You always pay for it in the end…………
So there we were, sitting in the lounge at Dulles minding our business. So we moved on out to our gate. It too was something of a hike. Got to the gate-we were unable to get seats together-could not get it done. In fact…….as it turned out our seats were slightly farther apart than I anticipated. When we went to board the machine rejected my boarding pass. Sigh-what else could go wrong here?
However, this turned out to be a good thing-I had been upgraded to First Class. The S.O. had not. I asked her very quickly ( and softly) do you want it? She mumbled something to the effect of “No-what?” So when we got to the door, I turned left-and she turned right. I did not cry too many salt tears, she was in business after all-even if she did have a middle seat. I had earned this little fringe benefit.
Except as it turned out-the proper word was not upgrade. It was more probabaly “reach around”. The painful part of the “good deal” was still to come.
The flight was Ok. I took full advantage of all the things a first class seat offered-(don’t ask me why I got upgraded-they don’t usually upgrade an upgrade-but I did.) Dinner, beer,champagne, wine, the works. Having the flat bed actually meant I was able to get 5 hours worth of sleep.
Which turned out to be a good thing-because when we got to Frankfurt, it was time to pay the piper.
S.O. had a good flight too. Coming off the plane though-looking at the monitor-we noticed no gate for our connecting flight. There, of course, was a reason for that.
The flight had been cancelled.
Now that’s the risk you take when you come to Europe in the winter. Especially, when, as fate would have it-they had bad weather and snow from Brussels down to Austria.
Lufthansa though took decent care of us-and their efforts to get us to Munich were brisk and professional. They even gave us a holding cell to bide our time in:
At least it had beer and food! The S.O. even got a place to sleep:
To wind this up-we did get on a flight that afternoon, on standby, about 4 pm. Except it did not depart at 4pm-it sat on the ground for an hour because of weather in Munich. Kudos to the Lufthansa crew that served drinks before we got to move out.
Arriving in Munich-the hits just kept on coming. We got to the baggage area-my bag showed up right away. I had assumed it would not. The S.O.’s bag however, was another story. Missing in action. We wait and wait by a turning carousel. Finally we realize its not coming. Immediately up to the Lufthansa counter.
“Yes, your bag in is Frankfurt. First flight we can get it on is probably 8:30pm”.
We go through the customs rituals and all-and this is where I can pick up my rant about service, Lufthansa gave us a computer card with all of the pertinent info-phone numbers, baggage tag numbers, names and internet access id’s. All in one handy dandy place.
However for the S.O. this ranked as the worst thing of the trip. No make-up ( besides what was in her purse), no jammies or underwear ( I offered her mine-she declined for some reason 🙂 ), this was a disaster in her eyes.
However-all things considered, the experience was far pleasanter than the one in DC. The Lufthansa people were brisk and efficient. They cleared their standby list-with amazing speed.
And the bag showed up right when they said it would. Unfortunately it was the next morning.
Which left the S.O. in a grumpy mood to say the least. Particularly when, with all the delays, we arrived at our hotel in Salzburg from the train station, about 10:30 PM.
The next day though-she and I were put in a better mood though by seeing this:
Nobody rides for free………