The Hilbrechts in Europe 2012: Day 1, Mecklenburg, Germany

After months of planning, the big day had arrived. We purchased new 360* roller hard shell suitcases. We had packed, repacked, loaded, and unloaded. We had arranged for the yard to be mowed, the plants watered, the mail stopped, the paper held, the house to be checked. We had printed schedules and itineraries, purchased maps and guidebooks, brushed up on languages, and we were ready to go.

Colleen dropped us off at the airport a couple of hours before our plane departed so that we could check our one piece of luggage (we were carrying on everything else) and get through security. We did not want to be late.

At the check-in counter, the attendant gave us the very first bad news of our trip. We were probably going to miss our connecting flight from Chicago to Heathrow. The plane from Chicago was delayed and we would probably not have time to get across the terminal from the arriving gate, through security at the international terminal, and to the plane that would take us to London. She reserved seats for us on a later flight just in case.

So we sat and waited.

When the plane arrived, we got on, stowed our luggage and watched the clock. When we landed we would have less than 20 minutes to get from point A to point B before the plane to Heathrow left. As soon as we landed at O'Hare, I rushed off the plane and ran, yes ran, through the terminal. I'm sure I was a site with my purse wrapped around me and my scarf flapping in the wind. I got to the gate just in time to see the plane pulling away towards take-off. The people at the desk were not helpful. They said that we would have to go back through check-in, go through security, and get to the gates across the terminal in 45 minutes. Good luck.

I met Kirk and the kids huffing down the airport, dragging the suitcases behind, and told them the news. We had no idea really where to go or how to get there, but we were certain that we would not be able to make the next leg of our journey without help. We stopped at another desk and explained the situation. The people there were extremely helpful. The lady called a supervisor and told her what was going on. The supervisor printed our boarding passes and met us at the entrance to the tram with a sign with our name on it. We had, in fact, missed the first flight, but because we were reserved on the later flight, we had seats. She escorted us through the terminal and all the way to security. We had about 20 minutes until the plane took off, but she was not able to go through security with us, so we got in line.

All of a sudden, an airport worker escorting an entire family, complete with kids and a grandma in a wheelchair, pushed his way through and got the family in front of us. They took their sweet time, as you can imagine. Off went the shoes. Off went the belts. Out came the cameras and laptops and small plastic bags full of 3 oz of liquids. They were Indian so they didn't speak good English. One of them set off the alarm and had to be wanded. The whole time, I am hearing, "TICK TOCK TICK TOCK..."

Finally they got through and we put our stuff in the bins. I had to go through the whole body x-ray. I've seen what you can see with those, and it was rather humiliating to know that someone was seeing me like that. Kyle went through it as well as Kirk. Claire, for whatever reason, got wanded, and Emily went through without a hitch. Once we redressed, we ran, again, for our plane to find that it was already almost through boarding, but we made it. Unfortunately, because we were added at the last minute, we were unable to sit together. Didn't matter. We were on the plane and on our way.

We got to Heathrow and were met, again, by a supervisor from British Airways. She had 80 pounds for us to use for meals because we had missed two flights and would be in the airport for several hours before our next flight. She escorted us to the terminal and wished us a good trip. We were pumped on adrenaline and not tired, even thought we felt like it was about 3 a.m., so we went to a restaurant to eat.

Our next flight to Hamburg was around noon. W still had pounds to spare, so I bought some water and "bubble chocolate" (don't ask. not good) We headed to the gate to wait.

The plane to Hamburg landed about 4. We had tried to get in touch with Kirk's cousin, Wilfried, to let him know we would be late, but the email was sketchy at best, and we couldn't find his number.

Wilfried is a man I met on Ancestry.com who is a distant cousin. We had been corresponding about a year exchanging pieces of family information, and Kirk's great-aunt Hazel and her husband had actually visited Wilfried's parents back in the late 60s. When Wilfried found out we were headed to Europe, he offered to show us Kirk's great-great-grandfather's shoe shop, as the building is still standing. We were really excited to meet him. When I asked how we would find each other, he said that he would be holding a card with a shoe drawn on it in honor of Heinrich Hilbrecht the shoemaker.

So we got through security, where the German customs agent gave me a playful hard time with questions I couldn't answer since I don't speak German. We came out into the terminal to find Wilfried, standing there with the shoe sign, smiling and waiting for us. He looked so much like Kirk's dad that I would have known him even without the sign. We shook hands, hugged, took pictures, and headed to the rental car agency.

Wilfried had rented a van to transport us around northern Germany and had also arranged for us to have an apartment in a nice inn near his house. He was so friendly, and I felt like I had known him for years. He even sounded like Kirk's dad! At first, I was a little wary about trusting someone I had never met, and I would have been even more reluctant to had he not had pictures of Aunt Hazel that he had shared with us, but I thought that on this trip, I would give people the benefit of the doubt.

Wilfried drove us around Mecklenburg, the area/state in Germany where the Hilbrechts had lived, and showed us the capitol and the castle. He took us to our apartment, which is amazing, and then said he and his wife would meet us for dinner in a half hour or so.

The area we are in is beautiful. Everything is green and flowers are at every door and window. Each house seems to have a small garden of vegetables. All is compact, clean, and neat.

Our apartment looks out over a field of sunflowers-to-be. I would love to see this place in a few weeks. I imagine it is amazing. We have a kitchen/family room with a pull-out couch, a bathroom, and our bedroom on the first floor. Then there are these crazy crooked stairs and another bedroom with twin beds and a bath upstairs. There are two balconies that look out over the fields. There is nothing around but beauty.

Dinner was pretty good, heavy for this hour of the night (we didn't eat until 8:30) and a lot for our fatigue, but still not bad. We had a wonderful conversation with Wilfried and his wife, Regina, who thankfully both speak decent English. We headed up to bed about 10.