Normally the airport experience after the vacation is a bit of a downer, but even with the basic facilities in Cancun (the Patron Tequila Boutique with free tasting was one exception) we managed to play a few rounds of cards before I left mom, dad, and the boys to head off to Wisconsin (Chika has already left at 6am to make her connection back to Europe.)

This time, I was able to enjoy an upgrade on the way to Chicago — nothing exciting, but at least you were able to get food and drinks. We arrived at Chicago O’Hare more than 30 minutes ahead of schedule, which gave the option to catch a bus to Madison instead of the Uber. But my brother Mike (who had flown in on his fraternity brother’s private jet and had been drinking since noon) called for the Uber approach.

I almost thought everyone had gone to bed when I pulled into town around 10pm, but Mike again suggested to meet up for “a drink.” Our cousin Aaron and his crew had been eating at Naples 15, an Italian restaurant in the area, so we decided to make that the rendezvous point. It seemed that a few of Mike’s fraternity brothers had the capacity for a few more drinks, or maybe they had missed me after the long while, and so our crew of six arrived at the restaurant congregated near the bar looking for signs of Aaron or his son Daniel.

What happened next was a healthy lesson in humanity. The owner of the restaurant, seeing us quite lost and confused, comes over to welcome us and starts offering us some wine. Time went on, we found our cousins, there was more wine and some pizzas, and then at the end of the night a check arrived… for $600?! i wasn’t privy to the interactions, but I don’t seem to recall anyone ordering up $150+ bottles of wine. Luckily the bill didn’t come to me, as I probably would have been thrown in jail (or beaten up) for refusing to pay. But maybe being in enemy (i.e. Bagder) country, the other guys decided to take the loss.

The next day was an amazing fall day and the campus was fully alive with weekend festivities. I walked out to meet Aaron and Uncle Allan (who had driven in from Milwaukee) at Memorial Union where we soon discovered we were missing at least one of the tickets (I am not sure I would be using Stubhub after this experience). We circled back to town to meet up with Daniel’s crew and Michael for lunch, and then it was time to get the pre-game started.

One of Mike’s friend’s son was also at Wisconsin, so we started at the first house party along fraternity row. Was was suprisingly refreshing was that even with Penn State emblems blazing, we were all treated like everyone else (although the signage hanging from the frats did not suggest such friendliness and there was the one girl who gave us the bird in the photo below). Mike and I made a solo journey over to Daniel’s fraternity house which had a huge lakefront beach party — I can only imagine how difficult life must be with all these kinds of study distractions.

Finally it was time to roll on to the game. Due to the Stubhub issue, I went with Mike’s Penn State group as they had an extra ticket. While our seats were about as high up as one could possibly get in the stadium (Section AA), we were able to enjoy the game with the help of the local $10+ beers sold at the stadium. It was a solid first half, and I took the opportunity to join the Wisconsin crew down at the 17th row. It was a great game with the Nittany Lions victorius 28 to 13. Afterwards we ended up in the one bar where we were able to get some food and drink.

As it was quite expensive to fly from Wisconsin, I chose to fly back from Chicago and with the help of my old Nokia/BMW colleague Randy, we were able to round up some of the old crew. We had a fantastic dinner followed by drinks and more drinks. You can’t seem to go wrong in that town. Monday was spent flying back and recovering from the weekend — thankfully dad offered to pick me up at the airport.

Tuesday, the boys and I took the train down to Philadelphia (giving mom and dad a break after the long weekend with the boys) to meet Mike and with an extra bonus of Sydney joining. We tried a new dim sum place followed by matcha ice cream cones and even some arcade play time followed by dinner at Mike and Melanies’. While we had planned to hit Great Adventure one last time on our seasons passes, they ended up dropping Wednesday night off the schedule so we just did our usual things of shopping, gym/pool, and eating mom’s food and dad’s fresh grilled burgers.

Finally, it was time for the big Halloween day. As the weather was so perfect, we decided to make a trip up to New Hope for lunch on the terrace at Havanas — a great choice. Then it was time to head on down for the festivities. Times seem to have changed since my childhood of walking around the neighborhood collecting candies. Our first stop was a neighborhood party in Mike’s area with a home built maze (those who finished the maze got an extra large candy bar) as well as food and drinks. Then we jumped into cars going to the second neighborhood with more food and drinks. Then we jumped into the car yet again for a third party (after a stop with Sydney and Kai for $6 bowls at Chipotle for those wearing costumes) complete with a firepit and an Asian Freddy Mercury belting out Queen tunes. With 3 parties down, it was time to call it a night.

It was a big agenda and we did it all (less the Great Adventure visit). It wouldn’t have been possible without such a great team making it all come together so thanks to everyone who helped make it happen. We all had such a great time, planning already started thinking about how to do it all over again, but for now we will simply have to return to our civilian lives.

