Family Visit, Part One

So, most of my family came to visit me in Germany in the middle of March. I say most because I have four parents and eight siblings (step- and blood-relations). There's no way all of them could leave their jobs, schools, pets, babies, and medical conditions behind for a week to come and see me. Not to mention the cost of shlepping 12 people around would be enormous. So, it was my dad, stepmom, two sisters, two stepsisters, and a stepbrother who made the nearly 24-hour series of plane connections over to get here.

They flew in to Frankfurt, which is several hours away from Braunschweig, and I met them there at the airport. We'd booked all our train tickets in advance, so it was going to be a tight squeeze between the plane's touch-down time and the booked train's departure time. I arrived at the airport more than an hour early just to be sure I could find them and that we could all make our train. And I found them pretty easily, actually. Their flight came in almost an hour early, so I was glad I'd gotten there early too. But waiting for my family, who I hadn't seen in over six months, to come through a set of sliding glass doors that was just starting to release a trickle of passengers was like slowing time down to a grinding halt. Every second dragged its heels. The clock's hands refused to budge. I remember thinking, "How long does it take for people to get off a plane?! Move, Grandma! Move, young couple with a stroller! I want to see my family coming through those doors!" Every head looked like my dad's head; every hair color was the exact shade of my stepmom's.

And then FINALLY I saw my dad coming through the doors, followed by the rest of the Brady Bunch. I jumped up and squealed "Familyyyy! Hello, lovely family!" or something to that effect. There was hugging and moist eyes all around, and much blocking of traffic.

Okay, that's nice. But now it's time to catch a train!

Thus began the whirlwind adventure of bringing eight people through five cities in two countries (not to mention a whole mess of countryside and a drive-by view of Belgium) in about seven days. We had a wallet stolen, slept on precarious bunk beds in a moving train, ordered food in four languages, and very nearly killed each other. Ah, family!