Our Once in a lifetime European vacation, August, 2008

Aug. 17

We left our car at the Park ‘n’ Go lot just outside Newark Airport. I said to myself at the time that when we get back to that lot, with its shabby trailer office and dusty gravel expanse, I will know that the vacation is over.

Security at the airport was a breeze. Continental has it set up so you can print your boarding passes online 24 hours before the flight, which I did. We packed our bags in such a way that we didn’t have to check anything. So, having left 2 hours for problems, we arrived at our gate with almost 2 hours to kill.

The flight went off pretty much without a hitch. Even though we had to wait around 40 minutes to take off, we still arrived on time- 7:45 Geneva time, 1:45 AM, New York time. While the flight was quite comfortable, and there was copious food (not bad, either) and water every hour, none of us was able to sleep at all. Note to self: Red eye to Europe + family = bad idea. I am used to pulling all-nighters, but Risa, Jasper, and Jade are not. Needless to say, we were all a total mess for the entire first day of our trip.