Three days later Debbie and I boarded a plane at DFW for Berlin. We had decided to do a 14-21 day excursion rate which meant that you had to be gone for at least 14 days and leave by the 21st. In those days flying was pretty expensive and the various excursion rates had reduced pricing. We knew when we wanted to leave, but when we were at the travel agency we were not exactly sure when we wanted to come back. All dates had to be in by 10 days before departure so we booked the flight to Berlin. A few days later we decided on the return date and called our travel agent Helen. She took the message then the following day went to a hospital for minor surgery. Being that the surgery was upmost on her mind, she forgot to enter our return date into the system. They didn't have the computers like everyone uses now.

When we went to pick up our tickets Helen apologized. She said the date we wanted to return was booked. But........no problem...we could just fly standby. There were hourly flights from Berlin to Frankfurt..a major business hub. So........Okay.......No problem. We picked up our tickets and got packed and were ready for some racing and sightseeing over the next couple of weeks. Little did we know!