Airborne again

We had an early start this morning to get to Munich Airport: up before 5 am, a smooth drive to Munich (50 min. only) on the autobahn, but then long lines in front of the UA counters and at security checkpoints because of Lufthansa being on strike and therefore passengers being rebooked on UA planes. A "wrong" passenger, who had to be unloaded with his luggage, caused a 45 min departure delay then, but for the rest the flight was o.k.

Pretzels or peanuts with the first drink service on the plane are history, meal was "chicken", "pasta" or "vegetarian curry", and, as usually, not at all remarkable. Considering the heaps of plastic material on the tray at the end (which is allegedly recycled), I continue to wonder why it's not possible to just serve something more substantial, like a simple fresh high-quality sandwich, a wrap, a burger or something similar instead of tiny little plastic containers with some indefineable overcooked, tasteless food.

Long flight (11:15 hours) with a land-route all the way from Canada to the South. Two rows behind us is a girl of about 4 to 5 years of age was constantly making noise with an extremely high, shrill voice, hollering, singing, talking loudly and crying. Parents didn't care or interrupt her in any way. Couldn't sleep at all (but that not news) and thanks to electrical outlets under the seats, worked most of the time.

Touchdown on time, at 2:20 pm, but immigration wasn't a really friendly "Welcome" to Texas or Houston. Out of about 35 counters, only 9 were open and lines were loooong. It took us almost an hour to get through immigration. As a compensation, luggage was already waiting for us and a bus to the rental car center as well. Also, at the Alamo counter, the girl was "southernly" friendly, helpful and talkative and an equally friendly young gent showed us all the cars we could freely choose from. We would even have gotten a huge six-seater van, but prefered a more modestly sized mini-SUV, a Nissan Rogue, with good gas milage, comfortably equipped and brand new (just about 2200 miles on the tachometer).

At about 87 deg. F (30 deg. Celsius!) we drove the 20 miles or so from the airport to our pre-arranged hotel in Uptown Houston - the Royal Sonesta - and that was a first challenge after having been awake for almost 20 hours: 8 to 10 lanes minimum, dense traffic, chaotic drivers. In my opinion, Houston has many silver linings, but it is for sure the second-worse city when it comes to traffic and driving; close to L.A., the # 1. Fortunately, tomorrow we won't need to drive ourselves but will be picked up and driven around. Thanks, Celia!

Arrived at 4:30 pm, parked the car, unloaded and checked into a nice room in the 20th floor with a view of uptown with the famous shopping center Galleria and, further away, of downtown's fantastic skyline. Already at 5 pm a "hotel site inspection" was set up in this new and recommendable hotel – so, no rest for the wicked! Afterwards, high time for a beer at the bar, a hot bath and a comfy bed. Sooo tired!