Our Journey Home...

This is never the fun part of the trip - we were on a 7:30 am flight to Zurich so the car service picked us up at our apartment at the ungodly hour of 5 am. We arrived at Charles De Gaulle at 5:45 am. This was the first time I had flown out of CDG terminal 2 - and hopefully the last. Much to our initial confusion and later annoyance, you clear passport control BEFORE you can reach the check-in counters. So we ended up in a line for passport control with about 90 people in front of us. And ONE, yes ONE staffer to process the crowd of stressed out people. It was incredibly inefficient, with everyone trying to maneuver luggage carts through a queue and around the passport area. After waiting for about 30 mins, they finally clued in and added another person at passport control.

Then there was another slow line for checking in and finally, the last line for the security scan. Even though we arrived at the airport 1 hr 45 mins before flight time, we made it through and stepped on the plane just 15 mins before departure. Quel horreur!

Sadly, Zurich was no better. United didn't have a transfer desk, so you actually had to go to the gate to process your transfers, which didn't help since the gate area had very few amenities and no lounge. But since it would have taken another train ride back to the main area to get to anything good, we ended up just staying put.

I've saved the best for last - entering the US through Dulles is a BAD idea. I had already been told this by other friends who had gone through this process last year. So I was already expecting the worst. We landed with 90 mins for the connection - even though it was the same flight number, it was a different plane from a different terminal. Basically, if we weren't in business class and I wasn't cracking the whip in terms of getting us to move along quickly, there was no way we would have made the flight to SFO. The passport lines, customs lines, security check lines were all unbelievable. We got to the gate with 10 mins to spare.

Thankfully, all our bags made it without a hitch!