Travel Day – München to London

Well, what a farewell Germany gave us…
This morning Barbara, Armin, the children and I were quite the ‘A Team’ getting ready with Barbara entertaining the children, while I organised the last pieces of luggage and Armin staying calm, carrying the responsibility of timely departure as well as carrying the suitcases and packing the car.
We left fifteen minutes ahead of time at 7:30am on Sunday morning, which is quite unheard of when the TTNB team is on the road…
We were treated to a beautiful sunrise on the way to München Airport and Armin and I had our last brief chat about important philosophical issues.
We were the second family to stand in line at the British Airways counter when the lovely lady asked me for our visa to the USA. “The What?” I heard myself say rather too loudly. At this point an ill feeling could be felt rising inside my tummy.
“Well”, the lovely lady continued to say, “Everyone entering the States, even for transit, needs a visa. If you haven’t got one I can’t check you in.”
Poor Armin probably had visions of returning with all of us and our luggage to his now peaceful house.
The knowledgable lady behind the counter then gave us an Internet address and told us where the Internet cafe was. She also mentioned that this process might take anything from half an hour to 72 hours. Oh boy, pale children all round, heart rates rising, sick feeling in tummy getting stronger…but as Andrew says: “First rule in First Aid is to stay calm.”
So to the Internet cafe we went and slowly and calmly entered all the required details, of which there were many and it took us 30 to 45 minutes.
Armin entertained the boys and Tessa helped me check the details as I entered them.
To cut this short…we received approval for our visas within 4 minutes of sending our request.
Huge relief all round and I probably lost a kilo, which is a good start to get rid of that extra fat created by too much German food.
Now we are about to board Air NZ in London, so that will be 11 hours on the plane…I am looking forward to James Bond…..
Ciao
Tanja