After a day full of farewells and me saying, "Hurry up, Amber, we're going to be late," my sister and I were finally prepared to begin our voyage. Kat drove us to Logan, and we boarded our plane without a hitch.
The first flight to Manchester was blissfully uneventful, but despite it being an overnight trip, Amber and I did not sleep a wink. Perhaps it was the anticipation, or perhaps it was our own nocturnal natures, but we were still wide awake and enthusiastic when we arrived. Upon our decent, the pilot said over the loudspeaker, "And we're making our final descent into Manchester now; the weather is a nice 53 degrees, with overcast skies and a cold drizzle." All I could think was, "Way to reinforce the stereoptype, U.K.!"
Now, I had a vision in my head of how transferring to our Lufthansa flight would go, and it seemed very simple to me. Get off. Get new boarding pass. Get on plane. Done. But is it ever that simple? Apparently Manchester airport is either the most horribly unprofessional establishment in England, or they were all just having a really off day. We were herded down a corridor when we disembarked, and were met by a squirrely, cross-eyed old man, who, instead of handing out boarding passes as I was hoping he would, was instead giving people vague directions as to where they were supposed to go to inquire about getting their new boarding passes. The several people in front of us were given directions like, "Take this hallway all the way, then turn left," or, "go up the stairs and through the door," but we were lucky enough to have actual printed tickets which we had delivered beforehand, so he took special interest in us. Instead of struggling to send us off to become someone else's problem, he conferred with a very confused looking lady behind a desk, and she proceeded to let us through a security checkpoint after scanning our bags. I swear it was the first time she'd ever done this. After gathering our things and rolling our eyes, we walked through a door and were immediately lost. We followed some signs for Transfers, and eventually found our way to a desk with a bunch of people in a queue. We waited in this line for a few minutes, before really noticing that the only person behind the desk was on the phone, and the rest of the people in the office behind the desk were studiously avoiding eye-contact with any of us in line. Ahh, Britain. After some of us started getting upset, a squat little man with way too much energy popped out of nowhere and proceeded to try and help everyone all at once, which was hilarious. He grabbed our passports and tickets, put them behind the desk, and then proceeded to vanish with another customer down a hallway, and we didn't see him for a good 15 minutes. It was around now that we started getting alarmed, because our flight was set to board in less than half an hour, and some of the other customers had already wandered off in search of someone to yell at. Finally, the little man returned, and proceeded to tell us that his Lufthansa computer was broken, so he'd have to call the airline to get us transferred. Beautiful. The best part of this was that he had to hand-write our boarding passes, which I was positive would cause some sort of problem.
But, lo and behold, we were let on the plane, and were able to relax again. That is, until the turbulence. Allow me to retype that: That is, until the Turbulence. I don't know if it was the constant jarring, the almost being tossed out of my seat, or the ladies behind us ghasping in terror, but Amber and I both came within inches of getting sick on that flight. After what seemed like hours, we finally set down in Frankfurt, battered, nauseous, tired, and about ready to collapse then and there.
Fortunately, our bags arrived right about when we did, so we were able to put all this business behind us, as we finally met up with my best friend, John, who we're staying with now. It's a good thing my phone was working too, because he was waiting about as far away from where we exited the airport as he could possibly have been.
It felt good to sit in a comfy car seat again, and let John escort us back to his house in Meilbach, a village outside of Kaiserslautern. Of course, it would have been simpler if he hadn't gotten lost. I guess it was all the excitement of having two practically comatose passengers that had John so distracted that he missed exit after exit, requiring us to backtrack down twisting roads, in the rain, while dodging in and out of traffic moving at 100MPH to get back on track. Whew! What a ride!
Finally, we arrived, and not a moment too soon. It was about 2:30 local time, and Amber and I were beat. John gave us the tour, but it was clear we weren't quite with it, so he elected to just give us some sheets and send us to bed.
What a day! It's so nice to finally be here in Germany. The village is exactly as I'd imagined it, and John's house is great, with the exception of the plumbing... yeah, don't ask! Tomorrow, we're going to investigate the local village, and try and figure out if John can drive in France and Switzerland using his German driver's license.
And now, back to sleep! Still on East Coast time, gah!
1 comment:
Great blog you have going Jason - it's like a virtual summer vacation :)
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