Bryan, the travel to Europe is always a killer going west to east. Left Columbus yesterday mid-day and had one delay after another. Made every connection a mad dash...then to be followed up by ramp holds.
Did you know that Duesseldorf, Germany,has noise abatement restrictions and no flight can land before 6AM local time. So after scrambling to make or connection in Newark due to the delayed flight from Columbus, they pushed us back from the gate and we sat on the ramp with the APU running for almost an hour so we would not land too early. Then we had another connecting flight to Barcelona, Spain! At 6:00 AM local time (Saturday) here in Europe.
This is what my 11 year old son Liam looks like after about 14 hours of airline travel on 3 planes...
Then once we got out of the airport navigating the train and metro system was another experience.
Travel abroad makes you humble. You take for granted being able to speak and read the native language! Just waiting on some Sangria and Tapas (which just arrived) in our hotel room then it's time for the roof top pool!
Tomorrow we board a 7-day cruise which goes from Barcelona to Italy, France and back to Barcelona!