We met in the lobby at 9 to take the shuttle to the airport. I broke the news to Phil about our flight. On the one hand, you get to get out and stretch in Chicago. On the other hand, we'll be traveling for another three-four hours on an already long travel day.

The shuttle bus took us to the airport, where after a few wrong turns we found our checkin area and checked in. Phil was very annoyed to find out that they had given his assigned seat away on the Munich to SFO flight, since the flight is oversold. I don't really understand how they could do that given that we checked in hours in advance of the flight and booked our tickets months ago. So he had to wait until Munich to get his seat assignment.

We had some breakfast at the airport, and I did a little gift shopping while waiting. Then our flight boarded on time and we were off to home. We have a short layover in Munich where Phil will try to reclaim his VAT for some jerseys he bought, and I will hit the duty-free stores (Munich has the BEST shopping of any airport I've been to).

We arrived in Munich, and had barely enough time to clear security. No time at all to shop. The security is stepped up here, because it's a flight that's destined for the US.

Kurt and I were in business class, which was very nice. The seats folded almost all the way flat. Nevertheless, I didn't really sleep much. Phil was in the center section of the last row on the plane. The only saving grace was that the seats next to him were reserved for the flight attendants, so basically they were empty the entire flight.

We arrived in Chicago, an unplanned stop, at least unplanned for us, relatively on time. We had to collect our bags, clear customs and recheck our bags. It really was chaotic. Our layover was only 2 hours, which really isn't enough time. Once we checked our bags, Kurt and I had to get a new boarding pass, as we didn't have one for this segment of the flight. Sigh. The counter agent was confused and almost told us that Kurt was waitlisted for his seat, but after I protested, she realized that we were indeed already checked through to SFO and gave him his pass.

We went to the gate to wait, and found that our connecting flight home was delayed. Two plane and gate changes and three hours later, we were finally on our way home. The flight was oversold and they had double booked Phil's seat, but he managed to prevail and get the same seat that he had on the rest of the journey. I wound up sleeping most of the way home, I was so tired by this time.

We arrived in SFO after 2 AM, collected our luggage, and then found a cab to take us home. The first taxi we encountered wanted to charge us $130 to take us home. But we found a cabbie that would take us home for the meter rate, so it wound up costing about $80 (with tip).

We didn't get to bed until 3:45 AM... bleh. I decided to work at home the next day. But we did get home safe and sound!