The 20 Hour Trek

This June, my mother-in-law turned 80 years old. And to celebrate, she rented a house on the beach for a one week family vacation. Which sounds amazing, and it really was, but the initial plan took some convincing. The beach town of Zingst is on the east coast of Germany... a good 5 hour drive (as adjusted for kids) and a 15 hour non-direct flight from San Francisco. In comparison to our beach house last year which was 20 minutes away from our 10 hour direct flight to Amsterdam, I was not so amused.

Unwilling to put the kids through the travel ringer, we opted to break up the trip with two nights in Berlin upon arrival and one more night in Berlin before our flight home. In hindsight, the decision to have two nights alone upon arrival was genius. It gave us 48 hours to get adjusted to the time difference (or at least more adjusted than usual) before any obligations, schedules or excited family members wanting to hang out and spend every moment with you immediately upon landing. Below are our stories, but first we had to get there.