Given all the uncertainties about the world of tomorrow, the best course of action is making the most of today. So when the window opened for another holiday across the pond, we didn’t dither and we didn’t dabble – we bought the whole enchilada.

The boys school holiday provided a 2 week window, an ample canvas but with many aspirations. Having been to the Caribbean at an all-inclusive resort a few years back (and Club Med Florida as well), the idea of sunny resort life was still resonating in our minds – especially being able to celebrate Kai’s birthday together. Then we had the chance to enjoy a proper American Halloween (although cutting our jet lag recovery time into slim margins for error). And lastly, the opportunity to join my brother (and his Penn State fraternity crew) and my Wisconsin/Atlanta family for a big football matchup in Wisconsin was too big to waiver.

Meanwhile, the execution was not without its challenges. Hurricanes were wreaking havoc in the Gulf, airlines were pricing tickets as if it were Christmas (at least the Christmases of a few years back), and Chika had a business trip in London starting after the first week of the holiday.

But for our crew of fearless travelers, there was nothing to deter us from our mission. One Sunday evening on a train bound for Munich the airline fares dipped, and after a few hours we had our planes booked, our Caribbean adventure secured (with refundable frequent flyer tickets and cancelable resort rooms), and a manic deadline to get as much sorted out as possible with the office before leaving (which all got delivered.)

The good news about our travel abroad was that we were able to go as the whole family – Teo didn’t have to charm the ladies guarding the lounge to let us have an extra guest this time and I had someone to share drinks with.

While we were able to have an easy start of the journey (8am house departure), we landed quite late in the USA (with a huge security queue) and arrived at my parents almost 4am Berlin time.

The upside to the late arrival was that we could chip at some of the jet lag we needed to get past and Sunday is the perfect day to relax and chill. But that would have to wait because it was William’s 10th birthday extravaganza in New York City!!!

Our Uber (dad) dropped us to the train where we commuted to NYC. As we had already done the observatory at the Freedom Tower, Chika decided to go running in Central Park, while the boys and I hit Chinatown to hunt for Pokémon cards and get some luxury bubble tea. We met up with the crew at the Black Tap Soho, a carnival of calories featuring an eclectic menu of burgers (I shared a wagu burger with Mike that was delish) and the most insane milkshakes I have ever seen. Even Frankenstein would have been taken aback.

The party ventured on to hit golf balls at Chelsea Piers (I was having nightmarish thoughts of what Teo could do) while our crew strolled up the sunny New York Streets to Penn Station.

Monday then became our rest day, with French Toast, gym/pool, some shopping, and a steaks on the grill dinner.

Tuesday we were off at 7am to Newark Airport to catch our flights to Cancun. On the downside, the lounge passes for mom and dad didn’t work but on the upside we were able to get an upgrade for dad for the flight down. Luckily we were heading for plenty of eating as our airport sushi was pretty weak.

By 3pm we were checking in at the Hilton All-Inclusive. It’s a nice new property quite secluded by a big wetlands — great for a chill few days, but not a launchpad for exploring (pyramids will be visited the next go around). We were taken care of by a great host — Dulce Castro — who has the biggest smile and is incredibly warm and friendly (if you should somehow happen to meet her, say hello from us). We did (as planned) secure a nice upgrade to a connecting sea-view suite, which was great to allow everyone to do their own thing even with the jet lag still lurking. As if fate were complicit, the first activity of the day was a Möet Champange tasting as if they knew Chika was arriving.

The weather was pleasantly unpredictable – we had more sun than clouds even when bad times were predicted. I can happily say that I made it into the ocean 4 days in a row. From our room to the pool/beach was only a few minutes so as soon as the sun showed itself we were in our loungers.

As usual, we tried to make the most out of the eating options. For our dinners, we did Italian the first night, then Mexican, and closed out the last night at the grill restaurant. Thanks to my Hilton AMEX, we had $200 resort credit and freely splurged at the grill with a 40oz porterhouse and grilled lobster. They were so happy, they even comped us a delicious bottle of red wine. As far as the other meals, breakfast was always good – there was always some interesting mexican dishes to spice up the routine. And with lunch, there were always great salads (including ceviches) plus tacos and burgers. One day with Chika and the boys we tried the asian a la carte menu which was also a nice diversion. And last but not least there was an ice cream bar with churros — mom was in heaven.

Probably one of the unplanned highlights was that chess.com was having their convention at the hotel. While we couldn’t get a face to face with the grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, Chika was able to get a whole bunch of schwag from the chess.com people and Kai was able to join in the ongoing games in the lobby.

For Kai’s birthday, they delivered cakes on the eve of his birthday, the day of his birthday, and again at birthday dinner. As the adage stated: let them eat cake.

As the first chapter came to a close, Chika flew back to Europe to catch up with business appointments, mom and dad brought the boys back to the homestead, and I continued on to Wisconsin via Chicago.

Stay tuned for Part 2.