Hello Friends and Family! Once again, the Gentilewis’ greet you from Europe, only this time with the addition of Julian-the-baby, and Eileen-the-nanny! After much planning, we set off for Bonn, Germany at 3pm on Thursday afternoon – here we are, in good spirits:
We took an overnight flight to Dublin, and even under the best of circumstances, trans-continental flights are tiring. Julian’s first hop over the pond could have gone worse, but truth be told, it could have gone much better. Although Tony and I did not sleep one wink, Julian slept for a few hours, draped over one of us, and we arrived in Dublin at 5am local time, 11pm Boston time.
Everyone felt gross, and weird, but that’s part of the adventure. We had a snack, and Julian snuck into the bar across the terminal for a quick pop-up-Julian!
After a few hours we were on our way again, this time to Frankfurt. The flight was 2 hours, and fortunately I slept most of the way! So did Eileen and Jules, so it was only poor, poor Tony who endured another sleepless flight.
When we arrived in Frankfurt we all felt even weirder, and even grosser. It was 10:15 local time, and 3:15am Boston time. Eww. Frankfurt is a massive airport! So after all kinds of taxi-ing, de-planing, and walking, we arrived in the airport lobby, in search of caffeine.
Julian had already lost most of his mind at this point, and the rest of us were doing the best we could. With the help of a coffee and some free wifi, we found the train terminal and walked over to purchase our tickets from Frankfurt to Bonn. Unfortunately the next available train was not until 2pm! So we hung out in the train terminal for a good part of the day. Julian was not a fan, but we all did our best. Here we are, in semi-good-yet-weary spirits:
At long last, we got on the train! Julian chose this occasion to have a meltdown, which our fellow passengers did not appreciate, but who can blame them? And who can blame Julian either, really? Here he is, delirious and seemingly drunk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZQuQndRA2o
The train was crazy fast. We arrived in Bonn within 45 minutes and met our amazing host and guide for the weekend, Valentina! Owner of Unique Fitness, Valentina invited us to come and speak at her gym and helped us coordinate our European Adventure! Upon our arrival Valentina then took us on the Tram, where we made our way to her gym, Unique Fitness, then to the grocery store, and then to our AirBnB (local time, 5pm, Boston time, 11am).
Needless to say, we were weary!
But our apartment was lovely, with a room for Tony and I, a room for Eileen, and even a room for Julian! We made a quick dinner, took a quick shower, and tried not to fall over. Julian was all the way outside of his mind by this time. We all passed out early, and had an up-and-down night of jet-lagged sleep, interrupted by a crying baby, every few hours or so. Tony and I took turns sleeping with Julian, and by the time 6:15 rolled around, I was awake and looking for the coffee pot!
