This morning, flight day, I found myself reviewing the contents of our bags. I had spent hours packing, unpacking, and repacking our bags, but somehow I neglected to put ANY underwear in either of my carry-on bags. What an oversight! Now I needed to locate some underwear without completely dismantling the intricate puzzle that was the contents of our bags. I recovered 3 pairs: a nice comfortable cotton pair, a pair designed to show no lines, and a leopard lacy pair. God forbid we have to spend the night in an airport and I have to wear one of those last 2 pairs. Not exactly what I want to be wearing during an all day sit-athon across the ocean.
UGH! Check-in. The culmination of days of planning the location and distribution of our possessions will now be given the ultimate test: the TSA airport scale. I am strangely calm considering how many fresh grays peaked through my dye job during the previous days-the real indicator of my stress levels. The suitcases hit the scales. 56 (BAH!), 47.5 (oh thank God!), 46 (WOO!!), and 43 (YES YES YES!). After a quick redistribution of weight we were on our way! Biggest problem of my week (month?) solved and forgotten.
[Sidebar] We expect our luggage to get lost. It is almost certain it will not arrive in Munich when we do. We are taking a tiny plane from Norfolk to Dulles and have 4 large checked bags. Furthermore, everyone who has a larger carry-on bag will have to check it at the gate. There just can't be room for all this luggage in the plane.
At the gate we settle in for a multiple hour wait time. I get a drink and meet a man in the Hudson news. He says to me, "spechen zie deutch?" (I realize this is probably not spelled right). Thinking that somehow he knows I don't speak German and am moving the country I say, "Oh, I wish" (in a serious wish voice, not in a sarcastic tone at all). I wonder if these words mean something in German, because he immediately starts speaking to me in German. I am unable to understand him, which I think he realized, but we did manage to communicate. My understanding of our conversation is this: he wanted some carbonated water (with gas). But none of the water had gas, so I pointed out the (soda) pop for him, indicated that at least it had gas. I sincerely hope that this was what he wanted and that I managed to help him. So far I'm doing alright with this language barrier.
Later, I've pulled out my knitting, and the woman sitting next to me can't resist the urge to ask my about the loom knitting, no one can. It's very interesting to watch, and most people have never seen anything like it before. I explained what I was doing, and our chat segued into other topics like travel, weather, and European infrastructure vs. American. She was very lovely to sit next to, until her flight got delayed and she had to reschedule her connection.
Then it was our turn. For some reason, our plane was delayed. Causing us to miss our connection. Fun fact time: there are not frequent flights across the Atlantic. It's not like missing a connection to Chicago, and there will be another one an hour later. I figure we're not going to Germany today, but Joe called United and got us re-booked on a flight to Frankfurt with a connection to Munich. We later find out that the flight to Dulles was delayed because our plane was coming from Chicago, where a bag had exploded earlier.
We finally get on the plane, close the doors, fasten seatbelts, listen to our awesome flight attendant (I'll get to that), and sit there. I read the magazine in the seat-back pocket. I was looking for the movies to expect on my next flight, and was willing to flip through the entirety of the magazine to get to them. I finish the magazine and we are still at the gate. Almost immediately after, the captain comes on to tell us that apparently some Belgian dignitary wanted his bag OFF the fight, so bags were unloaded to locate his luggage, and then reloaded before we could leave. I mentioned before we expected our luggage to be lost, now I think it is important to note that if it arrives at all in the next week it may be a Vatican certifiable miracle. Too many hiccups to expect the end result to still go smoothly.
Final thoughts about our flight attendant, whose name I regrettably have forgotten. Shortly after our arrival he tells us that everything MUST be under the seat or in the overhead bin. It cannot be under our feet, behind our legs, or in our laps. He understands that some passengers will experience luggage separation anxiety if their bags are stored overhead, but he assures us there are trained counselors on board to help us all get through it. He later asks the audience how many exit doors are on the plane, and gave the first guy to answer a United reward certificate. This guy was awesome to be around, and made the annoying part of the flight fun. Kudos to you sir.
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