US Road Trip 2017

We were all terribly jet lagged when we got to our budget hotel, The Mardi Gras, a pretty sleazy casino hotel with the slogan “Just off the strip, right on the money”. The thinking behind this choice of accommodation was that we only needed some place to sleep for the first night after the long flight, nothing fancy. M had a bad case of jet lag and was awake for long periods during the night. Finally, at 5 am we couldn't sleep anymore, and got up. H and I decided to go for a morning walk before breakfast. We passed by a couple of insanely big hotels. M and I went to the pool after breakfast. It was really nice - being wet is the most pleasant way of dealing with the heat. After we had checked-out, we transferred to Caesar's Palace. Wow. This place is enormous. And bizarre. It is like a little fake world, which has everything you need. In principle, you would never have to leave as long as you don't run out of cash. Strange. It was fun, though.

We got up at 4.15 am to get to Munich airport super early. I had been unable to check-in online on Condor’s homepage. “You need to obtain a valid visa. Please consult the ESTA home page,” the error message had said. For all four of us. With significant unease, I had called the Condor hotline to inquire what to do. As far as I could see, the ESTAs we had obtained were valid and the data had been entered correctly. Oh, horror! What if we wouldn’t be allowed on the plane the next morning? (Quick mental calculation of the money wasted...) “Due to high demand, the expected waiting time is more than 15 minutes,” had the computer voice from Condor’s hotline informed. So I had waited, and waited and… after about 20 minutes a grumpy employee confirmed that there was indeed a problem with our ESTAs, but there was nothing she could do, she had no data access. We would just have to turn up at the check-in counter the next morning, and try to solve it. So, we were Schrodingers cat until the next d