where we started the whole customs and security process all over again. The US system in Houston was as bad or worse than the one in Munich, as you go to a kiosk to do a pre-check and print a receipt. Some people’s receipts will allow them to go right through to their gate, while others will get flagged and have to take their receipt to stand in line to speak with a customs agent. And wouldn’t you know that my passport was flagged?

So wait we did – experiencing yet again the lines around us moving with ours being stalled by someone in front of us in line. As it turned out, the “Mc” in my last name somehow threw off the kiosk and it didn’t think that my name on the passport matched the name on my flight reservation. Fortunately, the customs agent that helped us was very pleasant and friendly. From there, we still had to go back through security again – this time getting our complimentary x-ray that we didn’t get in France or Munich.

After a tram ride and a loooong walk to our gate, lugging the maximum carry-on baggage along the way, we were pretty tired. I had a hard time staying awake on the flight home, though admittedly, I wasn’t trying very hard to stay awake. By the time we picked up our luggage, got Kimi from her stay at Gigi and Poppy’s house, and made it home it was around 9:00… just in time for bed.