"There's no way on earth we're going to get out of here tonight. We'd have more luck playing pickup sticks with our butt-cheeks than we will getting a flight out of here before daybreak."

People, people everywhere but not a plane to spare. Charles de Gaulle airport during the disruption.

So said Del in the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles." A line I recalled with grim relish on Monday at Paris Charles de Gaulle as I tried to leave before Christmas.

Some of the confused and frustrated thousands were lucky and escaped after a single night's delay. Others I encountered are almost certainly still there. The man who lived at the airport for 18 years may be apprehensive that his record is at risk.

And it wasn't just Paris. The grapevine (always on overdrive where flight delays are concerned) said Brussels was worse; Amsterdam was paralyzed.

So what inspired this travel chaos in Europe? Was it the sort of record-breaking snowfall that closed US east coast airports for a few hours last weekend? Yet another strike by French air traffic controllers? Festive overbooking?

My own odyssey suggests a series of events colliding in a way that spelled chaos for an already over-stretched system.

From the outside, London Heathrow’s Terminal 4 looked peaceful enough on Monday morning. A couple of hardy smokers were braving the sleet. When I stepped inside I found out why. Lines snaked in every direction.

A Japanese woman was threatening an airport employee with some dreadful retribution; an Australian had been there 26 hours and was still waiting to begin her journey to Seoul.

Two inches of snow, the closure of the Eurostar rail service plus the failure of Air France’s computer system - and the scene resembled the scramble for the last flight out of Saigon.

In the face of the same questions thousands of times over and finger-wagging abuse the airport employees were a model of restraint and good humor.

Inevitably my flight to Paris to connect to Atlanta was very late leaving and even later landing. Sometimes taxiing at "CDG" takes longer than the flight itself. A crazy dash to gate E32 to connect was to no avail.

Along the way, I felt a pang of sorrow for the dozens lined up at "re-ticketing" windows. I would soon be joining them.

Waiting in an airport line for more than four hours is like a crash course in human anthropology. There are those who sidle up to the desk in a breathtaking effort to avoid queuing, apparently oblivious to the vicious glares at their back. There are those whose humor never seems to desert them; even cracking jokes about Christmas dinner in the airport bistro.

And then there are the airline employees (just three of them) tasked with finding non-existent seats for the unwashed masses. Some stick rigorously to their meal breaks, despite the risk of being lynched; others strain every sinew (I could get you on a flight to Budapest that would connect to Moscow where there is a flight to…)

Eventually I reached the front of the line. I was almost speechless to be there and stuttered that I needed to get to Atlanta the following day – please. Any route; any time; I’d pay for an upgrade. Nothing doing – everything was overbooked already.

I received a voucher for an anonymous hotel in an anonymous suburb. Would-be travelers swapped war stories in a bar that probably last saw this sort of business when France won the World Cup.

I returned to the airport at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. The one airline employee at the Customer Service desk looked as if she was about to face a firing squad. Thinking she might want a last meal I bought her coffee and a croissant before the hordes arrived.

Hours later, she summoned me to the desk. Someone had not turned up for their flight to Cincinnati. If I ran…

As I collapsed into seat 21E, I thought for a moment about my bag – now apparently in the bowels of CDG along with 9,000 other "delayed" items. But you can’t have everything.

I can still taste the concrete powder that filled the air when the Wall came down. It had a chalky sense of history about it. A taste one never forgets.

Evelyn Preuss in the rubble-filled streets of post-war Berlin.

My parents emigrated to the U.S. in 1960, seeking a better way of life. They were both children of war. My father, Gunter Preuss, grew up as a German in occupied Poland. He has lots of stories about death and suffering. Things a child should never witness.

My mother, Evelyn, is a Berliner. She fled into the cellar during Allied bombing runs. They never knew whether their house would be there when the all clear siren rang. Another example of things a child should never witness.

After the war, she said “Berliners just picked themselves up and rebuilt.” My family settled in New Orleans, Louisiana.

We grew up in middle class suburbia - a long way from the bombed out streets of Berlin. It was important to my parents that we spoke German in the house and visit relatives overseas. So in the summer, my brother and I would head to Germany - the divided one.

One grandmother lived in Kassel, West Germany. It seemed just like home but hilly with castles. I remember U.S. troop training and seeing tanks rolling down the streets. It made me feel proud, even though the Germans called us “Ami’s.”

The trip to see my other relatives in West Berlin was quite an adventure for us kids. We would drive through an East German border town. There were machine guns and guard dogs. There was an overriding feeling of paranoia and fear.

The soldiers never smiled and seemed angry. This was not something we ever expected. This became my legacy of the Cold War. Something the friends back home could not relate to.

Back in the safety of West Berlin, we once again felt cozy. I never did spend a lot of time at the Wall during those visits, but always felt its presence.

I remember once discussing the Wall with my parents. Mom said: “It is part of our lifestyle, we are divided there will never be one Berlin.”

Flash forward to November 1989. CNN was broadcasting the impossible. The Wall was coming down.

My mother and I knew we had to be there. We made travel arrangements. My memories of that heady time are filled with joyful trepidation.

Was it really true? Am I climbing on top of the Wall with hammer, chisel and spray paint cans? My mother’s first thought - “I wish my mother could have seen this, she would never have believed it.”

Evelyn and son, CNN's Andreas Preuss, at the falling Wall.

Mom was been back several times but staying still in the West area. I went back during the German Presidential Election a few years ago. There were construction cranes all over.

That feeling of paranoia was gone. The heady taste of capitalism was alive and well. A lot of money, hope and promise was filling the former Wall Zone.

My second hometown was changing. Places that I remembered as being the most prominent streets like the Ku-Damm seemed worn down and forgotten.

The buzz was in the East. I did find a spot where mom and I touched the Wall. It was now part of an outdoor museum and a reminder for all to see.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota – The storm called Gustav has cleared from the floor of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.The convention resumed with passionate speeches by former presidential candidates Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman.

Both spoke movingly about nominee John McCain. And they also went right to the weak point in the Republican presidential campaign - McCain's newly named running-mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

"She is a leader we can count on to help John shake-up Washington," Lieberman said.

The convention in St. Paul has come out swinging.