Highlights of the past few days:

#1: The Flight from Sioux Falls to Chicago
      We started off to the airport from my Grandparents' house. My Aunty drove us there so her family could buy our van. Security was hard on my nerves, but fortunately it passed without incident for us. Waiting for the plane wasn't too bad, and it didn't take too terribly long! Then we finally boarded our plane. It wasn't a big one, but I was comfortable enough. My ears adjusted to the pressurized cabin, as we lifted off the runway. I got a window seat on this time, and I spent most of the one hour and forty minutes of the flight staring out the window at the clouds, and the tiny, itty-bitty peasants beneath me.
According to Ben, "I can see why google maps puts the ground into squares because that's what it actually looks like! When we flew into Zurich, we flew through the clouds!"

 Flying with Dad was great because he could answer all our questions. "They're contrails, short for 'condensation' trails." We also learned that the shark fin looking things on the top of the plane are antennas and the little metal sticks at the ends of the wings are to disperse tiny wind tornadoes so that tiny planes behind big planes on the runway don't flip over.

#2: The Flight from Chicago to Zurich, Switzerland

      The Chicago Airport was HUGE! Not to mention super crowded. Security I hated again, but again it went smoothly. We passed the test and started off to find our terminal. Dad led all us kids from the front, and we followed diligently behind him like little ducks. That is, until Dad got lost. Then we started looking around for another sign to tell us where to go. Guess who's sharp eyes found it? Mine! But I didn't want to lead, so I just stuck out my finger and told Dad where to go. We had to get on a train to get to the international terminal. Finally, we arrived at Terminal Five, and with plenty of time to spare! This flight was EIGHT HOURS LONG, but we had to sleep on this one for jet lag purposes. On the previous flight, we flew with United Airlines, but this time we flew with Swiss Airlines, and boy am I glad we did! Swiss put the 'O(h) my' in 'economy'. The seats were very comfortable, the airplane was cleaner, we each had a personal entertainment system on the back of the seats in front of us, the food served on the plane was delicious (chocolate at the end of each flight!) and the overall atmosphere was pretty relaxed! Therefore sleeping wasn't too much of a problem, due also to some melatonin Dad gave us (which gave me a bonus headache).

I probably got about five hours of sleep, which isn't bad. After I woke up, they served breakfast, then we had a couple more hours to see the view over Great Britain and France and some more Europe and then we landed in beautiful Zurich! Only, we couldn't see it, because it was really foggy, and it was snowing really hard. Oh well. It's our last snow for a good while.

#3: Zurich to Dubai
      The airport wasn't hardly at all crowded, and we didn't have to go through Security again! Yay! We stopped at a Starbucks we found for Mom and Dad (Yes, Starbucks in Switzerland), and then proceeded to our terminal to await our final leg of the journey. Greta bought some swiss chocolate because it was shaped like a ladybug and she enjoyed the Francs she got in change almost more than the chocolate. She shared some with each of us.

Our last flight was only six hours long, and we flew with Swiss Airlines again. I didn't get a window seat this time, but it didn't matter because I wouldn't have looked outside very much anyway. We mostly flew over Turkey and Iran. This flight finished late at night so I turned on my entertainment system, and knocked a few movies off my to-watch bucket list, "Doctor Strange" and "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". Both movies were pretty good!

#4: Getting to our hotel room
      This was the greatest adventure of all. After we arrived at the airport at about 930 at night, we got through a LONG immigration line, gathered up all of our luggage (eighteen pieces in all) and went to go find our rental car. We finally found it, and Super Dad somehow managed to fit all eighteen pieces, plus our six person family, in this SUV truck thing. The trouble began when mom's phone wouldn't load any mobile data and so we couldn't use any directions apps. The rental car people gave Dad a paper map and directions to the Marriot Hotel where we were staying. But it was "a left, a right, over the bridge and another left" which didn't work very well for jet-lagged, stressed out parents. Also because the traffic signs don't always say where they go, and the map we had didn't actually label most of the roads and we had to resort to using the boys' keychain compasses. We finally got to our hotel but it took two hours of driving around  Dubai before we found it and so we didn't get to bed until about 2 a.m.

Mountains in Turkey

According to Greta, "Dubai at night looks like a bunch of exploding fireworks because there are a bunch of lights all over."

Midnight selfie at the rental cars place