My parents take to me the airport for my 8:33pm United Airlines flight to Chicago. There is fog in Chicago with zero visibility causing flights to be cancelled and delayed. My flight is delayed currently leaving at 8:45pm. The flight is scheduled to take 47 minutes. I do have a 1hr 45min layover so I have a little room to make my flight. By the time I get through check in it has been pushed back to 9:15pm. My Lufthansa flight from Chicago to Frankfort is scheduled to leave at 10:25pm. My layover is now down to about an hour. I really want to make the Chicago to Frankfort flight but I also have a 7+ hour layover in Frankfort. So if this flight is delayed I should be fine making my flight to Johannesburg. While waiting, some guy gets arrested and handcuffed at the Delta ticket counter by 4 police officers. About 7:45pm my mom checks the departure board and a Delta flight to Chicago is boarding, this is a good sign. About 8pm the Delta flight has departed. I’m confident my flight will leave Cincinnati, so I say my goodbyes and head through security to the gate. I once again have the joy of getting patted down by the TAS officer. I board the flight and the departure time is getting pushed back again because United is filling this flight with passengers from an earlier cancelled flight. We leave CVG at 9:30pm. Once arriving in Chicago the visibility is great, we land at 9:22pm. I should be good to make my flight because the gates are close to each other. While taxing, the pilot announces that aircraft control has double booked the gate so we have to wait in the staging area for a gate to open. The longer we sit here I’m getting more concerned I’m going to miss my flight. We leave the staging area at 9:55pm and have been moved to another gate that is much father away from my departure gate. I’m off the plane by 10:07pm and start my Amazing Race sprint through the airport. I make it to the gate at 10:25pm. I get checked in and I’m very happy I made the flight. Plus I got a window seat. There were a few other straggling passengers which holds up the departure a little later. We finally leave the gate at 10:50pm and are in the air at 10:58pm. The flight to Frankfort is about 8hrs and 10mins. Even though I tried, I did not sleep a lick on the flight. My plan was to work on my reviews on lodging, tours and activities I did from Australia and New Zealand. The problem is they are, for some reason, not on my computer or iPod anymore. I have all my other notes but those are all missing. Very frustrating not knowing what happened to them. I hope they are at home on my iPad and not all gone. I ended up watching a couple movies, The Monuments Men and Mandela: Long walk to freedom. I thought Mandela was a must since I will be in South Africa and plan to visit Robben Island. When I arrive in Frankfort the employee helping me off in the aisle chair assumes I speak German and starts asking me questions in German because of my last name. This is not the case, I only know a few German words, one being bier(beer). The Frankfort Airport was very easy to get around until the 2 elevators to gate B23 were broken. The airport floors are all tile which makes it much easier to wheel on then carpet and the signs are very easy to follow. After finding the 2 elevators broken I asked an airpot employee, who was pushing another wheelchair user, how I could get to gate B23. I had to go back through security, duty free stores and to the tunnel by gate A17. I was just in A terminal and passed duty free on my way to B23. To get to A terminal I now have to go through immigration. The officer asks me how long I’ve been in Germany, I say “I just get here and have a connecting flight to Johannesburg”. I explain the situation and he is not very happy but there’s nothing I can do about it. He stamps my passport and lets me through. Once I get through the tunnel to terminal B there is another immigration check I was not told about. I ask him “is this is the way to gate B23″, he says “yes”, stamps my passport and lets me through. After 2 hours, I am finally at gate B23 with 2 immigration stamps and I’ve not left the Frankfort Airport. I still have 5 hours to kill so I relax with a bier at Goethe Bar and make a few phone calls over the free 1 hour wifi.