As always with the early flights, we got up before the rooster and the dawn and were at check-in almost two hours before departure. I give my passport to the check-in girl and say that I was unable to check in online.
Expert Airport Chick: Do you have a special permit?
Me: No, I don't need a special permit to go as a spouse.
Expert airport chick: No, you can't go without permission.
Me: What permission are you talking about?
Expert airport chick: Well, you contact the embassy and they will then give you written permission along with a number. You need that to travel to the United States.
Me: No, the spouse of a US citizen can enter the country without special permission.
Expert airport chick: Unfortunately, those are the rules.
Me: Since when does this rule apply?
Expert Airport Chick: Since the beginning of a pandemic.
Me: But I went to the US last summer.
The concise conversation continued for the next 15 minutes.
Expert airport chick: Wait, I'll call and ask.
Expert airport chick on the phone: Hi, here's one flying to the US and she claims she doesn't need a special permit. What do I do? … Ahah, ok, I'll ask.
Expert Airport Chick: Are you married?
I see Scott's blood pressure skyrocketing and quickly confirm that I am indeed married, as I have said many times before.
Check in done, through the security and even the flight departured on time. It turned out that Lufthansa only gives bottled water to everyone free of charge, everything else you could buy. For three euros I got lazy coffee - ground coffee in the cup, covered with hot water. The lid had a filter though.
The transfer in Frankfurt was absolutely perfect - passport control was quick, we had time to go through the Lufthansa service center to find out if Scott could somehow get the water bottle back he forgot on the plane (it was a fancy bottle, not an empty blue plastic one), and arrive at the gate right when the rich and beautiful started to board. Before reaching the gate, there was the document check, which in our case meant passports, boarding passes and the marriage certificate. Who would have thought back in January 2018 that airports would become the place, where we have used our marriage certificate the most.
United has some new planes where the windows no longer have blinds but some hi-tech smart glass. As soon as we reached our altitude and had finished the breakfast, the windows were turned dark and the rest of the midday flight was in the complete dark. The departure from Frankfurt was at 9am, we arrived in Chicago at 11am and could have enjoyed the sun and views for 9 hours, but instead we got some mandatory nap hours. Someone like me clearly can't not mention the tiny amount of food that was served on the nine-hour flight. If I hadn't had my own quark desserts, apples and nuts, my stomach would have chewed itself through the back of my seat. After taking off, we received eggs and potatoes, 5 pieces of fruit, one muffin and one of those horrible stroopwafers. I can't pat myself enough on the shoulder that I saved the untouched waffle a few hours later and hungry, even this one was eaten. And about 7.5 hours later, just before landing, we got a little pretzel bun with cheese and turkey.
At the hotel we managed to get the room about three hours before the check-in time and it seemed that we also got a slight upgrade - I couldn't remember booking our accommodation with a separate bedroom and kitchenette for us :)
Every time it's been a while since my last visit to the United States, I tend to forget a thing or two - such as the fact that the water level in the toilets here is much higher than in Europe. And this hotel also had a particularly low toilet - basically, you had to be careful not to get your fingers wet when using toilet paper. How men manage to not dip their ding-a-longs there in the water is a mystery to me.
We ate a couple of tacos and quesadilla (not good) at a nearby bar and took a walk in the park next to the hotel. They had just begun to set up some tents and fences, and we asked what was going on. A local security guard announced that there would be the Chicago marathon tomorrow. Since the park was literally next to our hotel, through which we could reach the lake in a few minutes, I had already imagined how I would run here along the lake tomorrow morning. So clearly a marathon on my running track didn't make me happy. Just before returning to the hotel, we saw ads that the Chicago Marathon would be on the next Sunday, a week away. Life was good again.
At around 5pm we returned to the hotel to take a nap and then go out somewhere for dinner. At 7pm we woke up, brushed our teeth and went to sleep.
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